An Aerospace Architect: Dr. Ariel Ekblaw on Extraterrestrial Solutions to Earthly Issues

This is a transcript of Episode Six of The Solve Effect, edited and condensed for clarity. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or iHeart Radio.

Hala Hanna

Welcome to The Solve Effect. I’m your host, Hala Hanna.

At Solve, we focus on terrestrial solutions that are grounded in the present reality of planet Earth. But what about ideas beyond our atmosphere? What can we learn about our own planet when we expand out into the solar system?

Today’s guest is Dr. Ariel Ekblaw, a visionary at the frontier of space exploration and human imagination. Ariel is the founder and CEO of the Aurelia Institute and General Partner of the Aurelia Foundry Fund, where she’s building a new model to research, innovate, and invest to bring humanity’s space future to life.

She previously founded and directed MIT’s Space Exploration Initiative, a community of more than 50 researchers, artists, and engineers who are actively prototyping the technologies and experiences of our sci-fi future, from experiments aboard parabolic flights and suborbital launches to projects that have flown on the International Space Station.

Her career embodies what we explore here on The Solve Effect: bold innovation, new models of collaboration, and a relentless drive to expand what’s possible for humanity. I’m thrilled to welcome Dr. Ariel Ekblaw.

I'm going to start all the way back. Your great-grandfather explored the Antarctic and Arctic. There are literally Ekblaw glaciers on both poles to prove it. And I've heard you talk about your wonderful parents, who are Air Force pilots, too. You say that exploring is profoundly human, but this is something else. Do you believe exploring new frontiers is in your blood, in your DNA? What is it?

Ariel Ekblaw

It was certainly steeped in my childhood. So that story of Elmer Ekblaw, who explored the Arctic, and then his protege went down and named something for him in the Antarctic, was a story that got told a lot for me when I was a young kid. And then my parents in the Air Force, they have this, I think, really honorable service model of leadership that they were brought up in their career. And so we talked about that a lot as a family, and this notion of exploration as service to humankind, or exploration is a really bold thing that you have a privilege of doing and how do you be good stewards of wherever you're exploring. So it's probably in my blood in that sense and drives a lot of what I'm really passionate about doing.

HH

You know, what's interesting is when we talk about space exploration, there are often these two extremes, the Elon Musk, who seems ready to abandon Earth for the next planet, and then those who think we shouldn't be spending a dime on space when we have so many problems here. But your work suggests a third path entirely. I would love if you could articulate what that vision looks like, the idea of using space not as an escape, but as a medium for Earth to become a better home for us.

AE

Exactly. So I think you've hit on it so beautifully, which is we are an architecture design firm and a non-profit and an ecosystem now, including the investment arm, that's focused on space infrastructure for the public good. So eventually, someday, it's amazing to imagine humanity going out and being able to explore and live among the stars or even in the near neighborhood of our solar system. But first, almost to earn the right to do that. We should prove that we can take care of our own planet first and also leverage amazing opportunities in space for the day-to-day benefit of Earth's citizens here.

So my two favorite examples are space-based solar power, new infrastructure in orbit that would capture energy above the clouds way more efficiently, and could beam solar power down to Earth 24/7. So you'd solve the intermittency problem for solar power.

And then the other one is biotechnology. There's a lot of bio that we can only do in orbit when we're floating that you can't do under conditions of gravity on the ground. And there's so much potential for new cancer drugs, Alzheimer's drugs, artificial retinas that could cure macular degeneration that are created in orbit and then brought back down to Earth. So I think there's just a wonderful opportunity to really invest in this next wave of focus on space infrastructure for the benefit of life on Earth.

HH

That's incredible. What makes it that something that you create in space is that much different than anything you can create on Earth?

