WPI Journal - The Magazine for WPI Alumni

WINTER 2015

The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)

Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/456562

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 48 of 75

Winter 2015 47 CHANGING COURSE While it focuses on taking astronauts farther out in the solar sys- tem, NASA is also working with private industry to develop vehicles to take people to the space station, a job done for so long by the space shuttles. Boeing and a company called Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (more commonly known as SpaceX) are build- ing space taxis for that task, according to Kearns. "So what you've seen at NASA is a change in direction from fying the space shuttle up to the space station over and over, to prepar- ing other people to go to the space station while we set our sights on pushing the boundaries and moving us farther," he says. The fact that Boeing and SpaceX will own the taxis is a very different approach for NASA, he says. In October, when noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke in Worcester, he lamented what he sees as the shrink- ing pioneer spirit in the United States, unlike in the heyday of the nation's space program. As an example, Tyson mentioned the probe that had just land- ed on a 2½-mile-long comet, four billion miles from Earth, a mission intended to fnd clues into the early formation of the solar system. That probe, he pointed out, was launched by the European Space Agency, not NASA. While Kearns praised the accom- plishment, he disagreed with Tyson that the U.S. has lost the initiative in space. Despite NASA's tight budget, he says the agency is making the most of the technology and money available, and sees more going on now than even fve or six years ago. "I see a lot of enthusiasm and people working very hard," Kearns says. "I really don't think that space ex- ploration has any less support among the American public than it's had the whole time I've been working in the feld. "I would have loved to have been the one to put the probe on the comet," he continues, "but the U.S. has had probes that for years have been orbiting Saturn and peering into its moons," discovering meth- ane lakes on Titan and geysers on the ringed-planet's other moons. "That's an incredible mission that nobody else has ever tried to do," he says, noting that the U.S. also launched the Hubble and Kepler telescopes, which are giving scientists out-of-this-world views into space. "We've just done so many things and will continue to do so many things that will make headlines in the future that I really don't see people pulling back," Kearns says. "You just can't do everything. Other groups are going to do other things." Among those things were two recent commercial efforts that ended badly. Virgin Galactic is a private venture that plans to offer suborbital fights to so-called space tourists. A space plane it was testing exploded over the Mohave Dessert, killing one of the pi- lots. Orbital Sciences Corporation, which makes rockets for commercial and mili- tary use, saw one of its rockets explode 15 seconds liftoff in Virginia during an un- manned mission to carry a cargo ship to the International Space Station for NASA. But space fight involves high speeds, and tremendous energy and force, and such setbacks happen, notes Kearns, who supports entrepreneurs getting into the space business. "This type of work just takes a lot of ded- ication, attention to detail, and rigor," he says, "and even with all of that, every time you feld a new system you will fnd some problem that you really couldn't envision before." Kearns points out that his is not the only recent WPI connection with NASA. Both he and President Laurie Leshin were at the space agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., at the same time. They knew each other, but did not work together, he says. Although his career and work promise to go much further, Kearns continues to look back on WPI as his personal launch pad. He credits the profes- sors, his engineering foundation, and project work at the univer- sity with making everything possible, "to feel confdent enough in myself to go out and work in all these different areas and try to do what I wanted to do." For Kearns, watching space fight these days is worlds away from when he was a starry-eyed kid. "I appreciate it a lot more now," he says in understatement. " " J

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of WPI Journal - The Magazine for WPI Alumni - WINTER 2015