Tony Zhou
Hello, listeners. Welcome to our final episode of the Edge of Space series. Throughout the series, we’ve shared conversations with the leadership team of IBM Space Tech. I am Tony Zhou, a longitude Fellow at Yale University.

Blake Moya
And I’m Blake Moya, a Longitude fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. We hope you’ve enjoyed this series as much as we have and in this episode, Tony and I will discuss a few highlights and topics that stood out to us.

Tony
I had the pleasure of interviewing Naeem Altaf, who is the CTO of IBM Space Tech. In our two part episode, he talked a lot about what it meant to build a strong foundation in the field of computer science and how you could leverage that skill set to create a lot of impact. In addition, he also talked about mentorship, which is something that I think would provide tremendous value to our listeners. What are your thoughts as someone who is now you know, in grad school, to build that foundation and having that mentorship?

Blake
Yeah, I think building that foundation in technology, I think is related to something that Minsik told me briefly to say in my interview, I think we’ve closed out with his advice to students and young people to stay on top of trends. And I see a link there too, you want to have a technological foundation for your skills as you develop. You know, in grad school, you come in, because you have a specialized skill set, like that you want to advance. You specialize a little bit and then you’re welcomed into this place where you have a bunch of other people who have all been specializing as well. And the goal is to guide and be guided, you’re helping other people, you’re teaching the other students in your cohort, as well as being guided, instructed by all of the faculty members. And so there’s a big community experience of mentorship where everyone’s mentor and a mentee, that’s all developed off of the commonality of, you know, we know a lot about this specific thing, and we want to know more. So I think it’s very interesting to see the translation from my experience in grad school to hearing Naeem talk about mentorship in industry, because they really are very different environments. In industry, you might have to, you know, go and seek out mentors in a way that in grad school, it’s obviously expected to have and be a mentor, because it’s a college, you know, that’s what it’s for.

Tony
Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree, there are definitely parallels. Do you feel that now that you’re in grad school, you’re really digging deep into a specific topic, or do you still feel you’re learning pretty broadly then have options of where you want to dig deep?

Blake
I think it’s both because at least with my field, I came in to statistics with experience in statistics, but not with like, you know, my previous degree was in neuroscience. So I knew about experimental design and all that stuff. But I had no idea how broad the field really was. So as I’m doing my research and diving deep into the specific aspects of statistics that I find interesting, I’ve learned so much more about how much other stuff that there is to do in that field. I think that that’s another thing with, you know, trying to do, this my first series with Longitudes, right? So one thing that I’m learning here, while talking to people about space tech is that every field is like that, you think that you know a little bit about something. And then when you get to talk with these people, you find out how much you didn’t know that you didn’t know, which is something I certainly felt after my conversation with Minsik about edge computing. I thought I thought I knew a little bit I fancy myself a programmer, but it is a very technical field and, you know, you get the sense that with Minsik designing of operating systems on this fragile system that’s going to be in space. You don’t want it to break down, you sort of get an understanding of the depth of knowledge that he must have for IBM to trust in his expertise to get this thing working.

Tony
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I remember hearing Naeem mentioned when he began collaborating with people from NASA and astrophysicists, he was saying, the amount of knowledge that they knew like blew his mind, because, you know, doing all of that stuff was so foreign to him. But he said he knew that with their domain knowledge, they also needed someone who understood, you know, the tech and like the software, to create these products that would advance this whole sort of mission or objective in space tech. He kind of found that’s where he could create value, and he’s been there ever since.

Blake
Yeah, I think that collaboration is a huge lesson to learn from a lot of the stories from Longitude, in a lot of, you know, the big ideas that people find interesting are that you have a collaboration of different people with a huge domain of knowledge in a field. And when they cross paths, you get this wonderful intersection of ideas. So space and computer programming, which are obviously intimately connected anyways, but getting to really see computer programming on the level of learning, like not, oh, I’m going to program a rocket that knows where it’s going to go. But, oh, I’m learning how to program and how to interface and speak with a computer. And simultaneously, I’m learning how to interface and speak with what’s above the sky, you know, it’s over my head. And so I think that those kinds of intersections really brew up some good ideas, it really gets people thinking about things that they wouldn’t have thought of before. So I think it’s a great source of inspiration and innovation.

Tony
Yeah, I mean, I think our time is limited, right? So no one has all the time in the world to learn everything. And so that’s where we do need to be able to leverage our skill set and collaborate with others who are experts in their respective fields. And, you know, try to find a level of synergy that would that allow for some of the great innovations in this world. So the next person that we had the privilege of interviewing was Sarah, who is a NASA biologist

Blake
A microbiologist. My interest in her interview with Quint was, I saw that she spoke about her inspiration when she was young, and that she was, you know, deeply involved in space and had NASA as the goal ever since she went to, I believe, was like a space class at a museum they had, where she lived. And you know, I just find that kind of inspiring young people and seeing that they can have on the trajectory of someone’s life. I really do enjoy seeing that. That was good to hear. And obviously, she has a very principal drive in her work and space. Very glad for her to have made it made her dream happen.

Tony
Yeah, to see success stories is always it’s always like a feel good moment. Do you do anything to help you zone in throughout the day?

Blake
My, my method of zoning in is my inspiration and what I do is I just like making things work, you know, so I’m primarily a programmer. So I’ll make sure that the idea is really well fleshed out before I really get fired up about it. Because once I see where the break points could be, then it’s like, oh, now it’s like a, you know, a puzzle. I think my big inspiration is not as grand or not as focused, as Sarah’s would be, maybe I need to be looking for one a little harder.

Tony
I think it depends, right? I think everybody operates differently.

Blake
Well, before I was just going to talk about Naeem’s, because I think his is quite grand but what about you?

Tony
Me? I think I think I have quite the imagination sometimes so I try to complement that with routine and habits that move me forward towards wherever my imagination is taking me. And that I think is sort of like big picture envisioning of whatever it could be professional life, personal life.

Blake
Yeah, I think people really downplay the importance of imagination in professional life. Because you sort of think imagination is something that you use, if you’re an inventor, or tinkerer or an artist, you know, that’s where your imagination really comes into play. But I don’t think that’s true. I think that everyone benefits from letting their imagination loose, and just seeing where it takes them. And to get to Naeem, because I’m just very fond of his motivations, his imagination is one that I think, you know, it comes out in the way he talks about things. I think he’s very driven towards this humanitarian idea, this humanitarian goal in his work, you know, the mode of the Endurance project of making things accessible, making space accessible, I think probably is his biggest drive. And it was really nice to get to hear that because it’s, it’s motivating.

Tony
Yeah, I mean, he, he really emphasized having this creator mindset, and just always looking for ways to create things. And I think you have to have quite the imagination to to always, you know, be searching for that. Right?

Blake
Yeah, it takes imagination to see where the path is going.

Tony
Absolutely. And, I think you need to have a level of creativity or imagination, laced with like confidence and imagine where a field could be going right because if you want to let say trail blaze in I feel or even if you’re just looking for ways to be creative, there are a lot of things that are not out right now. Right. So like, you have to be able to, like, look into the past and learn from the steps that have been taken and then try to, you know, formulate your own understanding of it to go forward with it.

Blake
Yeah, huge innovations in a field don’t happen because everything, you know, neatly collided by coincidence, they haven’t, because someone with imagination, thought it could happen and tried to make it happen, and to work. And I think, unless I’m gonna mistake this anecdote here, I hope this isn’t an urban legend, I’m going to share. But isn’t it that the invention of the cell phone was inspired by Star Trek because they had small communication devices? And the guy who started assembling this mobile phone had watched Star Trek as a kid. So the imagination of the Star Trek producers to you know, have these basically walkie-talkies get to get to this and who then thinks, oh, you know, that’s cool. I wonder if there’s a way to actually make that real, and here’s how I’m going to try to make that real. And now, it’s in everybody’s pocket.

Tony
Yeah, I think I also remember reading that somewhere.

Blake
So yeah, I don’t know if that’s gonna be one of those silly fun facts, but I believe it, I trust with my heart.

Tony
Yeah, yeah. Where are some places where you draw inspiration from because, you know, for me, even though I, you know, code and stuff, I actually try to draw a lot of inspiration from like, the arts or sports, you know, kind of figures that I follow, and how and how they do things.

Blake
Yeah, I, I look at art a lot, because in statistics, graphs have a very central location in the field, how do you communicate your data, and I take pride in my graphics and the plots that I make. So I definitely try to keep an eye on art and see kind of what people are into and looking for now to make sure that they have that sense of style to give them a little pop.

Tony
Very into the aesthetics with your work

Blake
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, it makes a difference.

Tony
Yeah, I mean, definitely. Okay, so the final person in our series was your conversation with Minsik.

