Welcome to Chain Reaction, a podcast from the American Chemical Society, where we link chemistry's past to its future. I'm your host, Margo Wool.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Shane Hanlon.
SPEAKER_03You know, it's still weird, Shane, having you here.
SPEAKER_02I mean, don't worry. By the time you and probably the audience get used to it, uh, I'll be gone. You know, just enough time to throw a wrench in everything.
SPEAKER_03No, no, no, no. We're glad you're here. What why are you here again? Remind me.
SPEAKER_02ACS 150. It's our birthday.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But more importantly, beyond, you know, just the number, the theme of this big birthday is chemistry is everyone. And so we're hearing from ACS presidents in discussions with peers and colleagues.
SPEAKER_03So who are we hearing from this week?
SPEAKER_02President Elect Chris Berduro. And she's kind of obsessed with chemistry in space. We often say the chemistry is the central science, and that doesn't just apply to here on Earth.
SPEAKER_00The technology of today is already helping us penetrate the silent darkness of space. Man himself has taken the first tiny step into this vast unknown. And we can only imagine what resources will soon be brought back to Earth by these early pioneers.
SPEAKER_03The technology of tomorrow will only become more important as we continue to explore and live beyond our planet.
SPEAKER_02So wild to think about. So at the ACS Spring meeting this year, Chris talked with Luke Roberson, a scientist and engineer who develops and invents new technologies for long-duration space exploration missions, aka going to Mars.
SPEAKER_03Awesome.
SPEAKER_02Their discussion touched on what it's like to be an inventor of these technologies, the Artemis Space Exploration Program, which I think we've all been fascinated by lately. Yep. And something very near dear to my heart: Legos.
SPEAKER_03Legos! That's exciting. Okay, well, uh, let's hear it.
SPEAKER_06So when I was a kid, I really loved Transformers and Legos. And so with the Transformer and a Lego, you could start building blocks to kind of building bigger pieces. And taking those pieces and putting them together was really great and really exciting as a child. So when I was in high school, I was able to take those kind of building block approaches with the Transformers and Legos and then understand that I could do that at a molecular level by taking functional groups and putting them together and understanding how they work. And that was really a good match for my personality and kind of drove me into the field of chemistry.
SPEAKER_04What got you interested in the chemistry of space?
SPEAKER_06In undergraduate, I started studying chemistry at Georgia Tech. And from there, I went on to get my master's and then PhD at Georgia Tech to continue on working on polymers. So Intel paid for my PhD to build polymer electronics. And then the space agency you might know came along and said, we can't tell you what you're going to work on, but we're going to give you a job and allow you to do that.
SPEAKER_04So we we know that you're also an entrepreneur and an inventor. So can you describe to us some of the inventions that you've developed over the years that pertain to chemistry in space?
SPEAKER_06Sure. So my first series of inventions were color changing materials. Back in the shuttle days, we would have liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen tanks on the system. And so we developed a way that the technicians could see literally the hydrogen leaking from the system. So we invented a chemical reactant that would change color based on exposure to the hydrogen.
SPEAKER_04So, how do you look at the innovation landscape for chemistry in space right now?
SPEAKER_06Well, the chemistry right now is going to be really advanced towards designing zero gravity for low earth orbit capabilities. Okay. So as commercial partners start building up habitation systems in low earth orbit, and then building the future of a lab in space environment where we can take the lessons learned from the International Space Station and transfer those into a commercial market to be able to design those kind of things. Yeah. And then understanding what kind of chemistry reacts in a zero gravity environment and transporting that into a long duration kind of space application approach. So that could be anything from crystallography to making new protein crystals to having new biomanufacturing and space initiatives to creating all sorts of new type of plant production systems to do sustainability in space and building that in-space environment so that we can learn lessons from that and transfer that back to Earth.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I guess as the objective is to allow humans to spend longer and longer periods in space, we have to really think about that sustainability piece, you know, to allow life to continue, right?
SPEAKER_06It's critical. Yeah. Whether that's from the environmental control and life support systems to the habitation piece to the radiation shielding to all of those different pieces of chemistry that fit into the material science, fit into the bioengineering piece, that kind of fit into the environmental engineering piece as we're going to build our own environments, whether they're inside a cabin or a tin can. Yeah. We get there, it'll be interesting.
SPEAKER_04Terrific. I love it. So, you know, we are celebrating 150 years. Looking forward, what are you excited about in the future of chemistry? Let's say in the next coming 10 to 20 years.
SPEAKER_06So, well, first of all, that's space, right? Right. So the space frontier will become very big in the next five years as we start pushing the Artemis program into the future. And then of course we've got low Earth orbit capabilities with the ISS that will provide availability for us and capability for all of the space science industry to do more experiments to be able to test the science before we end up going to Mars. And so you've got nuclear electric propulsion systems that we're going to be developing to try and get Mars faster. Right. We'll be looking at developing new life science support systems to be able to extend out the life support systems for longer, longer duration missions. Yeah. We'll be developing habitation systems on the moon in three different phases to be able to understand what that looks like. And through public-private partnerships, uh, the space industry and the space chemistry industry itself will be growing very fast in the next few years.
SPEAKER_04There's been a lot of talk about technologies involving robotics and AI and how that can be accelerating chemistry. How does that apply in the chemistry and space field?
SPEAKER_06Artificial intelligence will have a big impact on the terrestrial applications, both from a molecular intelligence point of view and defining how new molecules can be formed, but also expanding that into the space environment where molecules may be formed only in that environment.
