0:05 you
0:06 [Applause]
0:10 we place very complex machines on a
0:13 top of huge vertical structures the size
0:15 of a thirty four story building we
0:17 proceed to light these explosives and the
0:19 whole structure along with valuable
0:21 contents are shot up so high they end
0:23 up in space or whatever planet we call
0:25 these rocket launches and we [garbled]
0:27 launch one of
0:29 them around every two weeks
0:30 it would have been doing them for at
0:31 least forty years right now at this very
0:34 moment there are six humans just like you
0:36 and me currently traveling at seven
0:38 kilometers per second that is how about
0:40 sixteen thousand miles per hour at four
0:43 hundred kilometers in altitude is that a
0:45 pressurized box we call the
0:47 International Space Station all of this
0:49 is incredibly exciting of course but it
0:51 is also incredibly dangerous and crazy
0:53 why would anybody do such a thing
0:55 we don't just perform these activities for
0:58 the sake of proving the limits of
0:59 humanity but there's a fundamental
1:01 benefit of why we're doing them being in
1:03 space gives you unparalled perspective that
1:05 allows you to look back down to your
1:07 world in ways not achievable otherwise
1:09 imagine being lost in a corn maze I
1:11 don't know how we'd play into that
1:13 position but if you were able to know
1:15 what it looked like from above instinct
1:18 would be so much easier
1:19 well satellites provide a similar
1:21 vantage point they know what everything
1:23 looks like from the top because they're
1:24 up there in space looking back down to
1:26 us all the time this is very valuable
1:28 information that allows us to solve
1:29 problems they affect many
1:32 aspects of our modern lives
1:33 for example the GPS service you may have
1:35 used to navigate here the weather
1:37 forecast really comes in this morning
1:38 and the telecommunications we all love
1:40 to use the internet telephone radios all
1:42 of these things depend in one way or
1:44 another in by satellite machines we
1:46 humans have sent into space then there's
1:49 science scientific breakthroughs and
1:51 discoveries in physics astronomy even
1:53 biology are very often oriented in the
1:56 spacecraft like the Hubble Space
1:57 Telescope International Space Station
1:59 Space Exploration we today have high
2:02 resolution images of the planets and the
2:04 moon of our solar system we have even
2:05 imaged planets on the habitable zones of
2:07 stars older than our own Sun places
2:10 where we might want to find out we have
2:12 placed humans and robots too
2:15 on the surfaces of objects in our solar system objects
2:17 once considered to be gods by the
2:19 ancient humans clearly there's a
2:22 fundamental benefit and advantage of
2:23 being in space this begs a question why
2:26 don't we go there more often well it is
2:29 stupidly expensive to go to space right
2:30 now that's why and there's multiple
2:32 reasons why going to space is
2:33 expensive
2:34 first there's the obvious one like
2:36 building a rocket the size of a building
2:37 fill it with explosives and
2:39 cryogenically cool in it tends to be a
2:40 bit expensive and it's certainly no
2:42 signal at all that after we're done with
2:44 the launch we let the think crash into
2:46 the ocean and sink so it can go keep
2:47 company to the Titanic but even though
2:51 this so-called rocketing is expensive this
2:53 is not a real reason why going to space
2:55 is expensive after all on average
2:57 rocket launches in there cost of that is
2:59 only about a 10 percent of the total
3:01 cost of a space mission so where is the
3:03 rest of my money going space is
3:06 expensive because we're stuck in a
3:08 vicious cycle in our matrix tree we have
3:10 a starting point we're designing
3:12 constructing and operating a space
3:14 mission is expensive now because a
3:16 space ship is expensive we can only
3:18 afford so many of them and there's a low
3:19 number of space missions because there's
3:21 a low number of space missions when you get the
3:23 opportunity to send something into space you
3:25 really really want to make sure it works
3:27 after all you may have been waiting for
3:29 this opportunity for the last 20 years
3:31 something not unheard of in the industry
3:33 these proportionate resources are spent
3:35 to guarantee the success of the mission
3:38 redundancy open redundancy quality
3:40 checks background checks in radiation
3:41 hardening for all materials all these
3:44 things cost money they have any name end
3:46 up being the majority of the cost of the
3:47 mission leading us to more expensive
3:49 missions and this cycle repeats itself
3:51 expensive mission leads to low number of
3:53 missions whose success once we began
3:55 until no matter the cost
3:56 leads to more expensive missions we are stuck
3:58 space is expensive because failure is
4:01 not an option but what if it was what if
4:06 we embrace the possibility of failure what
4:08 if we accept that risk what if we
4:11 were to break the cycle by constructing
4:12 smaller missions whose success is not to
4:14 be guaranteed now I'm not trying to