Blake
Yeah, we had very good talk about technology. Yeah, you know, I mentioned this up top, just because I saw a place to bring it in. But I do kind of want to focus on it more Minsik’s advice, after speaking and seeing his expertise come through on edge computing, his advice, by the end of it for people listening is to stay on top of the trends and see what’s new, and what’s happening in, you know, whatever tech is relevant to your field. And I think that that’s really good advice. Because I think my efforts to do that in statistics have really helped me a lot. In short, I started learning how to write GPU code to parallelize operations. And a lot of people in my statistics department are new to that, right. So now I have this Oh, hey, like, I have this domain of knowledge in parallel computing. And you have this domain of knowledge in algorithms that can be parallelized. Let’s meet up and see what we can get out there. So when I when I heard him give that advice, I was like, yeah, that helped me, I think that we should really say that loudly, whatever tech is, or might be relevant to what you do know it, because once you have the tool in your hand, you have a much bigger view of what’s possible to build with it.

Tony
For sure, you know, I would say like doing the right thing

Blake
I know, I was like, well, here’s, you know, this guy’s where I want to be. And here he is talking, in a way similar to how I think maybe, maybe my path will go in a similar direction as his has.

Tony
Yeah, maybe I am connecting the dots the right way.

Blake
Exactly. It was very uplifting. Yeah, that was very fun conversation. I mean, just when you think of the scale of actually putting something up into space, and just the depth of that problem, you know, trying to maintain that contact, keep that communication keep the device functioning. It’s a really good puzzle. Like I said, I’m puzzle motivated.

Tony
Yeah. Problem solving motivated. Yeah. Are you yourself, are you super interested in in the field of space?

Blake
I am more interested in computers than space itself. I like that intersection of, you know, if we go through all this to get a computer system, you know, or a network to work well on Earth. What if we threw one of the components in space? It’s just such a huge chain that it’s like, well, how do they do that? Now I have to know. Do you have what kind of tech do you use? And is there any kind of technology or skill that you think has really benefited you that you were lucky to have learned when you did

Tony
Right now, I think there’s so much data out there in medicine. And people are trying to figure out ways to analyze that and use tools such as machine learning to interpret it in a meaningful way. Because I think there’s such minor room for error if you’re trying to, let’s say, create a new drug, or let’s say, publish on health outcomes research to to benefit, you know, patient health, that you really have to get it right. And sometimes it’s not even, let’s say, the algorithm, sometimes it’s the data because in health care, there’s just so many features or, you know, like variables to figure out

Blake
Very high dimensional data, and a lot of it de-identified in ways that are not conducive to summarizing.

Tony
But then there aren’t that many samples. And so, you know, in healthcare research, sometimes you just have like, a few 100 samples, or a few 100.

Blake
And then 1000 columns, 1000 variables.

Tony
Yeah, especially for like rare diseases. And so I think that’s something right now that researchers or even people in industry, academia, both just trying to figure out how we’re going to interpret that data, because there’s some volumes of data out there. And we should be able to find some insight towards that. You know, the vision is that precision medicine will be at a point where each person can receive that tailored treatment, but it takes quite a bit away.

Blake
There’s a ways to go. And you think that machine learning is going to be one of the tools that helps build that future.

Tony
Yes, yes. But I think right now, even is to just get everybody to the same communication level, even of like, what is machine learning, right? And what isn’t impossible, because, you know, sometimes people who are just hearing the buzzwords of Machine, AI are like, Oh my God, that means that you could solve anything, right? It’s like, no, not really. So it’s being able to bridge that connection. Because earlier, we talked about having expertise in different areas, and then kind of like, combining that to be able to work at this intersection. But I think when you do combine that when you collaborate, both people need to be somewhat on the same page, because then you’re able to discuss ideas and have an understanding of problems.

Blake
Yeah, and I think communication is key has been my guiding word for a lot. That’s why I especially was, you know, excited to come here to the Longitudes podcast because I was like, here’s the interface that I can get from academia to industry professionals. I want to, wanted to learn what they knew and hear what they had to say. And so it was nice to have this out to be able to do that build that communication

Tony
At the top of the skill set is communication skills.

Blake
This brings us to the end of our episode in the Edge of Space series. Tune in next for our series on ocean research.

Tony
Follow Longitude on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to make sure you don’t miss the release of the next Longitude Sound Bytes series. You can also visit our website, longitude dot site, s-i-t-e, for more information and content.

 

Quint Smits
At the intersection of ideas and action, this is Longitude Sound Bytes, where we bring innovative insights from around the world directly to you.

My name is Quint Smits, Longitude fellow from Tilburg university. In today’s episode we will be featuring highlights from a conversation I led with Sarah Wallace, a microbiologist at NASA.
She is part of our Edge of Space series, where we explored the roles of individuals, experiences, and cutting-edge technologies that are preparing us for the Moon and beyond.

As an all-around science lover I was interested to hear about anything she had to say, but the application of edge computing in space and the relatively unknown to me application of microbiology in space were the major topics. We started our conversation with her introduction.

Sarah Wallace
I am a NASA microbiologist. I’m over a laboratory of about 17-18 people, so we’re a pretty big lab. We are the microbiology laboratory for the agency. So while NASA has 10 centers around the United States, we are the micro lab, located in Houston, Texas, which is also the home of the astronauts. And you know, for me, I’ve always wanted to work for NASA. Since actually sixth grade, this has been my goal. So I’m proud to say that I’ve made it. And so we do a lot of a lot of different cool stuff. But I think the one thing at the end of the day, our goal is to make sure the astronauts stay safe from any contaminating microbes that could come from the air or the water or the surfaces of Space Station. We also look at the payloads that go up, the food, the cargo, you name it, we look at all of it. But my niche in all of it is that I’m really invested in implementing new technology, because the way that we’ve been doing microbiology in space is the same way we’ve been doing it since the beginning of Space Station. And before that, we only did it on the ground. So that relies on culture plates, traditional petri dishes and things like that. And my passion has really been to enable new technology. And we actually put a DNA sequencer on the ISS. And we developed the methods to allow us to be able to go from a swab to a sequencer of anything and be able to detect those microbes without having to culture them, which I think is going to be really, really important as we move beyond ISS and head back to the moon and onto Mars.

Quint
So what led you to fall in love with NASA in the sixth grade?

Sarah
So I have to give all the credit to my sixth grade science teacher. His name was Jim Lester. I grew up in a very small town in Kansas. Very small town. But about an hour from our small town was another small town, Hutchinson, Kansas, and it’s home of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. And it really is world renowned for its collection of spaceflight memorabilia. So as the largest collection of spaceflight artifacts, both US and Russian—Soviet at the time—anywhere in the world, that, you know, for a nerd, it’s just the coolest place ever. And they had a space camp. And so my sixth grade science teacher took us on a back scenes tour of the Space Camp. And that was it. I begged my parents to let me go that summer. And I went that summer. And then they had an advanced camp the following summer and I went to that as well. And ever since then I’ve had a laser focus on getting to NASA. So I gotta give him all the credit for introducing all of us kids to that world and teaching us. You know, he taught us so much more than the order of the planets in the solar system. He taught us NASA history and this really cool thing that none of us had lived through, which was the moon landing. He made it so cool. And I’ve been in love ever since.

Quint
So then of all the things you can do at NASA, why microbiology?

Sarah
Most people don’t even know there is a microbiology lab, so that happened during my undergrad when I was working on my undergrad degree. Science has always been my thing. Like always. I joke and you know, when I talk to other students I tell them, STEM is really important. You don’t have to be good at every aspect of it. I’m not great at math. You know, in the terms of something like organic chemistry, or inorganic chemistry even, where it made sense to me, I was always good at it. But just math for math’s sake, no. So really biology and chemistry was where I thrived. And then when I got to undergrad, there was a lab there that had NASA funding to look at extremophile microorganisms, the things that maybe, you know, if there is life on Mars, those type of microbes that live in these really salty, dry, harsh conditions. And that professor that ran that lab saw my interest and said, come do a rotation in my lab, come see what it’s all about. That’s where I did my first DNA extraction, I was running my first PCRs, so that combination of having these growing things on a plate with using the molecular biology tools that I was already starting to be really interested in, it just kind of clicked for me. And so I really owe my undergraduate studies to that, to finding microbiology.

Quint
I have been looking at a couple of microscopes for myself, because I really want to start up the hobby of microbiology. As you know, YouTube and the internet has opened us up to being able to get any information we want and being able to see the world under the microscope. That’s just the coolest thing. So, a bit about the project you did about the DNA sequencing, how did you get it so pocket sized?

