CR note: This is a new episode of Chris Riback’s Conversations, my podcast that explores today’s most compelling ideas, trends, and news. You can add this podcast — plus my other audio features — to your favorite podcast app. They will automatically appear once published:
Conversation: Dr. Ariel Ekblaw
What would it take for humanity to truly live and thrive in space? Not just surviving, but creating a life worth living—complete with culture, comfort, and connection. And how might those innovations in space transform life here on Earth?
To answer these questions, few people are better to ask than Dr. Ariel Ekblaw. I am confident you’ve never met anyone like her.
Ariel is a space architect, scientist, and entrepreneur whose groundbreaking work blends bold engineering with a deep focus on human experience... and a touch of philosophy thrown in. She’s the founder of the Aurelia Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to designing the critical infrastructure and cultural systems for life in space. Ariel is also a general partner in a venture capital fund that’s building the ecosystem of space technologies to make these dreams a reality.
Before launching Aurelia, Ariel led the MIT Space Exploration Initiative, where she developed Tesserae—a self-assembling modular system that’s been tested on the International Space Station and aims to create scalable habitats for humans in space... structures to allow us – not just in the ones or twos or tens – to survive in space. She’s reimagining what it means to live beyond Earth, from spinning habitats for artificial gravity to designing musical instruments that work in zero gravity.
In our conversation, we explore Ariel’s extraordinary work, her vision for a sustainable and meaningful future in space, and why she believes that advancing space technologies can make Earth a better place for all of us.
One note about the audio: Appropriately, it sounds like Ariel is in space station. She’s not. Luckily, her ideas and vision are incredible – and communicated extremely clearly.
Learn More:
How the Aurelia Institute is designing a self-assembling space station: A team of architects, designers, and engineers at a Boston nonprofit are rethinking how to live and work more comfortably and affordably in space. (Fast Company)
Artist's animation of a futuristic TESSERAE habitat that self-assembles in orbit, forms a multi-module space station, and can also be transported to the surface. Based on the real-life research project out of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative and Dr. Ariel Ekblaw's PhD Thesis. (MIT Space Exploration Initiative)
Aurelia To Test Subscale Self-Assembling Space Station Technology (Aviation Week)
Ariel Ekblaw among 2024 cohort of Dial Fellows. (MIT Media Lab)
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