Susmita Mohanty — “What we aerospace architects do has reciprocities with designing for extreme living environments here on Earth.”
Dr. Susmita Mohanty is an Indian spaceship designer, a serial space entrepreneur and a climate action advocate. She co-founded India’s first private space start-up, Earth2Orbit in 2009. She is the only space entrepreneur in the world to have started companies on three different continents in Asia, Europe, and North America. Susmita is one of the few people to have visited both the Arctic and Antarctica. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Electrical engineering from Gujarat University and a master’s degree in Industrial Design from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. She also completed Masters in Space Studies from the International Space University in Strasbourg.
To most of us reading, the profession of spaceship designer sounds practically alien (pun intended). What parts of your work might be most relatable to designers in more traditional fields?
The profession of ‘spaceship designer’, alternatively known as ‘aerospace architect’ involves ideating, designing, prototyping and testing of future systems for habitation, transportation, and exploration of Outer Space. Outer Space, in this context, would include Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Moon, Mars and beyond. The work (outer) space architects and designers do involve, among other things: scenario building, systems thinking, habitability issues, material sciences, manufacturing processes, human factors, physical and cognitive ergonomics, human-robot cooperation, life support, socio-physio-psychological well-being, safety, comfort, self-sufficiency, sustainability, and survival.
The most exciting thing for me is that many of the things that we take for granted here on Earth — we cannot take for granted when we design for LEO or Moon or Mars e.g. gravity (1G on earth, 1/6G on Moon, 1/3G on Mars), atmospheric pressure, natural illumination and the colors it brings to us. The Moon, for example, has no atmosphere, everything there is in a black- white-grey palette, and the lunar dust is very sharp like glass because of lack of weathering forces (wind, running water). We also forget that on Earth, we are protected by an atmospheric blanket and the Van Allen radiation belts. What we (aerospace architects) do has reciprocities with designing for living and working in extreme environments here on Earth e.g. polar regions, deserts, refugee camps and, uber- dense cities.
What experiences in your childhood and education do you credit to have stimulated your interest in space technology?
I was raised in what I like to call Sarabhai-Ahmedabad in the 1970s and 80s. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, a Cambridge-educated physicist from a wealthy cotton-mill owner family of Ahmedabad, put together a fledgling space agency in the late 1960s, early 70s. Sarabhai’s team of young scientists and engineers (including my dad) were cosmopolitan and many of them had lived- studied abroad. I thus grew up amongst the space pioneers who were open-minded and had good international exposure. I must mention though, that the year I was born, was the year Sarabhai passed away. So, I never met him but his renaissance-thinking that shaped the early ISRO ethos rubbed off on me as well.
Other than space stuff, I was surrounded by great contemporary architecture and architects. Ahmedabad, being home to wealthy textile mill owner families — in the 1960s and 70s, these mill-owners commissioned avant-garde contemporary architects such as Le Corbusier, BV Doshi, Louis Kahn, Anant Raje, Charles Correa, and others to build private residences and public buildings.
If you put ‘Space’ and ‘Architecture’ together, you have ‘Space Architecture’ which is an invented discipline, but that’s exactly what I ended up doing.
What is unique about the way Indians approach the field of space exploration compared to the western narrative?
I wouldn’t lump all of the West into one.
The United States and the erstwhile USSR were the first ones to pursue missions to the Moon as part of a space race in the 1960s. The Americans last landed (humans) on the Moon in 1972. The Russians last landed (Luna 24 rover) on the Moon in 1976. The only nation to have successfully soft-landed on the Moon in recent years are the Chinese. They landed on the near side (Chang’e 3 mission) of the Moon in December 2013, and again on the far side (Chang’e 4 mission) in January 2019. Chang’e 1 (2007) and Chang’e 2 (2010) were successful precursors, both orbiter missions to the Moon. Chandrayaan-1 was a lunar orbiter mission by India in 2008 which was a success. India attempted a soft landing (Chandrayaan-2) on the lunar south pole in September 2019 but failed. SMART-1 was the European Space Agency’s first orbiter mission to the Moon.
As for Mars, India made it to the red planet on its debut attempt (Mangalyaan-1), which is a first. China is planning to launch its first robotic mission to Mars in 2020. The US has had a series of Mars missions, the debut being in the 1970s with the Viking missions and has had a series of successful Mars lander missions too, in recent decades. The Soviet Union launched a series of robotic missions between 1960 and 1973, with two more spacecraft sent during the Phobos program. In 1996, Russia launched Mars 96 which was a failure. The Europeans attempted to land the Beagle 2 on Mars in 2003, but it crash-landed. As far as human missions to low earth orbit (LEO) are concerned, Russia and the US are the leading nations with vast amounts of experience in living in LEO. Their human missions to LEO began in the early 1960s with capsules, followed by small orbiting stations. The Russians launched a series of 8 small Salyut space stations (1971–1986) and then had the Mir space station complex (1986–2001) orbiting the earth for 15 years. The Americans only had one small space station in LEO called Skylab, occupied for just 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. China is almost 15 years ahead of India. India got started about 10 years ago (planning, building, and testing technology demonstrators) and hopes to launch humans into LEO in August 2022. Both India and China have chosen ‘not to’ participate in the International Space Station (ISS) program comprising 16 member nations with the US and Russia leading the collective. China and India have chosen to pursue their human exploration programs independently, probably because it gives them better control on the timelines and budgets.