Sarah
The device was actually created by a company in the UK, Oxford Nanopore Technologies. So it was really getting in early with them, really trusting what they were doing, and seeing the development and the things that were coming, to where then, our creative aspect of that was- so normally my molecular laboratory has several big DNA sequencers, bigger than a microwave, that are very vibration sensitive, you can’t even run a vortex on the same bench. And then we also have other things to extract DNA, thermal cyclers that we use PCR reaction to amplify DNA, all these things are big, they’re heavy, they consume a lot of power. My folks that work for me, they’re all amazing, and they all have had years and years of training. So how do you take all of that, and put it in a way that you can send it to space, you can do it on the space station, and the astronauts can do it without any problem who have had no training. So our kind of thing was really was to develop that sample prep. It was great that the DNA sequencer Minion worked in flight, that was amazing, we did that test first. But even while we were testing that, getting ready to launch it for the first time, we already had astronauts who were actually living on the ocean floor at this habitat called NEEMO. They had already tested our whole swab-to-sequencer method before astronaut Kate Rubins even ran the first test of the Minion in flight. So we were already headed in that direction. And so using some of these great analogues, like that habitat on the ocean floor, really allowed us to test all these crazy different ways we could make the sample prep work. There’s a lot that needs to happen, right, to go from a swab to getting the DNA in a format that the sequencer will be able to read. So that’s what we developed. And we got it working through two rounds of NEEMO and a whole bunch of other ground testing. And we’ve now been doing it on board ISS since 2018.

Quint
And why is it so important for the astronauts to be able to do this DNA sequencing aboard the space station?

Sarah
That’s a really good question. So for me, from a microbiology standpoint, the way we do our risk assessment and say, how safe is the environment for the crew, we need to know the identity of those microbes. Just knowing that you cultured, and you can see some microbes on a petri dish, we expect that. There’s microbes everywhere around us, so that’s not surprising. But needing to know, are they the kind that could be a problem? Or are they the kind that we don’t worry about, that’s really the critical piece of information we know. And when you look at them on a plate, they all look the same, it’s impossible to tell what’s what. So how we’ve been doing that, and getting that critical information to be able to assess the risk of all these different systems is by returning those to the ground. So we’re telling the crew what was in the water they drank, in the air they were breathing, and on the surfaces they were living with, months after the fact. Right now it hasn’t been such a problem, because we have all these great- SpaceX and Orbital and all these folks that are, our Russian colleagues, who are routinely sending up cargo vehicles. So we can send up more disinfectant wipes, we can send up more antibiotics, we can send up a part to replace something on the water system if something’s being fouled up. We can do that pretty easily. Once we move away from ISS, we are going to lose those capabilities, we’re going to be much more dependent on what we take with us. So it’s going to be really important to know what is in the water. If there’s something growing on the wall, what is it? Do we leave it alone? Do we need to waste all of the disinfectant wipes? Same thing with antibiotics. Do we treat it? Is it just an acne type bacteria? Is it something worse? Those are the kind of questions we need to be able to address quickly once we lose this close proximity to earth and all these resupply vehicles that we have. That’s just from the microbiology standpoint. So I have colleagues that are also- when we first launched the sequencer, Dr. Aaron Burton, who is really interested in this technology from a life detection aspect. So the way that this sequencer works is different than the way any of the other traditional sequencers work. With the other sequencers, you’re usually detecting the fluorescence associated with that given DNA base. They fluoresce different colors, but we attach the fluorescent molecule then, and then we read that fluorescence to get the sequence. This works very differently. All we’re doing is detecting a change in current. Because of that you could really detect anything, right? It doesn’t have to be DNA or RNA as we know it on Earth, it could be something truly extra-terrestrial, which is exciting to think about. So we wouldn’t necessarily have a reference to know, okay, this is what this weird thing is, but we could detect it. So it’s a really exciting tool for the detection of potential other biomolecules beyond Earth. So that that in of itself, I think, is just really cool to think about. And anybody who’s doing research trying to understand how plants, animals, microbes, you name it, how they respond to spaceflight, this is a phenomenal tool to understand changes in gene expression and those basic questions that we still haven’t answered. We know every living thing responds to spaceflight, but we don’t really understand all the hows and the whys, looking at changes in the DNA, looking at changes in the RNA, looking at changes in the epigenome. Those are all things that can lead us to those understandings that are really important.

Quint
This is a big if, but if you were to find extra-terrestrial DNA, how would you know if it is dangerous or not?

Sarah
That again, excellent question. So if we were to find it, we could potentially use something like the Minion and some other tools to say yes, this is biological, this is life. If it has some type of nucleic acid that we’re familiar with, we know certain types of virulence factors or pathogenicity genes fall in different classes. And what we’ve learned based on life on Earth is those tend to all kind of look the same, so we could start to do an initial screen just to see if we see any homologues, to what we’re seeing, based on what we know of life on Earth. I think that our approach from a planetary protection aspect would be that- and this is going back to just micro kind of understanding- the things that have evolved to survive in those types of conditions, we would not expect to be able to infect a human. Looking at something like these extreme places on earth, the really salty, the high pressure, the high temperature, the low temperature, the things that have evolved to survive there are not dangerous to us because they would never be able to colonize and survive and do anything in our bodies. So that’s kind of our go-in approach is that we think that the risk would be really, really low. But we would obviously do all the testing to try to understand that. And one of the first things is to see, does this look like anything we’re familiar with on Earth? And then the next best thing would be obviously start to do a lot of testing.

Quint
I know that sterilization on the ISS isn’t really necessary, but there is a kind of microbiome which you can live with. If you go to visit other planets like Mars, and you need to get sterilized so that you figure out if you’ve brought it along, how does that go?

Sarah
So I think that that’s an excellent question. And that’s something- I cannot tell you how many meetings per week I’m in about this very topic right now. This is something that NASA, along with all of our international colleagues, are really starting to take a hard look at. I think that we’re going to try to do a couple things. It’s going to be impractical to really know every single thing that’s in the spacecraft microbiome. We can do a lot to try to establish a baseline. Whatever vehicle we’re going to Mars in, what is that vehicle, what does the microbiome look like? And then what we will look for is, are there any perturbations in that, do we see any spikes, is anything looking weird, to try to understand if we’ve brought something back in with us. And I think in the time between now and when we go to Mars, again, we’re never going to know every single little microbe and every DNA sequence that’s there, but we can have a pretty good idea. And that can help us rule out a lot of things we might potentially find on Mars. We’re getting ready to start an experiment onboard the ISS, hopefully in 2022 it’ll be happening, where we’re actually going to have the astronauts take these big swabs out on EVA–so outside the ISS–and swab vents and places that we think might be leaking microbes, vents that are venting from ISS. We’re also going to be looking at on the actual EVA suits, places that vent from those, to try to start to understand, okay, are we leaking microbes? What’s surviving? Are they spreading? Are they viable? Or are we just able to detect their DNA? Those are the types of questions we’re going to start asking. So I’m hopeful that all these studies will provide a lot of data that we can then use modeling and things like that to help us have better predictions at how much cleaning and/or sterilization is needed.

Quint
I don’t know how much you plan what the astronauts will be doing. The flight time to Mars is like eight, nine months, what will they be doing in that time?

Sarah
I think a lot of that will come out of what we learn going back to the Moon. So the plan is to have something called Gateway in orbit around the Moon. So you can think of Gateway as a smaller ISS that instead of orbiting Earth orbits the Moon, and you’re going to have kind of an Apollo scenario where you launch four crew members, and two stay at the Gateway and two go down to the Moon. The astronauts that stay on the Gateway, I think we can learn a lot about what they should be prepping and what they should be getting ready in kind of a simulated Mars situation. And at first the Gateway missions will be pretty short, 30 days, things like that. But then the idea is that they’ll ramp up and we’ll have people that live in them for longer time to get us ready for that Mars scenario. So I imagine it’ll be a lot of things like maintenance of their craft, keeping their vehicle safe is going to be a big part of it, maintenance is always something we do. Then they’re going to need some kind of exercise, that’s a definite requirement, because we’re going to expect them to be healthy enough to get out of that vehicle and walk on Mars after they’ve been in it for a long time, right. So we’re going to need to make sure they’re in good physical shape. So exercise. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of things that we do for their mental shape as well to keep them mentally happy and engaged. And I do think there’ll be some science, and whether that’s growing some plants, doing things like every few days collecting swabs and sequencing them to understand the microbiome, I think those will all be engaging and enriching things that are providing really valuable information and helping keep them busy and engaged. And I mean, the astronauts, they’re not all scientists, but they all love doing it so much, we’ve not yet met a crew member who just wasn’t so excited about the idea of doing DNA sequencing and knowing what those microbes were in near real time, they’ve all loved it. They all love growing and caring for the plants. And so I think that it’ll be really important for the folks at NASA who do figure out all those activities to take all that into account. And that is the kind of information that a lot of people don’t realize that we’re collecting on ISS right now.

