An Earth-sized Telescope And An Arc On The Moon

Big, ambitious, long-term, seemingly “impossible” challenges inspire us and drive us forward. I’ll highlight two projects that I work on at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory that can be considered impossible challenges: the next generation Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT) and the Lunar Biorepository. The ngEHT is a program to expand the Earth-sized radio telescope array that produced humanity’s first image of a black hole in 2019, this time with the goal to make movies of black holes. I lead the engineering team for the ngEHT program, and I’ll talk about the design challenges and progress to complete the program’s system design and implementation plan. The Lunar Biorepository is a concept to create a cryogenically preserved backup of Earth’s life on the moon, where the temperature profile of permanently shadowed regions offers a unique environment for long-term, passive preservation. As the project’s Principal Investigator, I’ll highlight early work to design both the long-range concept and a near-term technology demonstration payload that could fly to the lunar south pole in the next 1-2 years. Both projects offer the potential for inspiring new insights about the Universe and our place within it. I’ll conclude with how each project exists out on the “impossibility frontier”, and how efforts that push the boundaries of possibility can help create a world full of wonder.