Space University completes Its First Semester At MIT

Boldly venturing where no dean went before, graduate students open an international college to study the universe The topic was the best design for a manned lunar base, and in the small room at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the discussion was heated. Building the base in space and landing the completed structure on the moon just won’t work, argued the transportation experts. “We’re talking about a quantum leap in technology here,” warned Bill Unger, a Canadian engineer. But such an approach would be cheaper than constructing the base on the moon and would help advance the technology, countered the architects. “Here is an idea that works,” insisted Madhu Thangavelu, an Indian space architect. No, this wasn’t a NASA long-range planning session. Instead it was part of an improbable, ambitious, and unprecedented undertaking the International Space University. Conceived and organized by a pair of precocious graduate students, the ISU is an unusual sort of educational institution. For one thing, its 104 students flocked to MIT from 21 countries, including Australia, Saudi Arabia. and Sri Lanka. For another, many of its students were already working scientists. And third, it is different from other universities in that it ended its “school year” in September. Plans call for the venture to continue for five years as summer sessions at existing campuses around the world (next year at Toulouse, France) before establishing a permanent home in 1992. Even the mission of ISU is unlike that of any other university It was designed to do nothing less than create an international community of space professionals, a new breed of scientists and policy makers willing to set aside national differences in order to pursue commercial and scientific opportunities in space. “I believe that this, in the long run, will benefit planet Earth, and not just one country,” says Andrew J. Stofan, former head of the NASA space station program and now vice president of engineering at Martin Marietta. The heart of this summer’s session was the lunar base project, and ISU students dreamed up scores of innovative designs and experiments. British physicist Carol Nairn, for example, drew up plans to study interactions between the moon and the solar wind. Other students worked on superconducting magnets for particle physics research on the moon; a comprehensive program of lunar soil sampling and designs for X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes that, because of their location, would open new windows into the universe. But for many of the students, just as important as the science was the chance to exchange ideas with their counterparts in other countries. That, said Mark Matossian, an aerospace engineer at the University of Michigan, “is the single greatest thing about this.” This unusual university was the brainchild of two over-achieving graduate students. Back in 1986, Todd B. Hawley was studying international space policy at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and had just finished two years with an organization called the Young Astronaut Council. Meanwhile Peter H. Diamandis was simultaneously pursuing an M.D. in space medicine at Harvard and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at MIT. The two had met through Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, a group that Diamandis had founded in 1980 and Hawley subsequently had twice led as national chairman. But by 1986, the two students were after bigger game. They wanted to create a truly international venture, a mechanism allowing people from around the world to come together, to learn, and to work toward the peaceful exploration of space. “We were looking for peers,” explains Hawley. “And, on the other side, we were looking for courses.” So Hawley and Diamandis decided to use the 1987 SPACE FAIR—a biennial conference at MIT founded by Diamandis in 1983 and devoted to space-related issues—to discuss the idea of an international university. The two drew upon contacts they had made during the previous six years, and the idea quickly gathered momentum. In January 1987, Hawley -moved from Washington to Boston to work full-time on SPACEFAIR, which by this time had evolved into the founding conference of the ISU. At the April SPACEFAIR conference, Hawley and Diamandis tapped 11 participants for the board of directors for the space university. Then they faced the daunting tasks of raising money, enlist- ing faculty, and attracting students. Diamandis and Hawley needed $150,000 immediately. Fifty thousand dollars came from a small, Manhattan foundation and an additional $50,000 arrived in the form of grants from corporations and foundations. In addition, two NASA administrators—then space station head Stofan, and Burt Edelson, head of the office of space science until early 1987—had participated enthusiastically in the founding conference and pushed their agency into providing another $50,000. Rounding up faculty for the university was a bit tougher. Says Diamandis: “When we first went [to potential faculty members], there was this sort of ‘You’re kidding.’ “But the two students’ track record at organizing space-related ventures, the promise of a healthy salary—equivalent to teaching at Harvard for the summer—and the lure of being part of a unique enterprise won over many doubters. Soon nine full-summer professors, 21 course advisers, and about 50 visiting faculty had signed on for the first summer. ISU was an “opportunity to work with a select group of people on an issue that I’ve been dealing with for the last 20 years,” explains John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Pol icy Institute at George Washington University. “It was a dream.” Attracting students for the ISU also required enormous effort and persistence. All told 5,000 applications were sent out around the world. Three hundred and fifty qualified applicants responded. The faculty accepted 104, and the ISU began helping students secure $10,000 scholarships from governments, corporations, and foundations. Finally, all the bard work came to fruition; on June 20, the space university’s inaugural class arrived at MIT. Buoyed by their success, Hawley and Diamandis brashly predicted even greater things ahead. “In 2018, an ISU campus facility will be incorporated into the maturing International Lunar Base,” they said in their convocation speech. “In 2037, the ISU will celebrate its 50th anniversary, and over 1,000 of its graduates will gather in Earth orbit, some coming from as far away as Mars, to mark this historic event.” Each day during the nine-week session, ISU students attended three or four lectures on subjects ranging from “Planetary Exploration Using Remote Sensing” to “Risk Management in Space Business.” But the largest percentage of their time was spent on the design project, chosen to demonstrate real-life applications of the classroom material. This project was not just an ivory-tower exercise. Its final reports will offer for the first time a complete and comprehensive blueprint for a lunar base, says Berkeley professor Larry Kuznetz, advisor to the lunar project. (An executive project summary edited by project adviser Wendell W. Mendell, NASA planetary scientist, will be available later this year, and a complete report will be produced early next year.) The students immersed themselves in the task at hand, forming 12 groups that addressed all aspects of the base, including space transportation, surface operations, environmental impacts, and human behavior in space. Cultural Differences The exercise gave the assembled scientists and students an opportunity to explore—and perhaps work through—a number of cultural differences. Take the debate one July afternoon over whether the four modules of the lunar base should be assembled in low Earth orbit or on the moon’s surface. Four people— from the United States and Europe—dominated the meeting, while the students from Japan and China listened attentively. At one point, Japanese architect Thru Mitauhashi quietly passed around a sheet showing a detailed comparison of the two proposals. Later, Gno-Hong Xia, director of the research division of the Beijing Institute of Remote Sensing Equipment, observed “Most students work together very nice. Lots of discussion. However, some students have strong emotion.” In addition to the Western-style character of the meetings that some participants found unfamiliar, the program appeared to some to have a strong North American perspective. Design specifications often referred to NASA equipment, and the cost of everything was given in U.S. dollars. But not everyone was bothered by this U.S. orientation. “It’s not a problem,” said Vladimir Shutov, an economics student at the Moscow Aviation Institute. “Everyone is still able to express his personal opinion.” Perhaps the real surprise is that the program was not more rife with political differences. Early on, said Shutov, some of the students suggested that analysis of political topics, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, should be avoided. But he and others disagreed, and the notion was dropped. “Now we have all the discussions we can,” he said. “It’s a unique opportunity to discuss everything.”

Space University completes Its First Semester At MIT

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