November 17: Joel Sercel, TransAstra

• 4:00 p.m.
• 190 Goodwin Hall 
  
• Host: Shane Ross

"Building the Space Economy: Asteroids, Energy, and America’s Next Industrial Frontier"

Abstract: Over the past decade, rapid advances in launch systems, precision sensing, and space robotics have set the stage for a new era of space industrialization. Yet one major barrier remains: how to obtain and use the vast material resources of near-Earth space to make operations beyond Earth sustainable and economically viable. This talk will explore how emerging technologies in optical detection, orbital capture, and solar-thermal processing are converging to make that possible. Drawing on developments at TransAstra—such as the Sutter telescope network for detecting faint moving objects in cislunar space and the Capture Bag system for securing uncooperative targets—I’ll discuss the underlying physics, engineering challenges, and mission architectures that make asteroid capture and in-space resource utilization achievable within this decade. The seminar will also touch on the commercial and national-security motivations driving this work, and how they open the door to a self-sustaining space economy that extends from Earth to the asteroids.

Bio: Dr. Sercel is a Caltech-trained aerospace engineer, founder of TransAstra, and a seven-time NASA NIAC Fellow pioneering technologies for asteroid mining and in-space logistics.