My blog

Tag: space careers

  • Diary: Anushka Sharma on founding the London Space Network and the future of amazing careers in space

    Anushka Sharma

     

    I left politics in 2012 to work in the Olympics, and that was the start of my self-employment journey. Many years before, I’d done a computing degree. 2012 was the year the UK agency was formed and that began my passion for space. In 2014, I applied for NASA Social, and took myself over to America for two weeks in January 2015.

    Here were everyday people who were passionate about space, and able to engage in it. My core skill is bringing people together and that’s why five years ago I set up the London Space Network, which brings together people from every walk of life to discuss space. We now have 1500 members on our list, and events sell out within 48 hours.

     

    When we think about humans and navigation, and travel on earth, we’ve always used the stars to navigate but the opportunity of building a human presence on Mars and icy moons is a different thing altogether. It presents the possibility of the foundation of our human future. At the moment, only nation states through their agencies have managed to land on the surface of the moon: Japan, India, China, Soviet Union, America, and attempts from Israel and which failed. But that’s all changing and it’s now important for us to raise awareness about careers in the space sector.

     

    The growth of the private space sector means that a barrier has been removed and space agencies can now focus on the science. As our presence in space grows, tourism, trips to the moon, and trips round the orbit of the moon and back, will become the norm. As the cost comes down it will open up huge markets of growth. Who doesn’t want to wear a pair of trainers that have been in space or products which have orbited the moon?

     

    I think our space journey will be part of a much broader narrative of innovation which our children will benefit from. Take water processing as an example. If we can solve the question of clean water on earth, then why can’t we have it on the surface of the moon. The opportunities have never been more wonderful. You could do a Master’s degree in AI History of Art on galleries on the surface of the moon in 100 years’ time. This will impact every career. Human beings are curious by nature. We would be so bored if we didn’t think beyond our planet.

     

    As we look ahead in this sector, it’s important to fight for everyone and make sure it’s as inclusive and open for everyone as possible. Currently there’s this duality whereby the rich can access those trips to Mars. It could create planetary political differences between those who chose to go to Mars and those who stayed on Earth. These ethical implications are the reason the space community needs to be as open as possible and engage with people from every background.

    Looking ahead, I think we’ll see a lot of international collaboration deals between America, India, Japan and the European agencies. By 2040, we’ll have more of a human presence on the moon, but more of a robot presence too. We’ll also have a UK astronaut in orbit in the next ten. We’ll also make headway in going to the icy moons of Europa. In the next 100 years, we’ll certainly have a presence on the moon and on Mars and will be acquiring rare earth minerals in an asteroid mining process.

     

    I’d like to see a United states of Space. We already have the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.. We’ll only do well if we work together. If we don’t we’ll just be transferring conflict into space. Let’s not forget that space has been used for warfare during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.  We have to think ethically about our access to space.

  • Diary: former Webb Space Telescope head Carl Starr on the space sector and journeying to other planets

    Carl Starr

     

    I worked on a programme with NASA for 27 years doing the James Webb Space Telescope. It was around the early 2000s, and I was based in California. I’d just finished launching one of the-earth observing satellites which NASA was doing, when my buddy came into the office and said: “We’re going to build a telescope. Want to join?”” How long will it be?” “It’ll only be a few years.” Twenty years later, I was still working on it.

     

    When I started at JWST, there were three of us. I ended up being in the highest role, the Mission Operations Manager, but I began as an operations engineer. We grew to 700 people – it changed over the years. If you keep your eyes open, people come and people go, and there are always opportunities on a large project like that.

     

    The telescope is rewriting astronomers’ and cosmologists’ understanding of how the universe works and how it was created. There are disruptions into the Big Bang Theory. Some of its measurements and observations are baffling scientists: we’re looking at galaxies which shouldn’t be where they are, and making us think the universe may be older than we thought. It really is an engineering marvel. Whatever it takes a picture of it’s incredibly accurate. Our basic understanding is that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, and that galaxies didn’t start forming until about 500,000 years into that process. But the telescope is taking pictures of galaxies which are older still – and that means we got something wrong somewhere. Scientists are baffled by that, and it can be funny to see them try to explain it: they can’t.

     

     

    I don’t think people really appreciate what it took to get it there. You see on TV programmes about how we invented ten different technologies to make the telescope work: that engineering side is awesome. But to truly operate it was something else: it doesn’t operate itself. That’s been lost: we’re talking about regular people who worked it day to day, and planned its operations. When it first went into orbit it was 24/7. Who are these people who make this happen every day? It’s not the astronomers.

     

    Up until now, nobody has had something this powerful with which to look at anything. They’re just surprised by everything they see. Think of the early phones – they took quite good pictures. Then they came up with the digital camera and the pictures were amazing. Television is the same: now everybody has such good resolution on their TV that people on the screen looks almost 3D. The telescope is like that: the resolution of the image and the crispness of its data is just really cool. We won’t know for a good while the data is telling us but the astronomical community is already very excited by the data we’re getting.

     

    The more the telescope gets used and looks for other signs of world, it makes me feel more special that there’s life on this planet to this degree. There may be life out there, but I always re-centre myself and think: ‘We’re pretty special – look at what we’ve done as a species.’ Maybe there is life in this area of the universe: but we constantly look at thousands of planets, and there’s isn’t life there so far. In the end, every observation solidifies that we are special – that doesn’t have to make us big-headed. In fact, it’s humbling.

     

    If we did discover life on another planet, that would be a game-changer. But then we’d have to think about how to get there, and we don’t have very advanced jet propulsion systems. It’ll be interesting to see when we find something what the next thought process is. We have four billion years before our sun starts making life here a problem, so our species will have to evolve. We haven’t been on the planet a million years – in a star timeframe, that’s nothing. Give it another hundred thousand years, and another and another. What will we look like? Can we go across the galaxy quickly?

     

    We need to go to the moon before we go to Mars. It’s easier and closer – if something bad happens, you can get home rightaway. Mars is a six month trip. In order to go to the next set of levels, you’ll need to colonise the moon, take what you learn then go to Mars, or one of the moons of Jupiter. People who colonise will need to not come back to earth ever. Their bone structure, and their chemical composition will change – our future self is going to look very different indeed.