4:17 suggest we just build haphazardous missions
4:19 that are prone to failure or that every
4:21 mission should have risk there are of
4:22 course some issues where we should
4:24 for a higher cost to guarantee a lower
4:26 risk especially when humans astronauts
4:28 are involved but there's some cases
4:31 where it is reasonable to take some risk
4:33 imagine Europe planetary scientists
4:36 who study the surface of Mars because
4:37 you just love their rocks and the
4:39 surface of Mars and that's okay there's
4:41 people in that well traditionally you
4:45 will build one very expensive
4:46 state-of-the-art beautiful robot that
4:49 will go all the way to Mars and perform
4:50 wonderful science for you but what if
4:52 for the same amount of money you were
4:54 to build two you now this is not an
4:56 information some black magic
4:57 so obviously you will need to cut
4:59 corners somewhere in the system may be
5:01 more prone to failure somewhere leading
5:02 to say has seventy five percent chance
5:04 of success for each robot you still send
5:06 them both to Mars yes one might fail but
5:09 there is another one maybe both will fail then
5:11 you're out of luck but what is the most
5:13 likely scenario occurs and both of them
5:16 succeed then we have just performed double
5:18 the amount of science without a single
5:19 penny increase in price we can do more
5:21 with less
5:22 if we accept some risk this is
5:24 specifically what we were doing with
5:25 CubeSat's some engineers at Cal Poly
5:28 in 1999 they came together and disagreed
5:30 upon building very very small satellites
5:32 in a support package they introduced what
5:34 we know today as a CubeSat standard and
5:36 CubeSat's come in various sizes a 1U
5:39 CubeSat is a 10 by 10 by 10 centimeter
5:41 box about the size of a tissue box now
5:44 a 2U is up 10 by 10 by 20 centimeter
5:46 box and a 3U is a 10 by 10 by 30
5:48 centimeter box it's about the size of a
5:50 loaf of bread here I have a model of a
5:54 3U CubeSat this is the actual size
5:56 of the spacecraft but just because
5:58 you're born a box doesn't mean you have to 
5:59 die in a box you can expand deploy solar
6:02 panels these satellites are remarkably
6:06 small especially when you consider the
6:08 fact that when we normally talk about
6:10 satellites we talk in terms of cars and
6:12 school buses not lots of bread and tissue
6:14 boxes
6:15 satellites are not normally something
6:17 you call them [unknown] talking so even
6:20 though these satellites are so small we
6:22 can fit a lot of useful electronics in
6:24 today this is due to the fact that people
6:26 want a smaller computer in a smaller
6:28 iPhone every single year the
6:30 commercialization the miniaturization of
6:32 consumer electronics have left us with
6:35 very very powerful
6:36 computers in very very small packages so
6:38 why not take the computer in your cell
6:40 phone and put it in a satellite this is
6:44 the point where a traditional aerospace
6:45 engineer would say stop right there this
6:47 is not gonna work but I'm not a
6:48 traditional aerospace engineer I can
6:51 guarantee to you that utilizing this hyphened
6:54 electronics in your satellite is much
6:56 much much less expensive than utilizing
6:59 the redundant radiation card in
7:01 customized electronics of normal
7:02 satellites there's some risk to
7:04 utilizing this electronics because
7:05 they're more prone to failure but this
7:08 allows us to build spacecraft for a
7:09 really low price and break the cycle so
7:13 I haven't built my space craft my little
7:14 cube I'm ready to send it to space what
7:16 do I do
7:17 well I approach a large provider and say
7:19 hey large provider send this to space for
7:20 me
7:21 the last provider will say ok I'll send
7:22 this to space for you just give me a
7:24 hundred and sixty five million dollars
7:27 as an undergrad student we felt a little
7:31 bit of sort of a budget so what do I do
7:34 I wait for another customer with more
7:36 money to get a lunch and I don't have to
7:39 wait long
7:39 because after all launches happen every
7:41 two weeks right so I just wrap my little
7:44 cube up nice and drop it next to the
7:46 Rockets engine bell or wherever I can make it
7:47 fit I ask for permission first of course
7:52 for the rocket at three kilogram
7:54 incrementing mass due to the CubeSat makes
7:56 absolutely no difference since it may
7:59 already be carrying a 5 pound satellite
8:00 decisive schoolbus we are literally
8:02 hitchhiking a way into space as secondary
8:05 payloads and we're just charged a
8:06 convenience fee for it this fee may be in
8:09 the order of a couple of hundred
8:10 thousand dollars and I know it's still
8:12 expensive it's not to the point where
8:14 everybody's going to go to night build a
8:16 CubeSat and send it to space tomorrow
8:17 but this is a very significant reduction
8:19 in price one that opens the doors of the
8:21 previously risky space club to more
8:25 players
8:26 I'm talking about high risk science with
8:29 the possibility of a high reward now
8:31 imagine you're a lunar scientists who
8:33 study the moon because you just love the
8:35 rocks in the surface of the moon and that's