Quint
This is something which saddens me a little bit, but there’s a bit of a negative climate around space and space exploration. Like if you type in the word space in Google, one of the first article plates that shows up is why space shuttle is a waste of money with one of the main arguments being, as we have so many problems still on Earth, why are we spending so much money on space? While percentage-wise it’s not that much, can you say a bit about why it is so important?

Sarah
Yeah, and I agree with you, it is really sad. And as we’ve seen more and more of these guys with a lot of money doing this space tourism thing, I think it’s even gotten a little more of a negative effect. I will say, what Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX is just incredible. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with them since kind of the beginning when they were getting their cargo vehicle online, and to see how quickly and how safely they’ve transitioned to fly our crew, and just how great that’s been. I can’t say enough good things about what SpaceX has done. And we’re really excited to see Boeing come online and potentially start launching our astronauts. And again, I know that that in and of itself probably doesn’t make a lot of people excited. But it does me, because it’s showing that it’s not just NASA anymore, there’s other avenues. So from a very simplistic point for me, it’s that human nature to need to explore, to want to explore. And for me, a small town kid from this little town in Kansas, and here I am in Houston, in my opinion doing really cool things, and it’s because of that excitement, that passion, that desire to explore. And I don’t know how many kids I can tell you that, like myself then, that I’ve seen follow the same path, and we’re doing these things today because NASA inspired us, Not just NASA, spaceflight, what our Russian colleagues did, and now what our ESA (European Space Agency) and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) colleagues are doing, you know, it’s incredible. And so it’s just that desire to explore. And I feel like as a human race, the minute we stop exploring, and the minute we stop trying to advance technology and understanding and learning, it’s kind of like, what for? I feel like there’s so many questions. And I think NASA is trying to do a better job. And I think that’s something we’ll continue to do, to show how many things have come to benefit life on Earth because of the advances we’ve made in space, and because of the technologies we’ve developed in space, we’ve made life on Earth better for so many. And I will say that’s one of the mottos of the International Space Station, “In space for Earth.” We’re doing things there to come back and translate to Earth, that aren’t to benefit space. They’re to benefit people on Earth.

Quint
Indeed. If you have got this infinite sandbox, why just sit on one grain of sand?

Sarah
Yep.

Quint
What is the favorite space project of all time?

Sarah
Of course I’m biased with mine because I think it’s great that we can do complex molecular biology in space. But I also think, just kind of as a whole, all the plant growth that they’re doing. There’s several plant payloads, veggies, so many different aspects to look at crop production, plant growth in space. And I think that that’s going to be insanely critical for us going forward, how do we produce food and feed our astronauts, and what we didn’t expect was all the psychological benefits that the astronauts would get from that. So just that’s so cool that we do that now, that they’re growing things and eating them on board. That’s pretty cool.

Quint
You want to talk a bit more about edge computing? Why is it important, especially in space exploration, to use edge computing?

Sarah
As we work with something—again, in a context I understand, something like DNA—the data that we’re able to acquire is just so much more and so much bigger. Whether it’s imagery data, or DNA sequence data, we’re talking big data. Downlinking that data to Earth to be able to do something with it, make meaning of it, which is that’s the important thing you do with your data, as data gets bigger and bigger and bigger, that’s the challenge. And so if you’re able to take your data all the way from, you know, for us to go from the sample to the data generation to the answer, that’s the key part, right? We want to get to the answer. So having this capability on board ISS allows us to do that. Without having to send these massive data files back down to earth, we can have them processed onboard, again, reaching that near real-time. So it’s not real-time, but near real-time goal of being able to say, this is what was in the water, this is what was growing on the wall. This was what was infecting the crew member. Data are meaningless if you don’t have the tools to process them and understand them and make meaning. So for me, that’s the biggest thing that this has done. You know, we’ve been doing microbiology the same way since the beginning of ISS, which is sending plates back to Earth. That’s still what we were doing until this collaboration we’ve had with IBM and edge computing, we were having to send the data back to Earth. So being able to not be dependent on Earth is huge, right? Being able to get that true answer without having to wait for it to be sent down and process it on Earth is really a big game changer in all of this.

Quint
So it cuts down the latency by like a month or so.

Sarah
Exactly. You know, when it comes to something like space travel, NASA and SpaceX and our international colleagues, everybody has done such a good job at reducing risk. There’s always risk, and when something goes wrong, that’s when you don’t have the time to wait on an answer. You need that answer quickly.
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Quint
Thanks again to Sarah for the interview. I really enjoyed her talking about her work and her insights on these space projects. Space is just so cool and let’s, like she said, fill that need for our human nature to explore by continuing these awesome projects.

We hope you enjoyed today’s segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and visit Longitude.site for the episode transcript. Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

 

Blake Moya
At the intersection of ideas and action, this is Longitude Sound Bytes, where we bring innovative insights from around the world directly to you.

I am Blake Moya, Longitude fellow from The University of Texas at Austin. In today’s episode we will be featuring highlights from a conversation I led with Minsik Lee, a Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM.

He is part of our Edge of Space series, where we explored the roles of individuals, experiences, and cutting-edge technologies that are preparing us for exploration on the Moon and beyond.

As a graduate statistician, I was interested to hear about the technical challenges involved in edge computing and the ways that overcoming these challenges can change the way we look at computing in general. We started our conversation with Minsik’s description of a CubeSat, a kind of miniature satellite on which his team at IBM would be launching their software.

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Minsik Lee
I’m a senior technical staff member in IBM. I work as an edge computing architect, and I also work as a full stack software engineer. My focus area is mostly edge computing and hybrid cloud. For the last two years, I work in space tech industry. We are trying to apply our cloud native and the software-defined and emerging technology on the space industry. That includes the Space Station, or satellites, and this CubeSat.

Blake
Would you mind breaking down what CubeSat is and what this Endurance CubeSat mission is for people who maybe haven’t heard of it?

Minsik
The new concept is that instead of some expensive satellite, we can maybe launch some small microsatellites in the space and it can have an economic benefit. We can use a shared environment. There are many companies, including some universities, that are now developing and sending these Cubesats to space. It is a mission similar to satellite. The mission can be different based on the kind of equipment that is attached to the CubeSat. For example, some CubeSats can have some kind of a camera that can provide images of Earth. They also can have sensors. They can provide the location or temperature or some other sensor data, they can collect it there and send it back to ground. That way, we can collect sensor data in a space environment and then do some more analysis testing on the ground.

Blake
Thank you. And so what is your role specifically on this project or within Endurance?

Minsik
Yes. So our team focuses on edge computing areas. You may be aware that there was a project called Mayflower. That project developed an autonomous boat. From the IBM side, we applied IT stack and then also provided operation to support that autonomous boat. In our perspective, that kind of use case for the edge computing environment. And then one day we just thought, why don’t we apply the same technology onto space, so we just had that idea about two years ago. And then we met people in NASA, and then we shared these ideas. And then we have some opportunities to apply software defined technologies on Space Station or satellites. Then we started a project called Endurance. That’s our own CubeSat. And so we will launch this one next year. And then our goal is to have kind of a playground. That way anybody can test their code in our CubeSat environment. Of course, CubeSat is very small. We plan to have a kind of emulated environment on the ground, so they can test their code on the ground environment. We will also have historical data gathered from the CubeSat so they can test and do some AI processing with their sensor data. And then we try to open this kind of playground with this environment to anybody, not only for some special scientist. And then after the launch we plan to share our architecture and then our lessons learned in public.

Blake
Yeah, I love the motive of this Endurance misison of, I believe the tagline is “democratizing access to space.” And you had made a remark where you said, you know, taking the edge computing principles used in Mayflower and just bring it to space. And of course, the “just” there does a lot of work because getting to space is difficult, but this is a big effort to bring space to the masses. Do you want to go into a little detail about how people could- I know that you mentioned that it’ll be a playground where programmers and developers can work on their code, practice their code, and then send it up to the satellite itself? Could you talk a little bit about what kind of people you’re hoping to attract to use the CubeSat?

Minsik
For now, our primary target will be high school students, and then maybe students in the university who can help. Maybe their skill set will be different, right? Some people will have a sciences background or a teaching background. Some of them will have some deep understanding or a high-level scaling AI. So originally we are developing that kind of class and for the high school and the student first. And then we will provide a different level of languages. So they can just develop their code using Python or node.js. We will provide API and then testing development environment. The people who are not so familiar with coding, we will provide kind of a web-based, block-based coding experience, similar to Scratch. So we will provide that interface. Also, of course we will provide some kind of a guideline, and then some kind of step-by-step kind of a thing. So that way, they can imagine something, and then they can understand that they can focus on the problem. That way, they can just consume our data on the ground, and just build the code, and then we will have a system that will convert the block to Python code. Then we can send this code to the CubeSat. We will just execute that, and that we can get the result really quickly. However, sometimes it depends on the schedule of our ground station connectivity, sometimes maybe within a day we can get the result for that. The main thing is that we are trying to provide some computing runtime environment. That’s the kind of playground. Yeah, so we are applying some cloud native technologies, such as a container technology, Kubernetes technology, on our environment.

