Caltech alumnus Manan Arya (PhD ’16) has been fascinated with outer space since he was a kid. His early ambition to become an astronaut morphed into a vision of designing objects that travel into space. As a graduate student working in the lab of Sergio Pellegrino, Caltech’s Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aeronautics and professor of civil engineering, he took on a mission: Figure out how to package structures that unfold to have vast areas in outer space but fit inside space vehicles without taking up too much precious volume.

He was seeking solutions for “the suitcase problem.” That is, how do you fill a given space with as much stuff as possible? For Arya, that space is determined by the limited size of rocket nosecones that protect payloads during launch. And the stuff is defined by the possibilities of contemporary technology. From CubeSats—satellites so tiny and light you could hold one in your hands—to solar sails—devices for collecting thrust from sunlight in space—those possibilities are astounding. For instance, at Caltech, Arya contributed to the Space-Based Solar Power Project, which ultimately could replace fossil fuels with energy beamed harmlessly and on-demand to Earth from flocks of solar satellites.

Arya approached the suitcase problem using the principles of origami, the art of paper-folding that originated in Japan. However, his breakthrough moment came when he decided to break one key rule.

In this video, Arya talks about his childhood dream of traveling into space, the joy of becoming a Caltech student, two ways of “creating things that never existed,” and his space-saving aha moment. Since graduating from Caltech, Arya has moved on to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)—a place where he has wanted to work since he was 12 years old.

Visit [ Ссылка ] to learn how Break Through: The Caltech Campaign is supporting extraordinary, creative graduate scholars like Manan Arya.

Video produced by Caltech in association with Smartypants Pictures. ©2016 California Institute of Technology

свернуть