What You Probably Don't Know About NASA

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Matties: This particular board that we're looking at is a unique board. Why don't you talk a little bit about this?

Gorospe: This is one element of a digital material. This particular element features strain gauges. You can imagine, let's say 200 of these exact same things all assembled into a space structure, and now you have a large structure with individual elements inside of that structure able to tell you the stresses that they're experiencing. You then get, from one smart element, a smart material that can be used to build a smart structure. It’s really, really incredible.

Matties: It is. You guys are doing great work and we really appreciate that. Just some final thoughts, where do you see space travel and the commercialization of space travel going, and what do you see for the future of space? When I talk about the future, maybe the next ten years or so.

Gorospe: I think assembly in low earth orbit is going to be huge. I think storage depot of fuel, oxygen, water, things like that, in low earth orbit is going to become more important. I think we’ll see more missions that are outside of Earth's orbit, and that are maybe much smaller in scale of the spacecraft than previous ones. For example, Pioneer and Voyager, all of these were quite large spacecraft. Why not send some CubeSats beyond Earth's orbit? Why not send CubeSats to Mars or to the outer solar system?

Matties: Certainly landing a small satellite like a cube on Mars would be a lot easier than bouncing a giant rover.

Gorospe: Absolutely. Like I said, with the temporal nature of these you're able to develop them quickly and you're able to put the most recent technology on them. You can do a lot of things very quickly with these types of spacecraft.

Matties: Do you know any of the estimated costs for a company to launch a CubeSat?

Gorospe: No I don’t, I'm sorry. I can tell you one thing about a lot of the larger launches, though. Let's say DirecTV is going to launch their satellite. Their satellite is the size of a food truck. It's a very big satellite. Now consider what they're launching it with, like a SpaceX Falcon 9. The capability of that rocket exceeds the weight of the primary payload, so you have deadweight or you have extra space. If DirecTV wants, they can sell off that space, or, if they're feeling generous, give it away to high schools, elementary schools, colleges, etc., who want to piggyback.

NASA actually developed a system to allow CubeSats to basically safely piggyback, because you don't want to jeopardize the primary mission. So the equipment that deploys the CubeSats and how it's integrated with the stack, as we call it, is important, because if whoever built that deployer didn't do a very good job, like it doesn't disconnect or something like that, it increases the risk for the primary mission. NASA said, “Let's handle building this ourselves. Then people like DirecTV who are buying this rocket will have much more confidence to add this and allow schools to piggyback.” So NASA built the deployer which enables companies to be generous like that.

Matties: What should OEMs in America or anywhere, really, know about what you guys are doing, and how does it apply to their business?

Gorospe: NASA really likes their technology partnerships and really likes small, but innovative research. We also have things we call spinoffs, where we take some of our technology developed in-house and we talk to OEMs about how they can go ahead and lease that information from us and work with it. What we really like to talk about is how what we do in the air or in space can directly affect people on the ground. How has NASA made your life better? Think about CDs. Think about small cameras in your phones, and things like that. That's technology developed at NASA that eventually trickled down through technology partnerships and through leasing of other technology by OEMs, allowing them to put it in their products. You just have to look for those things and NASA has a yearly publication of certain things that have gone on and have been integrated in actual products. Things that were developed last year will be in this year’s microwave, or next year it's going to be in that camping equipment.

Matties: George, I really appreciate your time today. I know you guys are busy, but I appreciate you taking time out to do this.

Gorospe: No problem, I had a great time. Thank you for stopping by.

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