Blake
Yeah, I was reading about how this kind of code that people produce would be containerized to run on the satellite itself. And so if my understanding of edge computing is correct, it’s that we have this distributed process, there’s some analysis that we want to do on data here on Earth, there’s some data that we want to collect off in space. And we’re deciding where each computation takes place. And I assume the goal with edge computing is putting as much computation as we can up at the data collection level to limit what we have to transmit to and from, is that correct?

Minsik
Yes, correct. And then on the ground we have more computing power on the system and backend. So you can do the kind of distributed parallel processing on the backend side with historical data. And then in space we are trying to find some use case that can have a benefit in the CubeSat environment. Sensor data, image data processing. And we are trying to include some other some interesting technologies, like quantum technologies, that way we can do different use cases.

Blake
And so then, a lot of your role has been in working in making sure that the containerization process, people’s code works and will run once it gets up into space.

Minsik
Right. I mean, in our network connectivity, we are able to only contact our CubeSat from the ground station. Each ground station will have 10 minutes’ connectivity to the satellite each time. So we are not able to send the entire container code to the CubeSat. We will have a pre-defined container runtime in CubeSat. And then from ground, we will only send the code. I need to make sure that we can execute on that code on the CubeSat in that kind of autonomous environment. If there is a crash or something, I mean, we are not able to use that anymore. So I’m testing. I need to make sure that nothing can break the operating system or runtime environment. Container runtime will provide limited access, and then the code should not break our CubeSat. So we think we need to have a kind of separate security policy, and then the runtime environment should provide just playground for the sandbox environment, for the code itself. Actually, that’s my main objective. Once we complete this one and we have a stable CubeSat environment, the next one is the ground-based development environment. That way, people have their class, their session using our ground environment. So now we are gathering some volunteers, developing a course and then also we are developing the ground-based environment functionalities.

Blake
And I mean, satellites seem like, to me, the pinnacle of edge computing, because it really seems like the highest risk of failure, because if it crashes up there, you can’t just go get it, you can’t go turn it off and back on again. Do you find it stressful, how confident you have to be in these processes in this software stack?

Minsik
Yes. We continue to test to make sure that we can have… we can overcome some emergency situation. So, we have a backup image for the operating system, and that way we can restore. However in the case of physical damage or radiation, I mean the radiation problem, yeah. So I need to just pray. Actually, we just have one other experience, we applied our software on International Space Station already. And so we have some reference around. However, in the case of International Space Station, the data was similar to our data center. Similar kind of runtime environment and then from ground and then we are, we can push the code and we can get the data we want. So the concept is still similar, but in the security case, it’s more challenging.

So just my viewpoint, and what can be done next generation data center or environment. So I think that I’m not sure what that will include, some edge, end edge based micro data center. Just imagine that, I mean, that the future of the data center can include the edge and include the space part. So yeah, this is just a good opportunity to think such a kind of architecture and the use case, I think.

Blake
I think it’s amazing to see the direction that the computing on Earth is taking between cloud computing and edge computing. We’re really seeing a broad distribution of physical hardware across physical distances and land. And it just makes me think of how people have really stopped using desktops for the most part, because a laptop is all you need. Any higher level or higher intensity computation, it’s all done somewhere else. So I really think that this kind of work is going to change what we think of interfacing with computers is at all. Like, I really think that this is a very interesting direction. Happy to have a chat with somebody so involved. So if I could talk a little bit about the innovation, the mindset that goes into a project like this, because edge computing, as I just said, I think it’s on the frontier of computing in general. What do you think drives that kind of innovation? What do you think drives the idea or the incentive to say, hey, we just did this on the Mayflower, let’s just do it in space now. What does it take to have that motivation?

Minsik
There are a lot of activities in the space area from the commercial companies, and there’s already a lot of technical innovation there. So, we never imagined the kind of network connectivity in space. We never imagined, kind of satellite based or Mars based or Moon based, that kind of infrastructure part. However, now, we already have some kind of network environment in space, and so satellite can use the Wi Fi work 4g or 5g network not only for this space area, in many industries, just to apply the modern IT technology autonomous car or electric car is the main trend in that industry. Mayflower is similar, right? We can just consider the car age or kind of the compute or kind of robot and that can have a kind of brain, some IT enabled brain and they can do more intelligent processing for the drivers. And in space industry, there are so many opportunities to utilize the current IT technologies. So we don’t have to invent technology from scratch, we can just apply that. Once we can have this kind of emerging IT technology in some space use case, we can apply the same thing on other use cases. Yeah, that is our motivation when we start this work.

Blake
And you were saying that you are able to use some of the innovations that other people have produced or the technologies that other people produce to help drive your own. I think that’s something that this project is going to do for a lot of other people. Part of democratizing access to space instrumentation is that people will want to learn more about space, want to get more involved with the space industry, and they don’t have to launch their own rocket or build their own satellite, they can use the stepping stones placed down by people like you to further themselves. And I think that’s fantastic. So I have my own personal interest in edge computing. So I’ve been excited to talk about that. But I think part of this project taking place in space is more of a show of force for edge computing. But I’m interested to know, has this project gotten you personally more interested in the space industry? Or have you always had an interest in space? Is it your interest in space that brought you to edge computing, or your work in edge computing that brought you to space, I guess is the question?

Minsik
Yeah, so actually, I majored in mathematics and information security, and then worked IBM for like 15 years as an architect. When I joined our group, I realized that we can do some interesting things to further edge computing use cases. In my case, I got opportunity to work in this space area. So I’m also learning a lot about this industry.

Blake
I’m very excited to see what the face of computing is going to look like in four or five years as more and more projects like this and people like you get involved, I think that we definitely have a lot to look forward to. I did want to ask, just as far as some inspiration to people who want to follow a similar line of work as you, and I assume that there are many, because any work in computing is obviously highly transferable, you can work on autonomous ships in space, and anyone needs a computer. So do you have any advice for people following a similar career path either in computing or just kind of searching around for a field that they think they can be happy in and be productive in?

Minsik
Yes. I recommend that now kind of machine learning. When you consider autonomous or some edge computing environment, it will be critical to understand such a new trend, especially AI and the environment. I recommend the people have some skill, and then start in the AI industry. And that will enable and bring a lot of good ideas, and then maybe they can find their career paths, I think.

Blake
So keep on top of the trends. Know what’s in.

Minsik
Exactly. So five years ago, I didn’t see any data scientist, as I remember, I mean only a few. Right now, new trend, AI part and AI ML part. So if we have some understanding for that, then use case that will be very helpful now so many new emerging technologies, right? And it’s really hard to catch up. I mean, it will be good to check the latest in the technologies. And then, I’d like to encourage that people to pay attention to the latest trend, and then some technology. Then they will have more idea for their work.

Blake
There’s new opportunities emerging everywhere.

Minsik
Right. There’s no barrier now in any industry.

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Blake
My conversation with Minsik elucidated something magical about the seemingly sterile field of edge computing design: the way that Minsik is sending computational work into space to lighten the load on the ground computers parallels the way that he’s sending his expertise to new programmers, who soon will no longer have to overcome the financial, technical, and gravitational barriers to experimenting with space. By connecting a satellite only 10cm across to a global network, Minsik’s team at IBM will be connecting young programmers to a space tech community that used to be –quite literally—a world away. That is truly a “stellar” achievement. Thanks again to Minsik Lee for chatting with me and thank you all for listening.

We hope you enjoyed today’s segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and visit Longitude.site for the episode transcript. Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

 

Tony Zhou
At the intersection of ideas and action, this is Longitude Sound Bytes, where we bring innovative insights from around the world directly to you.

Hi everyone! My name is Tony Zhou, and I am a Longitude Fellow from Yale University. Today, I have the pleasure of presenting part 2 of my interview with Naeem Altaf. Naeem is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the Chief Technology Officer of IBM Space Tech and IBM Cloud. We continue our conversation with Naeem sharing unexpected surprises throughout the project, and his thoughts on leadership and mentorship.

