Personal Background and Space Exploration Motivation

• Professor questioned spending on space exploration vs Earth challenges
• Speaker advocates for space future, believes in exploration for new knowledge
• Personal connection: both parents pilots (dad A-10 fighter, mom first women USAF)
• 14 years ago: first microgravity experience inspired aerospace career

Space Program Innovation History

• Apollo program: foundation of modern computing
• International Space Station: contributed to LASIK eye surgery technology
• New technologies enabling: life-saving biotech in orbit, energy delivery from space

Cost Revolution in Space Access

• Last 15 years: dramatic cost reduction
• NASA shuttle era: over $50,000/kilogram
• SpaceX Starship: under $200/kilogram
• Comparison: "like FedEx - if you can ship around world, can ship to space"

International Space Station Limitations

• Getting old and cramped
• Decommissioning: 2030-2031
• Need new infrastructure fast
• Current in-space construction: slow, difficult, dangerous
• ISS assembly: 15 years by astronauts in bulky suits doing risky maneuvers
• Handbuilt method doesn't scale
• Current capacity: only 14 humans in orbit maximum
• Bottleneck: real estate, not rockets

Tesserae Self-Assembly Technology

• Started at MIT, now at Aurelia Institute
• Inspired by nature: plants and proteins self-assembly
• Uses microgravity environment where magnetism brings objects together easily
• Electropermanent magnets bring modular tiles together for docking
• Concept: "space legos with magnets that click into place"
• Self-assembling structure eliminates need for astronaut spacewalks
• Tiles packed flat for efficient transport ("glorified PEZ dispenser")
• Multiple Bucky balls dock to form larger space stations
• Tested in space twice with Michael Lopez Alegria on ISS

Development and Testing Process

• Iterative prototyping and physics simulation
• Human-scale mockup built and toured nationally
• Goal: communicate "life worth living in space or worth commuting to"

Low Earth Orbit Applications - Biotech Manufacturing

• Partners using Tesserae for large volume, high throughput biotech factories
• Microgravity advantages:
  • Protein crystals grow differently
  • Certain tissues grow faster/mature better
  • Novel drug discovery impossible under Earth gravity
• Specific applications:
  • Organoids for Alzheimer's and cancer drug testing
  • Artificial retinas for macular degeneration cure
• Process: made in space, stabilized, brought back to Earth

Space-Based Solar Power

• Working with startup energy companies
• Self-assemble thousands of solar panels in orbit above atmosphere
• Capture raw unfiltered sunlight, beam anywhere on Earth (even at night)
• "Flashlight from space" concept
• Solves solar power storage problem
• Delivers abundant green energy to Earth surface

Off-Worlding Concept

• Move heavy industry to space, not humans
• Let Earth recover as "garden planet for generations"
• Future closer than expected

Training and Access Expansion

• Dozens of people annually in microgravity on parabolic flights ("vomit comet")
• Training new space generation
• Building architecture to welcome more people to orbit
• Applications: weekend trips to see Earth, decade-long scientist careers
• Starship enables mass deployment of Tesserae tiles and people

Business Case and Timeline

• Governments investing in space-based solar power
• Companies investing in zero-g biotech
• Next 10 years: first modularly self-assembling space habitat deployment
• Contribute to trillion-dollar space economy
• Infrastructure for profound Earth benefit

Philosophical Framework

• Space exploration not about escaping Earth
• 1968 Bill Anders "Earthrise" photograph
• Quote: "We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is we discovered the Earth"
• Building aspirational future for humanity everywhere
• Access to space now cheap and available enough
• Need to update conception of possible
• Investment in space infrastructure can expand humanity's horizons while protecting Earth
• Don't have to choose between space and Earth
• Future: Mars habitation, travel beyond solar system
• Current focus: put space to work for Earth