AE

It's a great question. So in microgravity, which is basically our term for free fall when you're in orbit around a planet, fluids behave really differently because there's no gravity to pull them down. There's no sedimentation. So little bits and particles that would typically settle down and maybe... bother the substrate of whatever you're trying to create, that doesn't happen. Convection doesn't happen, so hot air doesn't rise and cold air doesn't sink. All of these really fundamental, you know, physical processes that dominate a lot of liquid-based or bio-based manufacturing on Earth, they don't happen in orbit, which means you can explore really f undamentally new material science in almost like a blank slate environment. It's really, really exciting from a scientist's perspective.

HH

So you've described the Aurelia Institute as, you know, as if you're building actually an ecosystem of space exploration. The Institute is the think tank, and then you have the Foundry, which is a fund that accelerates probably companies that come out of the R&D. Well, I want to hear how you've thought about that structure, what it allows you to do that maybe a traditional company doesn't.

AE

So on the institute side, the nonprofit, we get to do three things. So we do early stage R&D. That's really exploratory for this next generation of technology for how do you build infrastructure in orbit. But we also do education and outreach. We bring 25 to 50 people on the zero-G flight, affectionately known as the, “Vomit Comet.” It's how NASA trains astronauts. We bring people into this floating simulation experience every year, trying to bring people from all walks of life. So artists and biologists, students, mid-career people, fellowship students that might never have had an opportunity to get an aerospace education. But we really want to welcome more people into this industry. And then we also do a little bit of policy. So trying to be thought leaders about being good stewards of the space commons. What are the tragedies of the space commons, like space debris, that we want to make sure not only are we behaving well and not contributing to space debris in orbit, but can we also assist in new ideas for policy governance for how to make sure that as a community, a spacefaring community, that we're being really responsible about the anthropocosmos, which is this new era where humans are going to have a really profound effect on the cosmos.

The VC Fund works with the nonprofit. So when we have a really interesting internal technology concept that we think is ready to commercialize, we can spin it out. And then on the VC side, we can also invest in external companies. And the reason we do that, and not just our own internal stuff, is that what you can do with an external company is look out in the industry and say, what's missing? If I want space habitats for the benefit of life on Earth to be able to succeed, what do I need?

And a great example that I usually give is on Earth, we have ocean freight to get really long distances. And then inside of the harbor, you have a little terrestrial boat tug that goes back and forth. In space, we have rockets to get us long distances, but we don't have any analog to that harbor tug that can go back and forth, you know, in this case, between different orbits. If someone is going to massively succeed by doing that business, and we would need that to service a future biotech factory or be able to repair a space-based solar power installation. So we also do the VC funds so that we can invest in those areas that are maybe underinvested in and really change the future of what we can achieve kind of collectively in the space industry.

HH

Okay, I want to follow up with two things. The first one it is really interesting the way you've structured your work, which is to recognize there is a public good, I think you call it the tragedy of the space commons. The unit economics there are really hard to figure out. And then there is the commercial aspect. you're showing that it's a business. You've talked about the cost of transporting things to space, dropping from like 50,000 per kilogram to 200, something like that. Is that why you say that we're at this pivotal time?

AE

That's exactly right. It's the cost to get to space has dropped so dramatically that it's becoming more open access. So you can send cargo to space for about the price that you'd send cargo around the world, which is wild. So if you can ship something around the world with DHL or FedEx, you can ship it to space. The humans are a little more fragile. We're a little bit more expensive to get us to space because biology is a little bit more gentle. But that ability to get mass to orbit is what's enabling this incredible burgeoning moment in the space industry. And it's what shifted space from just military, defense, and government into the commercial sphere which is really exciting. We're going to have a commercial space station online to replace the International Space Station probably within the next four to five years, which is really incredible.

HH

And that would be right on time before the ISS gets decommissioned, is that right?