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Naeem Altaf
We have a very good mentor program in IBM. We have this thing called IBM Academy. Basically, what Academy is, the people who like to do innovation work, they come and they showcase their work to the whole IBM. You can go and create initiatives and people join those initiatives, they get interested. In IBM, the space part has almost literally been dead for last 15 years, because they’re focused something else now. So I tried to reignite it last year. Oh, because IBM played a huge role in putting men on moon. At that time, IBM was the one with the computers and everything, and IBM dedicated 4000 engineers to NASA for those years, just to go and make the Apollo mission successful. So we have a legacy, we have a huge history there. So I’m trying to reignite that, to speak about it and inspire people and give them information. My personal focus has always been innovation, what we can do.

Tony
Yeah, that’s really inspiring. Who would you say have been some of your mentors or people who have influenced you along your path?

Naeem
You need to have mentors, always. Because they’re your guide in front and they help you navigate, especially when you’re working in bigger companies who have- we used to have like 400,000 people, right? You can easily get lost in this big company. The first few years, you have no idea. Just go to work, do your thing, come home excited about the paycheck. That’s it, right. But they were the ones who showed that this can be done, basically the art of possibility. What is the art of possibility? This, this, this, you can do all these things. They give you these things, and then it’s up to you if you want to take that opportunity and go. It’s very simple. As a parent also, let’s say you have three, four kids, right? Every day you tell them these things. Two or three of them just listen and say “that’s really cool.” One of them comes back and says you know what, tell me more, I am interested, and all this stuff. Then you pay more attention, because this kid is hungry to do something. Same thing in a profession. So they will show you, but then you also have to put a lot of effort in. I remember I used to come back home at like two or three o’clock in the morning. And then next day, I’m back at work at seven o’clock, eight o’clock. It’s not like you get overtime pay or something. It’s just like, you’re curious, you want to learn this stuff. All because you don’t know, and somebody at a high level is like, I’ll show you this stuff. You want to be respectful and learn from them. And the knowledge only comes from respect. This is a saying of the East, which the West does not understand. But in our part of the world, Pakistan or China, you have to respect your teacher.

Tony
Absolutely. I used to study music prior to switching to study data science. One of my mentors, professors, created this analogy, or this image, about how your relationship with your mentor is a lot like rowing a boat. Both of you need to be rowing, right? Not only one person could be rowing, because if one person rows, then you’re just going in circles. But both of you need to be rowing together. And I totally agree. It’s about mutual respect, respecting the other person’s time, respecting the other person’s efforts and knowledge and wisdom, but then also at the same time, it’s this back and forth, right. And I think especially when we’re young as students, we think that we are just receiving information from our teacher. But that’s absolutely not true. I think it’s also about how you’re returning, because the mentor also gets enjoyment or fulfillment from inspiring you.

Naeem
And there’s lots of things, for example, what you’re doing in your age group right now, they were not there when I was there, 20 years ago. So I have a lot to learn from you also. The basic point is learning. As long as you’re in that learning mode, you will keep on going up. The moment you think, you know what, I know it all, you will stop. I mean, it’s not complicated.

Tony
That’s awesome. If you had to redo things again, would you start differently? Or would computer science still be that choice?

Naeem
I would like to be closer to the people, whatever the work I do, which takes me closer to the people. I have three daughters. I told them, I don’t want you to be in the tech industry. I want it to be the industry where you actually touch a human. And one of those industries is healthcare. There is plenty of stuff here for us. Of course, there is no end to the greed. At a certain level you reach you’re lucky, enough is enough. I mean, what else? How many gadgets are you gonna buy? They are just gonna sit there, just wasting, right? But the thing is, when you go and help some human, the amount of satisfaction you get in your heart, that is priceless. No money can buy that.

Tony
But don’t you think with tech, though, you’re able to pull in mass, like at scale? A lot of?

Naeem
Indirectly. Yes, you’re right. You do. But in general you do things, and it helps people. But when you go and you help some elderly people, you do something that- you help them somewhat, right, that’s instant, like, you see their smile. So I see that in healthcare, because people who come to hospitals are in pain. When you help them, and when you see the smile, and when they give something, when they say something to you, that is totally priceless.

Tony
Talking about healthcare now, and medicine. As you mentioned, there was DNA sequencing up in space, I’m assuming that is to explore and research microbes or other things in space. How do you envision that step, or the steps we need to take for humans or medicine to be in space?

Naeem
That is a very, very, very critical thing. So for example, they’re talking about Artemis going to the moon and staying over there for, you know, just trying to stay there. And then eventually to Mars. We’re going to spend billions of dollars to do that. Okay, so let’s say we spent, I don’t know, several hundreds of billions, and we sent four or five people. And the moment they arrive there, a day or two later, that they die. You’re like, okay, what then now, right? You spent all this money to put humans and they could not survive the environment for whatever reason. If you can’t protect your payload, basically your mission is failed. That’s your payload, which you’re putting. So you have … I mean, you put up any fancy stuff in the orbit, and the moment you put in the orbit it just stops working. It’s a failure, big failure. So yeah, so healthcare is a big concern, the health of the astronaut. So there’s lots of work going on where you’re putting a lot of biosensors on them and checking for why does all this happen. But DNA sequencing tells almost everything about that living being. You can detect so much stuff. So that- our focus was edge computing. What happens with DNA sequencing today, when they do this DNA sequencing, run through this stuff, it generates like a half a terabyte of data. Now that data has to come back to the ground, which will take a lot of time, it will eat up a lot of bandwidth. And then it has to go through the companies who just like to know all that stuff. And then into the hands of scientists, by the time it gets to the hands of scientists it is already like two months late. Who knows the environment, right? If we can do that computation right there for you, that you can get your results because the value of that data, the window of opportunity is very small. If you miss that window, I gave you data and you look it after five days, it’s almost useless now. You should have looked at it right then. Let’s say you’re on the moon. Now you take the samples and you wait for when the next flight will come, we will send the samples back. That can be months. And if you are at Mars that can be years. So the idea was okay, while you’re doing your research at that spot, I need the answer right there. So that was the whole idea of that. I mean, DNA has done amazing things for us in this century.

Tony
Would you want to go into space?

Naeem
Yeah, definitely, would love to go to space. Every night when I go to sleep and- because you see dreams, right? I mean, I see lots of dreams. It’s amazing when you are seeing, watching a dream because it feels so real. I always pray you know, please give me a ride in the space, oh Lord, right? You can do anything!

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Tony
The Edge of Space series serves as an opportunity for its listeners to learn more about the exciting innovations in space. In part two of this 2-part interview, we hear how important mentorship is at IBM. As Naeem said, mentorships are mutually beneficial for the mentor and mentee. Mentors can guide and help navigate the complexities of a big company. They offer a wealth of knowledge and can bring clarity to your vision. Most of all, they can show you what is possible. Seeking mentorship is a long, but rewarding process, so I hope our listeners put themselves out there this new year to form meaningful mentorships.

We hope you enjoyed today’s segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

 

Tony Zhou
At the intersection of ideas and action, this is Longitude Sound Bytes, where we bring innovative insights from around the world directly to you.

Hi everyone! My name is Tony Zhou, and I am a Longitude Fellow from Yale University. Today, I have the pleasure of presenting this sound byte by Naeem Altaf. Naeem is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the Chief Technology Officer of IBM Space Tech and IBM Cloud. In our first episode of the Edge of Space series, Naeem and I discuss his goal of democratizing and increasing accessibility to space, lifelong learning, and adopting the mindset of a builder. We start our conversation with Naeem sharing the inception of the Endurance project.

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Naeem Altaf
We were looking at different projects to do for space tech, and one of the projects, which we can talk about later, was the edge computing within the International Space Station for DNA sequencing. So while we were working on projects, I wanted to always look for the angle tech for good. Something we can give back to the society in healthcare and for future generations, and basically inspire our next generation. So I was looking around, okay, now, what can be really cool stuff where the people can relate to what’s happening on the ground? Because right now, from the technology point of view, you probably hear a lot about 5G networks, edge computing, everybody’s probably familiar with Tesla’s autonomous cars, the future of EV, and all that stuff, right? So we were like, okay now, that’s all edge computing. Let’s take edge computing to the next level, how can we do edge computing in space? And that’s where the DNA sequencing or space station product happened. But on the other side, you’re like, okay, it will be really cool if we launch the first mission, from IBM’s point of view in space, totally nonprofit, and we can open the access to every kid in the world, everybody.

