YouSaid · the spoken record

Ariel Ekblaw

lines on the record
112
first
2022-03-23
most recent
2022-03-23
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “So, can the swarm with its collective intelligence act in symbiosis with a spacecraft and detect things? But in the future, we'd also love for these little micro robots to repair in situ and really be like ants living in a tree all together connected to the spacecraft.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I think the future that we're seeing is that they're going to be intermixed, which is really exciting. So the future of space habitats are one of intelligent structures, maybe not all the way to how and the 2001 space odyssey reference that scares people about the habitat having a mind of its own. But certainly we're building systems now where the habitat has sensing technology that allows it to communicate its basic functions, you know, maintaining life support for the astronauts, but could also communicate in symbiosis with these swarm robots that would be on the outside of the spacecraft, whether it's in a microgravity orbiting environment or on the surface. And these little robots, they crawl just a la Neil Stevenson in Seven Eves. They crawl along the outside of the spacecraft looking for micrometeorite punctures or gas leaks or other faults and defects. And right now we're just working on the diagnosis.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And some of these are direct translational opportunities for areas from by natural disasters. People in California a decade ago would never have had to think about having an airtight house. But now with wildfires, maybe you do want something close to an airtight house. How do you manage that? There's a lot of technologies from the space habitation world that we are hoping we can actually bring back down to benefit life on Earth as well in these extreme environment contexts.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “So true. I mean, some of the technologies that we're directly looking at right now for space habitats, it's hard to keep humans alive in this really fragile little pocket against the vacuum and all of the dangers that the space environment presents. Some of the technologies we were going to have to figure out is energy efficient, you know, cooling and air conditioning, air filtration, scrubbing CO2 from the air, being able to have habitats that are themselves resilient to”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Technology prowess and use space technology to save Earth and be very much focused on how we can have a worthwhile life for Earth citizens. Even as some of us Want to go out for their venturing.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “We do certainly among my own family and my friends within our work at MIT, we do think about existential threats and risks to humanity and what role does space exploration and getting humans off world have to play in a resilient future for humanity? But what I actually find more compelling recently is instead of thinking about a need to ever abandon Earth through a path of space exploration or space voyaging is to see how we can use space technology to keep Earth livable. The obvious direct ways of doing this would be satellite technology that's helping us learn more about climate change or emitters or CO2. But there's also a future for geoengineering that might be space-based. A lot of questions that would have to be answered around that. But these are examples of pivoting our focus away from maybe the Hollywood vision of, oh, an asteroid's going to come, we're all going to have to escape Earth to let's use our considerable”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “As an ex military family, we used to talk about all of this. We would say that luck favors the prepared. And so growing up, we had a plan, actually a family plan for what we would do in a pandemic. Didn't think we were going to have to put that plan into place. And here we are.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Horizons. There's a lot of examples of what the Long Now Foundation does and thinks about, but when I think about this in my own work, it's what does it take to scale humanity's presence in orbit? We are seeing some additional investment in commercial space habitats. So it'll no longer be just NASA running the International Space Station, but to really democratize access to space to have like Bezos wants to have millions of people living and working in space, you need architecture that's bigger and grander and can actually scale. That means you need to be thinking about how can you construct things for long time horizons that are really sustainable in orbit or on a surface of a celestial body that are bigger than the biggest rocket payload fairing that we currently have available. And that what led me to self-assembly and other models of in-space construction.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Yes, I think it's a great example of this cycle between authors and scientists and engineers that we can be inspired in one generation by what authors dream up. We build it. We make it a reality. And then that inspires another generation of really wild and crazy thought for science fiction. I think Neil Stevenson does a beautiful job of being what we would call a hard science fiction author. So it's really grounded in a lot of science, which makes it very compelling for me as a scientist and engineer to read and then be challenged to make that vision of reality. The other community that Niels involved with and some of my other mentors are involved with that we are thinking about more and more in the work that we do at MIT is the Long Now Foundation. And this focus on what does society need to take in terms of steps at this juncture, this particular inflection point in human history, to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for a long and prosperous horizon for humanity.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “This is an amazing story of Harry Selden, this foundation that he forms at different ends of the, well, according to the story, different the universe and has this. Interesting focus on society. So it's not just space exploration for the sake of space exploration or novel technology, which is a lot of what I work on day to day MIT. But how do you structure a society across those vast expanses of distance and time? And so I'd say absolutely a favorite now, though, my favorite is Neil Stevenson and Seven Eves. It's a book that inspired my own PhD research and some ongoing work that we're doing with NASA now for the future of swarm robotics for spacecraft.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Yeah, my dad always said he was absolutely convinced because he That he would get to go in his lifetime. Really thought it was going to happen. And so it was a challenge and sad for many people, 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 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.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “My parents are both ex-Air Force. So my dad's an A10 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 hard and challenging, and to couple with that, my dad was a huge fan of science fiction. And so I, as a kid, read Heinlein and Isaiah Asimov, all these different classics of science fiction that he had introduced me to. And that just started a love affair with space exploration and really thinking about civilization scale, space exploration.”

    2022-03-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #271 – Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source