AE

Just barely. And so that's the goal. Yep, I know. ISS is going to get decommissioned in about 2030. So there's this race right now to do a commercial replacement. And that's why we think it's such a good time to do an orbital bio lab. Not only do we need to replace the ISS, we need to do amazing exploratory science, but we also need to start scaling up. So that artificial retina that I mentioned, work that's being developed in Nicole Wagner's company, Lambda Vision, they need to be able to make hundreds of thousands of retinas if they're really going to cure macular degeneration on Earth or retinitis pigmentosa. To do that, you just need more volume, more volume than we've ever had before. And so some of what that launch cost dropping has enabled us to do at Aurelia, is prototype this idea called autonomous self-assembly, where we basically put space Legos in a rocket, and the Legos can self-assemble when they get to orbit and build themselves, self-construct like a Transformer, and build something way bigger than your biggest rocket, which is maybe big enough to be a biotech factory. That's new technology that we're working on now.

HH

And that is one of the spin-offs out of Aurelia Institute.

AE

Exactly. We've just spun this out into Rendezvous Robotics, which is a for-profit that can now really scale it and take it forward to do that kind of self-assembling space infrastructure.

HH

By the way, they look like MAGNA-TILES. Do you know the game, the kids game? So it's MAGNA-TILES. And I heard you say it's like they're tightly packed like IKEA furniture, they're shaped to space, they get, they spit out like from a PEZ distributor—

AE

I know, too many metaphors, but they all make sense.

HH

It's all actually perfect, because if you want to communicate about something as complex as what you do, if you don't make it so relatable as, you know, even my six-year-old can get it, then... I have a good chances of getting it. And then this, I love this rendezvous idea because they're pre-programmed to come together to, you know, in a certain moment in time. I mean, it's so romantic, it's the decentralized self-assembly and disassembly and they're reusable, right? So it's, yeah, okay. And so do you think you're the next platform for, are you the next ISS?

AE

We hope absolutely to be a big part of it. The initial generation is going to be a lot of very similar modules to what the ISS looked like. So pressure cylinders that are aluminum, that'll be the initial replacement generation. And what we hope to be is an expansion module on top of those, because it is brand new technology. We need to do a lot to make sure it's flight worthy, that it's ready for human crew and safe to occupy. So we'll do a lot of that testing on top of an existing new commercial space station that's coming online. So we'll be maybe like V1.5 after the ISS.

HH

That's, and here's what's amazing about the work that you're doing. You are working on these huge self-assembling habitats, but you also think about how people orient themselves in 0 gravity. How, you know, do you create habitats that not only, as you just said, they don't only help people survive, but actually delight them. Inspire awe rather than just function. Where's the sensitivity coming from and how do you see it kind of manifest itself through your work?

AE

This, I think, is part my own childhood and then part an amazing impact from the Media Lab. So ever since I was young, I love aesthetics and architecture and design. When you walk into a huge building, beautiful building, and you get goosebumps because it's just an incredible space to inhabit— that is something that I've experienced throughout my life, and I really want the future of space architecture to be able to offer people, because not only would you be walking into it and getting goosebumps, you'd be floating into it. It's just so different.

And so it's worth thinking about the unique design affordances that you'd only get to experience in 0G. And then the other is I had the chance to basically apprentice under Nary Oxman at MIT Media Lab. That really got me thinking about this intersection of biomimicry, bio-inspired ideas, self-assembly in nature, and then this environment of space where you can do things at a macro scale that you can't do on Earth because of gravity.

HH

The other thing that I just realized as you're talking is I've heard you say that you've been raised reading science fiction, but also spending some time without any tech, you know, not even electricity, just immersing in nature. And it's really interesting how you build this biomimicry into architecture and engineering.

AE

I think it's such an amazing wealth of ideas that we have all around us. And there are incredible organizations that do this kind of professionally, like the Wyss Institute at Harvard. They look at nature and they make a little robotic bee, or they look at shark skin and they make a self-healing skin for a car. You know, just amazing ways to learn from nature. And the cool thing about space is that's a domain where because there's an absence of gravity in a sense, it's almost more like the small-scale environment inside of a cell. It's floating. You're moving around, there's so much more that you can do freely in that macro big space environment, which is really cool. It's like an interesting trick of nature that we get to do things at a super small scale and a super big scale and have them kind of commune between the two.

HH

You've been in microgravity about more than 10 times, right?