The thing is, my background is computer science. So I’m not an astrophysicist. Nothing to do with this aerospace industry. But you know, programming is everywhere. Everything you touch is a program. So it means that you can be relevant in in those industries as a programmer. So I was trying to understand, what does it take to launch this satellite. And there’s a very, very, very good guide book from NASA, if you just Google “NASA CubeSat 101.” It’s like a 100 page book, brilliant, it’s written in detail of A to Z, what are all the regulatory requirements, what it takes to get something to launch all this stuff, right? I went through that list, and I started talking to people in the industry. I was like, hmm, it’s not that easy. Technology is the easier part. The challenging part is all the logistics, all the approvals you need, all the paperwork you have to do, that is a lengthy process. And then, of course, the cost also to put stuff in the space. So if living in these modern countries in the Western world, if it’s so challenging here, imagine the developing nations, Africa and Asia and all these countries, how hard it will be for them. From there, we started this CubeSat mission. And we named it Endurance because of the times we are going through in the past couple of years with this pandemic. So let’s go and work together, put a CubeSat in space, and then we open it to everyone. And that’s where it came all from together.

CubeSat is made up of several basic components, like antennas for communications, then you have the solar panels so you can gain power. And then you have computers, because you have to run stuff inside. And then you have a bunch of other sensors like Magneto meter, Sun sensors, larger sensors. And then one very common sensor which most of these satellites have is a camera. The majority of these satellites are in the low Earth orbit. The low Earth orbit is around 1000 kilometer, it’s a range between 500 to 1000 kilometers. So most of these satellites, they are designed to look at the Earth and do observation for multiple purposes, like the climate stuff, and the glaciers, the deforestation, all those things. And then you have now Starlink, and that’s also to provide the communications because the network latency is low. So yes, we have a bunch of sensors over there.

And the way it will work is you will have a portal up on IBM’s cloud. So if I am a kid sitting anywhere in the world, I just go on the site. And we will give you the specs, how to write your Python code. It will be Python language, a relatively very easy language, and others. So you write your code and hit submit, and we will take your piece of code, test it out and then push it to the ground station and the ground station will beam up to the CubeSat. So now your code which you wrote is actually on the CubeSat running there. And our CubeSat will be using Raspberry Pi four as a compute platform. So your code will run there. It will interact with different sensors, which will tell you that you can take a picture, and then the results will come back and will be available to you. I think that’s very uplifting and, you know, that’s really cool stuff, right? You can do something sitting in those remote areas and push report this fast.

Tony
I mean, I definitely was not thinking about doing stuff like this as a kid. It’s really cool to hear about it. Were you always interested in space? Because you mentioned your computer science background, so when you did immerse yourself in this, how did you assemble either a team or mentors or peers around you to help you with this idea?

Naeem
I think space is something which fascinates many, many people around the world. It has always been fascinating to look at the skies at night and see all these planets. But again, the opportunities are limited, because it’s very challenging. It costs a lot to be a part of this industry, to do something.

Five years ago, I got an opportunity to work with NASA Frontier Development Lab program. It’s run by SETI Institute. Basically it’s like an incubation lab where they come up with- they define these five or six different tough problems, which NASA scientists give to them. And then they get people from all over the world, from the prestigious universities like Oxford, and these different colleges, to solve this problem. So I got the opportunity to work with them as an IBM sponsor, as a mentor with them. And they all were astrophysicists, PhDs, and this and that. I’m like, you know what, there is room for computer scientists also here. So I might not be able to create those very sophisticated algorithms. But to run those algorithms, you need all that programming behind it to do that, so you can have a very sharp mathematician or physicist, right, who is building all this job, then you can take that and create simulations. And that’s where the programmer comes in the picture. And if you have interest, while you’re working with them you will start learning how they do it, what they are doing, right. So the thing is, you have to reinvent yourself, because every six months there is a new technology, there’s so much happening in the world, right? So if you’re curious, if you want to learn more, you have to keep on reinventing. So don’t think that today I- let’s say I graduated with XYZ degree, and I joined this company, that you will be there, you will build that stuff, right. If you’re curious and if you have a bigger picture of what is happening in the industry, you will keep on reinnovating yourself and learning. The basic element is learning. That’s it. Don’t bound yourself to what degree you got. I mean, if you’ve got that degree, it means that you have the ability to learn, right? You can learn more things, you don’t have to just stick with one thing, right?

Tony
You mentioned how the fundamental thing, or the thing that connects you to everything, is being able to program. I totally agree how one should be very flexible and always be willing to change. But at the same time, would you agree that you also need to have a foundational core set of skills that then allows you to pivot anywhere?

Naeem
Definitely. You need to have the skills. I mean, first of all, you have to have an attitude of a builder. You need to have that attitude that I’m an inventor, I’m a builder, and not a consumer. The majority of the world today is consumer, with the phones, right? Those are consumers. So if you are a consumer, you as an individual, as a society, as a nation, you will never be able to go up because you’re just waiting for somebody to feed you something. And you just use them. Look at all the previous nations, the only nations who went up and who have their golden period, right? Because they were inventors. They were inventing new things. And then once you leave that, then you just go down the cycle. And now there are other nations that pick us up. Obviously you see the U.S. did for the last 70-80 years. And now you see China taking the lead in that way, right? And that’s all because they are producing researchers, they have people who can build things. You have to have that core skill of building something. Once you have that core skill, the sky is the limit, you can do whatever you want. And all future is programming in any industry you go. But there’s basic programming, then there is vertical, high skilled areas, right. So AI is a skilled area. So you build your three to five years of strong foundation of programming, as a programmer. Now you see the work: I like AI, VR AR stuff, I want to go into gaming industry, or I want to go into aerospace and work on their simulation, or I want to go into biotech. You can now go whatever you like in the industry vertical. Now you can go there. Because you have the skill to build and you have an interest. So now both things will come together. Your skill and your interest, and now the job will be fun.

Tony
Yeah, these are very research-intensive fields that you’ve just mentioned. Do you think students need advanced degrees such as like PhDs to be impactful and to contribute?

Naeem
It depends what your what your goal is. A PhD is always good. I mean, if you have to go and do really deep, groundbreaking, breakthrough stuff, the more knowledge, the more education you have, it will help you. But that also means a lot of commitment. So you need to know yourself. For example, when I went to UT Austin, I exactly knew that I wanted a computer science degree, and I’m going to graduate in this semester, two and a half years from now. I did not waver in the middle. You see a lot of students, you probably notice that they start, then do this and this and this, right? Okay, now you’re just wasting time and money. The most important thing you’re wasting is time. Time is the most crucial thing, especially 20s-30s. This is the most critical time of your life, these 10 years.

The thing is, we live in a very privileged society. If you have traveled outside the U.S., back in the east, you see how challenging the life is over there. So that’s why I tell my kids too, if you live in this privileged society where you have everything, never have to think about water, electricity, right? I mean, if the people in the East- they have an excuse, because they have so many challenges which you can’t even think of, every single day. Right? So for them, struggle, you know, you can explain that. But over here, where everything is just sitting there, everything for you, you just click a button, and Amazon drops a box in 24 hours, right? If everything is in your hand and you still can’t achieve something, it’s a shame.

Tony
I read this book by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee on powers. And there’s a section in his book where he mentions how when he went back to China to speak, to give lectures, they would be packed. And then when he would walk the halls, you know, because of the little amount of resources he saw around the school- I think there was a curfew around nine or 10- the lights would go off, and then the students would go outside and use the streetlight to study. And that’s something you don’t hear of in the Western world, because we are so privileged with the resources that we have.

Naeem
So yeah, I think that that’s it. I mean,it comes from inside, right, that if you from very early age, or even in this age, you develop that, “I am going to be a builder, I’m going to go and build things,” then your whole attitude will change, because then you are in this ever-learning mode, till the time you go away from this world. That’s the purpose, is to keep learning everyday. If you stop learning, you will stop. And not everybody has that willpower. But if you have those, then you will do great things.

Tony
Right. You’ve mentioned topics like machine learning, AI, which will eventually make a huge impact in our society. But what about quantum technology and how that in itself [will impact society]?

Naeem
Quantum is a monster. It’s just waiting to be unleashed. Again, the thing is, technology is not bad. It becomes interesting in whose hands it goes into. That’s the thing, right? AI is not bad. But if it’s in wrong hands, then yes, it is bad. The thing which fascinates me is, think about all the innovation they are doing today, in terms of computing, storage, networks. Where are these being used for? The majority of that is being used for all the wrong stuff, social media and all the other things. Think about it, you’re creating these gigantic data centers, and what do they have? Billions of videos and pictures, and it’s like, really? So we build all this innovation for this kind of stuff, right?

Quantum is probably 10 years away. There is a lot of hype in the industry and commercial companies will do that, but it’s still far away. If you are a smart programmer and you love programming, you need to start with quantum computing right now. Right now. IBM has this quantum freely available to the public, you can just log on to IBM, type IBM quantum and Google search it, you will be able to get your account and you can start programming in Python. It’s a great start. Do that, and in the next five years you will be so much farther ahead than anybody else because quantum is going to happen. It will happen.

Tony
So going back to the endurance project that you’re currently working on, what is something that has been the most unexpected to you?

Naeem
You mean in this particular project or just in general in space?

