MIT AeroAstro’s Post

Spent the week going through an interdisciplinary work shop in Munich, Germany at the Technical University of Munich, where I acted as one of four project managers, in a team of 21, going through the entire preliminary design review process in a single week, to develop a concept for a profitable commercial lunar infrastructure. The workshop was also a fun competition to win the investment of the “host company,” and in the end our team, team Weiss, won by a close call against our competitors, team Blau, who put up a good fight. I had the opportunity to use my research from my ASCEND paper to develop our cost model, which revealed a 35 year (production to assembly to steady state operations) operational cost of 60 billion euros, and an overall profit gain of 100 billion euros by selling ISRU produced propellant, and rental space for research and residence. The business plan included evaluating expected business partners, such as those providing crew and cargo transportation services, who could directly benefit from our propellant production capabilities. My biggest takeaway though, was working with who I consider to be the top space engineering team in my generation. Getting to collaborate with people from all over the world was a once in a lifetime experience. Not only were they all extremely capable and self-disciplined, but they were kind, funny, and made the stressful 12 hour/day work week, something I’d call fun. It was my pleasure to serve them as project manager, and if I ever was one in the future, I’d hire them all ten times over. Thank you SSDW team for putting this together. It kicked my butt, and I’m better for it. Thank you Olivier L. de Weck for supporting me and continuing to challenge me.