8:37 okay there's people like that too
8:39 well we have four orbiters right now
8:42 going around the moon just like this my
8:43 hand this is the moon
8:44 they're doing fine
8:46 science really cool stuff but if we were
8:48 able to orbit the moon really really
8:50 close to it and in really low altitude
8:51 we will be able to make some
8:54 very astonishing measures but it doesn't
8:57 matter how much you love the moon and its
8:58 rocks no scientist or engineer in their
9:01 right mind is going to risk the
9:02 spacecraft in such a low orbit
9:04 because it might crash into the moon and
9:07 that's bad but what if you sent
9:11 a CubeSat
9:12 then send it on to another popular planet
9:14 I don't care we have ten or twenty more
9:16 around the moon at the same time these
9:19 cubes are manufactured by a 
9:21 company called EPIC EPIC is an earth
9:23 imaging company founded in 2010 with one
9:25 mission in one mission only they want to
9:28 image the whole earth every single day
9:30 and they're doing it and the resulting
9:32 images are not only beautiful but
9:33 they're highly valuable for agriculture
9:36 space and defense and mapping as a result
9:39 they're making good bank out of
9:40 selling these images they have
9:42 transitioned from being headquartered in
9:43 a garage seven years ago to being a
9:46 single entity with the most satellites
9:47 around our planet right now they have
9:49 hundreds of 3U CubeSats just
9:51 like that one orbiting our planet
9:52 and they have hundreds more waiting for lunch they
9:56 recently deployed a record-setting
9:57 88 from a single launch yes their
10:00 units fail all of the time
10:02 but when you have hundreds more waiting
10:03 for lunch and hundreds more in orbit it
10:05 doesn't matter now I have to admit to
10:08 you I have said a lot of good things
10:10 about satellites but about gives that
10:12 specific but they're not the solution to
10:14 every problem out there
10:15 we still need big space missions because
10:18 we cannot have we cannot shape the
10:20 Hubble Space Telescope into the size
10:22 of a loaf of bread with current technology but
10:25 CubeSats are very useful for solving very
10:27 specific problems
10:28 for example scientists in the
10:31 City of Phoenix I try to understand how
10:33 the composition in the structure of our
10:35 cities affects the urban heat islands
10:38 human materials materials like concrete
10:41 and asphalt they tend to retain the heat
10:43 of the Sun longer and far more than the
10:45 surrounding natural materials like grass
10:47 dirt and cactus as a result the air
10:50 temperature in the surface
10:52 temperature of cities is increased this this
10:56 is not good because Phoenix is already
10:57 hot enough so this is a very valid
11:01 scientific investigation one to which
11:03 many scientist dedicate their whole lives
11:04 to this type of study but for some reason
11:07 or another this may not attract
11:08 sufficient attention to single handily
11:10 justify the construction of a large
11:11 Earth orbit mission but it can
11:13 justify a CubeSat and that is
11:15 specifically what I'm working on right
11:16 now together with a team of around 60
11:18 other undergraduate students at Arizona
11:20 State University and building such a
11:21 CubeSat we have named Phoenix Phoenix
11:23 will go to space carry a thermal camera
11:25 and images here at let's roll over there
11:26 we wrote a proposal to NASA two years
11:29 ago and received $200,000 to build this
11:32 mission that's may seem like a large
11:34 amount money because it is but this is
11:37 very change compared to any other
11:39 mission out there that is not a CubeSat
11:41 CubeSats like Phoenix allows us a train
11:44 the scientists and engineers of the
11:45 future either as students like us not
11:47 used to learn how to design a space
11:49 craft on paper but to actually build a
11:50 real space craft that will go into real
11:52 space and if they were at home as well
11:55 this is huge because it doesn't matter
11:58 how much we as a species just society
12:01 value education nobody's currently
12:03 writing checks for undergrad students
12:04 like me to go build satellites but
12:07 they're doing so with CubeSat and Phoenix
12:10 or CubeSat
12:11 is much more than just a CubeSat it is
12:13 interdisciplinary effort with students
12:14 from the School of Journalism Design in
12:16 the Arts Sustainability Engineering all
12:18 of us getting valuable 
12:20 experience that will make us better in
12:22 the respective fields all of us working
12:23 in unison towards a single common goal
12:25 we aim to promote the importance of
12:27 climate science we aim to promote in
12:30 terms of importance climate science it
12:31 produces meaningful scientific
12:33 information and share with anybody
12:35 anywhere so they can do meaningful
12:36 scientific analysis if they so desire I
12:38 and the rest of my team spent countless
12:40 hours working on this mission it is proof
12:42 that our work can have a meaningful
12:44 impact on the world and all says it
12:46 stick to something as a small as a loaf
12:48 of bread thank you
12:50 [Applause]