Tony
Sure, just space stuff. Are there things that you didn’t expect to happen that either surprised you in a positive way or in a negative way?

Naeem
So when we are working as a computer scientist in this tech industry, things move very, very fast. I mean, you see how fast technology moves and stuff is happening and all this. But when we talk about space, for good reasons, things don’t move that fast. Because one failure in launch, your company’s done. It is bankrupt. They’re gone. I didn’t expect it because this is not my background, aerospace. I hope that things move a little bit faster, but they don’t. And I learned why they don’t. There is like… We invent something and then we say, you know what, this is it. You have to keep on pushing. There’s more you can do with that. So yes, I think there are challenges like that in this industry, but it’s changing rapidly now. It’s changed quite a bit, we have to do things faster. So yes, I think it was mostly the speed, and I will say the logistics, like how much paperwork, everything you have to do. Those are a few things, but things are opening up now.

Tony
It seems like space industry is becoming more and more competitive. Now things are getting faster because the cost to make certain resources has decreased. But also it just seems like still have that youthful exuberance and that energy, just hearing you talk. So when do you take time to just relax a little, but also at the same time let your mind wander so that you can come up with new ideas, and how do you do that?

Naeem
One thing is, from a very early age I always wanted to understand the big picture. Always. How does it work from A to Z? Because most of the time, what happens in programming is they say, you know what 20 year old programmer, go and work on this component. You will work on that component for five years, and you have no clue what it does for the whole thing. You’re just happy that what you compiled works.

Tony
I know.

Naeem
I want to know everything and what fits where. What’s the whole platform, what is the whole thing? As you grow older, you learn more and more stuff and you’re like, you know, I could have done that in my life. But then I also believe you can do things anytime in your life. Anytime, because it’s constantly learning. So the other area which I always love now is political science, because political science is a very interesting subject. First of all, it’s tied to the history, to the culture, right? It’s not only politics. You learn everything, and then you see what’s happening in the world, why these things are happening in a certain way. That’s what political science gives you. Once you have a bigger picture, then things start making sense. So that’s what I like. I try to see the bigger picture. And whenever I’m free, I’m reading books and trying to read about history and always keeping an eye on the political side of the world, what’s happening, because that helps you a lot in understanding.

Tony
Okay, yeah. So you just kind of attend to your hobbies and let your mind- okay.

Naeem
The bottom line is learning new things. That’s it.

. 

Tony
The Edge of Space series serves as an opportunity for its listeners to learn more about the exciting innovations in space. In part one of this two-part interview, we heard how much Naeem emphasized lifelong learning. After building a strong foundation in computer science, Naeem aimed to create impact in the space industry. I hope our listeners find inspiration from hearing his journey from humble beginnings to space tech expert. For me, his journey is an uplifting example of what is possible when imagination, planning, and willpower are aligned and appropriately executed.

We hope you enjoyed today’s segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

 

Jaena Kim
Welcome back to Longitude Sound Bytes, bringing innovative insights from around the world directly to you. Join us as we blast off to the edge of space as we continue to explore the Longitudes of Imagination series. I’m Jaena Kim, Longitude fellow and law student at the University of Ottawa.

Blake Moya
I’m Longitude fellow Blake Moya, a Statistics PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin. Join us throughout January as we launch into the universe of space technology and even catch up with a NASA microbiologist.

Tony Zhou
Hi everyone, I am Tony Zhou and I am a Longitude fellow from Yale University.

Quint Smits
Nice to meet you. I am Quint Smits. I am a student of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence at Tilburg University here in the Netherlands.

Jaena
Find out how STEM and imagination gravitate towards one another and result in successfully sending satellites nearly the size of rubix cubes into outer space, or putting a DNA sequencer on the International Space Station.

Tony
The Endurance project is an ongoing story of unexpected surprises with an admirable goal of democratizing and increasing accessibility to space, rocketing together some of the most brilliant minds who share a passion for the cosmos.

Blake
Keep listening for a sneak preview of the upcoming Edge of Space episodes with guests Naeem Altaf, Minsik Lee, and Sarah Wallace.

Sarah Wallace
“…that desire to explore, and I feel like as a human race, the minute we stop exploring, and the minute we stop, you know, trying to advance technology and understanding and learning, it’s, I can’t- it’s kind of like what, you know, what for? I feel like, that’s- there’s so many questions. And, you know, a lot of people, I think NASA is trying to do a better job. And I think that’s something we’ll continue to do, to show how many things have come to benefit life on Earth because of the advances we’ve made in space. And because of the technologies we’ve developed in space. You know, we’ve made life on Earth better for so many. And I will say, that’s one of the mottos of the International Space Station is, you know, in space, for Earth, like we’re doing things there, to come back and translate to Earth.”

Quint
Indeed. If you have got this infinite sandbox why just sit on one grain of sand.

Jaena
Quint and Sarah further explore the positive impact of space exploration, including a big IF, of if extraterrestrial DNA were ever to be found. Tune in to their episode to find out what Sarah Wallace, a NASA microbiologist, has to say. Tony, Naeem seemed to share a similar sentiment on the positive impact of space technology.

Tony
Yes, I could immediately tell how enthusiastic Naeem was talking about all things space. He really cares about creating technology and products that have lasting impact on humanity.

Naeem Altaf
“We were looking at different projects to do for space tech, and one of the projects which we- and we can talk about that later, was the edge computing within an International Space Station for DNA sequencing. So while we were working on projects, I wanted to always look for the angle ‘tech for good.’ Something we can give back to the society in healthcare and for future generations, and basically inspire our next generation.”

Jaena
It seems like these leaders in the field of space microbiology and space technology are all motivated to help the people back on earth. Blake, I think your episode with Minsik highlights the volatile process when working on a still-emerging field.

Blake
Exactly, launching a satellite computer comes with very similar problems as the ones involved with the Mayflower Autonomous Ship. Both required careful programming for what the device should do if there was a problem, since no one can get all the way out into the ocean or the stratosphere to help. For our listeners interested in edge computing/CubeSat, Minsik and I will talk about the problems and preparation that come with computing in space in our upcoming episode.

Minsik Lee
“You may be aware that there was a project called Mayflower. That project developed an autonomous boat. From the IBM side, we applied IT stack and then also provided operation to support that autonomous boat. In our perspective, that kind of use case for the edge computing environment. And then one day we just thought, why don’t we apply the same technology onto space, so we just had that idea about two years ago. And then we met people in NASA, and then we shared these ideas. And then we have some opportunities to apply software defined technologies on Space Station or satellites. Then we started a project called Endurance. That’s our own CubeSat. And so we will launch this one next year. And then our goal is to have kind of a playground. That way anybody can test their code in our CubeSat environment.”

Blake
Minsik also encourages people to pay attention to the latest trends in tech, like edge computing, as a source of inspiration for bold ideas. Learning how to use these new tools can help you bring those ideas to the world, or to space.

Tony
Since the exponential increase in data and computing power, computational tools, such as Edge Computing, allow for increased efficiency and comprehensive data processing and analytics by using data servers closer to the point of creation. Data generated at the point of creation can be analyzed with the results sent back to the ground network. To find out more about edge computing, make sure to check out my episodes with Naeem.

Blake
The connection between the satellite and the ground network, which mediates the transfer of so much data through so little bandwidth, brings communication to the center stage of this project. That really reflects the motive of the whole Endurance mission: to facilitate communication between industry professionals, students, and software and expose a whole generation of students to space tech.

Jaena
That’s a really good point, Blake. I think our audience will really enjoy hearing about how the hard work done on Earth only to send things far off into outer space is actually motivated by and to help most, us, the people right here on our planet. At the end of the day, these space experts all work towards the common goal of advancing the future of humanity, and the presence of space might just be orbiting around our everyday lives more than we think. You’ll also find that Naeem, Minsik, and Sarah all share valuable big picture reflections from their work in space technology that any young professional will find helpful. Quint ground us back to Earth.

Quint
What is the best piece of life advice you can give?

Sarah Wallace
“chasing and pursuing your passion, which I think- that’s number one, always chase and pursue your passion, never give up. But you don’t have to be good at everything. Find the one thing that you’re good at, and go all in on that and love it and become an expert in that and figure out how to use it and harness it to make your field better.”

Tony
Sarah’s advice is just a hint of one of the most technically enriched Sound Byte series yet, laced with the latest space tech but also advice that’s transferable to, as Quint would say –

Quint
The moon and beyond.

Tony
This brings us to the end of our introductory episode.

Blake
We can’t wait for you to tune in to the continuation of the Longitudes of Imagination series.

Jaena
Follow Longitude on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to make sure you don’t miss the release of the Edge of Space series. You can also visit our website at Longitude.site for more information and content.