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- We live in a setting of unlimited resources.
We are unconstrained.
We have the tools, the mechanisms,
the scientific understanding, the technological capability
to achieve almost anything.
And we just need to get about understanding
that we're not a small, isolated, rural poor planet.
It's time to break out.
- Back in 2016, Michael Crow asked me
to come see him in his office.
It showed up on my calendar,
Michael Crow, no agenda, no topic.
I'm like, oh my God.
And it turns out he wants to start this initiative.
So he says to me,
"Lindy not enough interdisciplinary work
is being done on the future of humans in space
and we can uniquely do that here at ASU.
We could be the thought leaders
about the future of humans in space.
Go do it."
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Psyche is the name of both our spacecraft and an asteroid
on the outer main belt that's also named Psyche.
We're going to send this robot out past Mars
with a gravity assist, out through the asteroid belt
to start orbiting this asteroid Psyche.
It'll be the first time that humans have ever investigated
a body made largely of metal because we mainly go to things
that are made of rock or ice or gas.
- I love space.
And I love telling people about how I love space.
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Space is scary.
It's never-ending.
There's a thousand possibilities that you can do with it.
And there's a thousand ways to be involved.
- I didn't have that moment when I was 10
and I just knew I needed to explore space.
I've had a curvy career path.
I've worked in business for eight years.
I was a lecturer before I went back for my doctorate.
When I was 31,
I was a single mother.
And I never really had a long-term plan.
It was really what is great to do right now.
In 2011, we started thinking about this mission
and we went through the proposal process
and the competition process.
And we were selected for flight in 2017,
launch in 2022, arrive at Psyche in 2026
and do 21 months of science
and then all the additional science that goes on after that.
This absolutely will be the major project of my life.
- For me, it's special
because it was born out of Lindy's idea.
It kind of opened up my eyes
to the fact that I don't have to worry about my path.
She's just become a huge idol for me.
She's the PI of a NASA mission,
which was the last thing she expected to happen for herself.
- I'd like to say that space exploration
is like a vast, unpopulated plane,
like the surface of the moon.
And on the one side you've got NASA and SpaceX
and Blue Origin and the European Space Agency.
And you've got nothing, like craters rocks
and over here, some visionary sci-fi writers.
And we've got to populate that plane with philosophers
and artists and policymakers and people who write laws.
And we need thinkers in there
and doers and makers of every different kind.
- ASU being such a large university,
it's really taking advantage
of all the artists that we have on campus
and all the filmmakers and all of the computer programmers
who can make art of a Mars map
and can show maybe what it's like to walk on Mars.
ASU is taking all of the backgrounds that we have
and expanding it to be more
than just an engineering background
where you're sending something to space.
ASU is using everyone on campus to bring space to ASU.
(upbeat classical music)
- The simplest way
to express what it's like to come and work at ASU
and compare it to how you feel
when you work at other academic institutions
is that this is a "Yes" organization.
And most academic institutions are "No" organizations.
Here people really try to say yes.
If you come up with an innovation,
you're going to try something.
You're going to experiment.
You're going to push the boundary.
You're going to see if it works.
People try to say yes.
- I guess the biggest thing is like,
my journey has been very unpredictable
and I've gone from being
like this most fearful little freshmen
to designing instruments on space telescopes.
It's been really exciting and I could not have predicted
this five years ago.
And I don't think I could have done this anywhere else,
except for here at ASU.
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- The things that I care the most about are creating teams
that are incredibly high functioning
based on topics that people feel passionate about.
And it turns out space exploration is fantastic for that
because it fires everybody's imagination.
- We have the capacity to create.
We have the capacity to create ideas, to create concepts.
We have the capacity to go anywhere to do anything.
And I think that's what we've tried to build is a university
that helps in making that happen.
(dramatic music)