In my view, the eastern space-faring nations like India and China are taking a pragmatic approach, which is slow, steady, and sustainable. The US, by contrast, changes its NASA Administrator every time a new President is elected and changes its compass from Moon to Mars and back to the Moon, so there is a lack of continuity and certain mature projects get dropped leading to a colossal waste of money. Europe has to work by consensus because the European Space Agency (ESA) has 20+ member states. I am fond of their portfolio of space science missions. The Japanese come up with rather unusual missions. One of my favorite JAXA projects is the Hayabusa asteroid sample return missions.
What kind of inspiration do you usually seek? How does it help you?
Inspiration is my life-support. It’s like oxygen. Sources vary — people, animals, birds, plants, books, art, architecture, travel, anecdotes, stories, ideas and so on. I am always inspired, some would say ‘over-inspired’. My inspiration feed seems to be fluid and never-ending — which can be a bit overwhelming at times.
Inspiration feeds my ‘imagination’ (fast becoming a scarce resource in this over-competitive and greed-driven rat race) leading to an infinite flow of ideas, which in turn lead to my many (ad)ventures. Taking one of my many ideas and turning it into reality takes passion, patience, tenacity, energy, an open mind and the ability to collaborate with people from diverse geographies, time zones, and cultural backgrounds
Does fiction and collective imagination — in the form of sci-fi literature and movies — influence technology? In what manner?
Not very much, I’d say. If you go by sci-fi stories, both books, and films, the human race’s progress in space tech has been rather slow. Humanity is hobbling along, still flying chemical rockets and not having left low earth orbits. We spend way too much money fighting useless wars, that money could be better spent in say, researching, better-cleaner-cheaper modes of space transportation.
Besides, space projects are complex and expensive, typically run by bureaucratic government space agencies. This slows down things even further. Now, with the emergence of private space players, things will speed up a bit, but will also lead to a lot more space debris and pollute our low-earth space environment.
How do you think we can inspire the next generation of Indians to participate in the field of space technology and exploration, and so to say, reach for the stars?
There is no dearth of educated and talented young people in India who want to work for space, but for creating meaningful employment for them, India will have to pursue privatization and commercialization of its space program, as is the case in the United States and Europe. For now, the Indian space program is controlled primarily by the government agency ISRO and is limited to about 16000 employees.
My message to young people is — you don’t necessarily have to be a scientist or an engineer or a fighter pilot to be engaged in space stuff, you can also be an artist, an architect, a designer, a geologist, an archaeologist — practically from any profession, and create your own space program.
When I got started, I wanted to design and build space habitats- there was no university program on earth that’d teach you how to do that, so a handful of us (around the world) figured out how to do that as we went along. If you are passionate about something and are willing to be in it for the long haul, you’ll succeed despite all odds. If you can dream of something and are willing to go the extra mile to make it happen, no one and nothing can stop you.
If you could recreate the city of Bengaluru as a space colony, what part of its environment or culture would you strive to retain to maintain the essence of the city?
Wow, that’s an unusual question. I’d want to recreate an ‘(outer) space equivalent’ of Bangalore’s fantastic water architecture comprising 250+ man-made lakes and tree-scapes (built green lungs) for future space cities.
In other words, inspired by what the Mysore Maharaja did for Bangalore to make it green and sustainable, I’d want to take that as a cultural and design inspiration to create extensive greenhouses and biospheres. His water architecture would be tough to replicate though.
Culturally, I’d take our age-old reverence for nature and natural resources and push for enforceable laws that ensure we do not pollute near-earth space (it is already cluttered with thousands of man-made debris objects) and protect the pristine environments of the planets we choose to visit or inhabit.
And finally, to wrap up — How do you spend a perfect Sunday in Bangalore?
My perfect Sunday in Bangalore would include staying home, reading the newspaper cover to cover, writing, daydreaming, discussing ideas leisurely with my partner Sid, gardening, talking to my plants, cycling, or going as far as our neighborhood microbrewery for a sundowner.
Find Susmita’s work on her website The Moonwalker
LinkedIn Susmita Mohanty
This interview is a part of a series of conversations with designers from Bengaluru called ADI Diaries. You can find more interviews here. Follow ADI Bengaluru on Instagram at adi.bengaluru
