Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures | Lex Fridman Podcast #271

We think that self-assembly, this modular reconfigurable algorithm for constructing space structures in orbit is gonna give us this promise of space architecture that's actually worth living in.

You see, you do believe we might one day become intergalactic civilization?

I have hope, yeah.

The following is a conversation with Ariel Ekblaw, Director of MIT Space Exploration Initiative. She's especially interested in autonomously self-assembling space architectures, basically giant space structures that can sustain human life, and that assemble themselves out in space and then orbit Earth, Moon, Mars, and other planets. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now dear friends, here's Ariel Ekblaw. When did you first fall in love with space exploration and space in general?

My parents are both ex-Air Force. So my dad's an A-10 fighter pilot and my mom trained and had qualified to be a fighter pilot but it was early enough that women were not allowed in combat at that time. And so I grew up with these two pilots, and although they themselves did not become astronauts, there's a really rich legacy of Air Force pilots becoming astronauts, and this loomed large in my childhood. What does it mean to be courageous, to be an explorer, to be at the vanguard of something, uh, hard and challenging? And to couple with that, my dad was a huge fan of science fiction...

Mm-hmm.

... and so I as a kid read Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, um, all these different classics of science fiction that he had introduced me too. And that just started a love affair with space exploration and really thinking about civilization-scale space exploration.

So did they themselves dream about going to the stars as opposed to flying here in Earth's atmosphere, just looking up?

Yeah. My dad always said he was absolutely convinced 'cause he was a child of the Apollo years that he would get to go in his lifetime.

Mm.

Really thought it was gonna happen. And so it was a challenge and, you know, sad for many people when, um, to their view on the outside, space exploration slowed down for a period of time. In reality, we were just catching up. I think we leapt so far ahead with Apollo, uh, more than the rest of society was ready for, and now we're coming back to this moment for space exploration where we actually have an economy and we have the other accoutrement that society needs to be able to make space exploration more real. And my dad's thrilled because finally, you know, not nearly... I hope not anywhere near the end of his life, but as he's an older man, he now can see still within his lifetime people really getting a chance to build a sustainable lunar settlement on the Moon or maybe even go to Mars.

So settlements, civilizations on other planets, that's the, that's the cool thing to dream about in the future.