AE

Yes, I've been on the Vomit Comet 14 times now.

HH

Okay, Vomit Comet. Someone needs to rebrand the Vomit Comet. But how does it, can you tell us a little bit how does it feel?

AE

It eels unbelievably sublime. Imagine being in a pool, all of that lovely floating feeling that you get in a pool with no resistance. There's nothing to push through. When I first take students into zero gravity with us, when we go on the flight and we experience microgravity for the first time, they often kick and try to swim because your body doesn't know what else to do when you're just floating and losing control and flying down the entire length of a plane completely uncontained.

And even the most serious of serious MIT professors start to giggle when we bring them on the flight because it's just such a remarkably different, embodied experience. And one of the best pieces of advice I was ever given by a zero-G coach, really amazing flight attendants that are zero-G coaches, is to make a memory of your body doing something that you couldn't do on the ground because it's so fleeting.

You get back to the ground and it's easy for your body to forget what it's like. But I have this memory of my hair loose, floating way above my head, I have really long hair, and my feet up above my head. That's something that is, I think, just really conveys the uniqueness of this environment.

HH

Your vision, the way I understand it is to, that millions of people will be able to work, visit, move, live, in space as much as they want and that we actually would move the most destructive processes out of Earth so that we preserve it and it becomes more like a, I don't know, like a national park or something. That's a, by the way, that is a profound reimagining.

AE

Exactly what we're focused on long-term is if you could ask, like, what is the, what's the meaning and the purpose of all this near-term work? in low Earth orbit for the benefit of life on Earth. It's really a profound paradigm shift to say, people listening to this podcast, if you have kids that are young, your kids will probably commute to a job in space. There will be so many different career opportunities. They may not live in space day in, day out. Earth is the best home we could ever hope for. It's where our species co-evolved. But they might get on a rocket in the same way you might go to an oil rig for three months and come home or go to Svalbard in the Arctic and work for three months and come home.

There'll be an opportunity to commute as a scientist, as a Hollywood producer to film movies in space, maybe for hospitality in the future of space hotels. That itself is a huge paradigm shift: to think of space, not as a sector that may or may not be relevant to your future kid's life, but just as a domain that expands the activity of humans a little bit further off the earth. And then long-term, what we hope to learn through these next couple decades of doing this style of new infrastructure is. . .How do we get the mining off of Earth and go do that effectively on the moon or on an asteroid? How do we get the chemical byproduct manufacturing that pollutes our waterways? We could do a lot of that really responsibly in the vacuum.

People sometimes misinterpret this and think, oh, great, once we've polluted Earth, now we're just going to go off and pollute space. But it's different because space doesn't have a water vapor atmosphere. You can actually, from a technological standpoint, do a lot of these processes in a less polluting, more responsible contained way. It's going to take a lot of engineering to re-engineer technologies that were designed for gravity on Earth to make them work in this off-worlding future. But I think it's a vision worth starting now and investing in because we do. We want Earth to recover as a garden planet, and we could enable that. We could get a lot of this heavy industry slowly but surely off Earth without having to say to humans, stop doing it, which I think we've learned in many ways. A scarcity mindset is really hard for humans to grapple with. Off-worlding is a long, long-term vision that we could start working on now with a lot of this infrastructure idea.

HH

Yeah, that abundance mindset is really another paradigm shift from your work. What would have to, “break humanity's way,” to use a Reed Hoffmanism, for that future to actually happen the way you're describing it.

AE

Yeah, so I think first is energy. We're on the cusp of this amazing clean tech source of energy, which is called space-based solar power. So when you're up above the clouds, you can get way more raw, unfiltered sunlight. And once you've captured it, you can beam it to the Earth or you can beam it to other things in space and basically power a whole ecosystem of space hardware, maybe a future space mining installation. The next level of that to really unlock is also energy at something like fusion, which we have amazing colleagues at MIT that are really pushing hard, in addition to some teams around the world, looking at that.

The second, I actually think it's harder. in a funny way, and that's radiation. So if we're really going to unlock this future of off-worlding or even just young people having jobs where they commute to space, we need to figure out how to shield them better from radiation. We in the industry are working on a bunch of material science innovations, biological robustness engineering for your own body to try to really crack that radiation problem.

HH

So it's not a Amy Adams arrival type of situation, unfortunately. Lots of radiation. Okay.

AE

One of my all-time favorite science fiction stories. And we are so inspired by sci-fi at Aurelia. Part of it is the world building. So a huge fan of Isaac Asimov, Foundation Trilogy. Also a huge fan of Neal Stephenson's Seven Eves, one of the few really female-led sci-fi stories, just total ****** women in that book.

So Neal Stephenson inspired me with these biomimetic little robots that crawl. And a friend of mine in grad school at MIT, Artem Dementia, have created Rovables, which are these really adorable little robots with magnet wheels that crawl on you. They crawl on your clothes. And then working with another graduate student, Fang Zhang, in Joe Paradiso's group, we've now made a space-grade version of that robot, and we sent it to the moon in March.

And I actually wrote to Neal Stephenson and said, thank you so much for your inspiration. It's a great example of the arts, inspiring science, inspiring real engineering development that went to the moon.

HH

Isn't really fascinating, like the recursive feedback loop between scientists and science fiction writers and the art and bringing it to life.

How do you give yourself permission to dream this big and take up this much room with your, even with your imagination?

AE

Thank you for that question. I think I did really get lucky in that I had a role model in my life who not only was allowed to take up a lot of space, but really led well through it. And it was my mom. She was one of the first women to ever be a pilot for the United States Air Force, to ever be allowed to be a female and fly.

And she inculcated in me as a really young person: Girls are good at math. Don't let other people take credit for your work, even if they're not malicious. Even if they're just big personalities themselves, don't let them take credit for your work. Really, you know, voice your own best ideas and go chase it. And I so appreciated that. I think it led me to not second guess myself as much as some young people do when they're trying to figure out who they are in their life. And then also, I think it's the power of mentors, both women and men mentors that I've had in my life through education make a huge difference.

HH

Maybe one thing that is a little out there is working on space and just thinking so big every day, d does that change how you think of death and life?

AE

Oh, it's a beautiful question. Yes, I think It does change a little bit how I think about my time on this planet. I'm really driven to try to make an impact that could live beyond the time that I'm alive. And human societies used to do that a lot more.

We used to build cathedrals or like the Japanese would plant groves of trees 200 years ahead of time so that their descendants could cut the trees to rebuild the shrine. And I think that there's maybe a lack of opportunity to do that in modern society because we are so focused on just the lifespan of our own one life.

I may never live to see off-worlding, but I really think it's still deeply profound and meaningful to try to contribute to that future for 100 years in the future or 200 years in the future. So it definitely makes me think a little bit differently about the scale of my one life, my life and my death, and then what might last beyond that.

HH

You know, sitting here after talking with Ariel, I keep coming back to her great-grandfather and those glaciers named Ekblaw on opposite ends of the Earth. There's this beautiful symmetry to it: a family legacy of exploration, of bridging distances, of what seemed impossibly far apart.

And that's what Ariel is doing, right? She's building bridges. Not between poles, but between Earth and space. Between survival and delight.

When she talks about using space to make Earth more livable—moving our destructive industries off-world so we can preserve our planet like a garden, it feels like the most logical thing. Of course we should mine asteroids instead of strip-mining the Amazon.

But what struck me most wasn't the grand vision—though gosh it, is grand. It was the small things. The vase that holds plants in weightlessness. The sensors that help you orient yourself when there's no up or down.

Ariel is designing for millions of people to live in space, yes. But she's doing it with the understanding that we're still deeply human up there. We still need beauty and to feel at home.

In a world that often feels like it's falling apart, Ariel Ekblaw is literally building a new world. And she's doing it not by running away from this one, but by expanding our definition of what's possible—for all of us, wherever we are.

I’m Hala Hanna. Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Solve Effect.