SPEAKER_04That's interesting to think about. Molecules that had never appeared on Earth, in other words, we may find out in space and then we'll have to figure out how to figure it out. That sounds fantastic. As you look back on chemistry in space over the last 150 years, what do you think are like the top two or three innovations that have really driven chemistry in space forward?
SPEAKER_06The semiconductor is the by far probably the number one thing that's impacted me, whether that's the typical silicon semiconductor or the other types of semiconductors for organic electronic devices, where truly the semiconductor placed the foundation as the enabling technology to then build out the computer industry and then formulation chemistry type work. So that's the key underlying enabling technology that the science has brought to the forefront.
SPEAKER_04And will that continue to be part of innovations going forward, or do we need other technology besides that?
SPEAKER_06Oh, there's a lot of technology we need. Yeah. Whether that's sustainable chemistry, chemistry technologies to be able to build out advanced materials, robotic systems being developed by commercial partners to both explore space and then advance that chemistry into those kind of things. All of that will be important.
SPEAKER_02Was and perhaps embarrassingly am? Uh when I was a kid, I had two full dining tables covered with this big Lego city I built. And at the moment, I have a Star Wars Lego set in my closet just waiting to be built. So Luke's origin story definitely resonated with me.
SPEAKER_03Skywalker or Roberson?
SPEAKER_02Both. I know, I know. I volunteered this information. I will own it.
SPEAKER_03Alright. Well, if Legos and Transformers inspired Luke, I'm excited to hear about inspirations for our other guests.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so next, Chris talked with Ken Saban. Ken is chief scientific officer at Bioorbit, where he's working to use knowledge gained through chemistry experimentation in space to shape the medical industry.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_02I know, I know. It's it's really interesting. And Ken was inspired at a young age by some real life space exploration and a chance correspondence that led him to a dream offer that changed his career forever.
SPEAKER_03Ooh, okay. Well, let's listen.
SPEAKER_07One of my earliest memories of science was as a young preteen, the Voyager missions were underway and Viking had occurred, Viking 2. And I used to send letters to the APL lab at Caltech and ask for pictures and any other material they'd send me. And I'm sure they got bored of me, but they were very good to send me images that were being taken, very recent images of Jupiter and the Jovian moons. And it really got me enthusiastic about being a scientist. It was a great thing. Great thing for me, and something that even to this day I still think about, still influences my career, maybe even more so now, unplanned as it was.
SPEAKER_04That's very, very cool. Just to be able to have access and have that kind of a correspondence. That's so fantastic. How did you get into chemistry of space?
SPEAKER_07Again, unplanned, but I was a director in process chemistry, and I got a call from a person purporting to represent a part of NASA and their effort to entice people in American industry to do work with the space program in some way. And I thought it was a joke. I thought people in the cube farm, somewhere in the cube farm I were in, were calling me up and having fun with me. But I asked her some questions and actually said, Oh, I'd love to do science on the space shuttle. And she had to explain to me that we weren't flying space shuttles anymore, but we had a space station and that's what they were calling about. Actually, I set up a meeting. I sent a note to 10 of my buddies saying, Hey, we're gonna do this, uh, show up to this meeting on this day, and we're gonna talk about doing work with NASA in space. And I showed up a week later to that meeting room, and it was packed, it was standing room only. It was probably about 35 people in there. Wow. And I saw one person who I invited, Barry, was sitting there at the table and was like, and he's got his laptop open with the NASA sticker on the front of it. And I was like, Barry, who are all these people? He's like, I have no idea. All I know is I've been waiting for this day all my life. So anyway, everybody was way into it. We ultimately ran five experiments in the space station, really chemistry-focused efforts and crystal growing and freeze drawing. There's a lawfulization study and dissolution studies. And when I retired at organization, Cases, the Center for the Advancement of Science and Space, they are a not-for-profit that is funded through NASA to find people in industry, US industry do work in space. They called me up and said, Hey, we'd like for you to work for us and find other people like yourself. So I did that.
SPEAKER_04All right. We're very interested to know what you think has been the greatest innovation in chemistry and space over the last 150 years, which is of course this year is our ACS 150th. What do you think is the greatest innovation in chemistry and space?
SPEAKER_07There's a couple of things. By the way, I saw an article by the best made company about Voyager being the greatest tool ever created, right? It's still operating after 50-some years in horrible environments, traveling faster than anything we've ever created. And I think what the Voyager missions and Hubble and other telescopes, what they've taught us about the universe and in some ways about our existence, has been extremely powerful. And it drives us to go out, to reach out and do more, to go. If I was just looking at space station, hands down, the two biggest breakthroughs in space station, number one was the cold atom lab. The other was a chemistry crystallization effort that was executed by a friend of mine, Paul Reichert at Merck. And uh Merck makes a product called Katruda. Paul is a crystallographer, and he had been doing work on space shuttle and on station for many years. And one thing that he and I both noticed was when people grow crystals in space, they are generally larger when about the same size and shape. For someone who works in the pharmaceutical industry who's trying to get product uniformity, that means something. That's an important thing. And he's like, you know, we know with Katruda, we've got a problem. It's bimodal, it has very small, tiny little needle-like crystals and then larger aggregate crystals. Um, and he said, you know, I wonder if we can make a single crystal, one that's where it's monomodal in its size and shape. And they flew that to space. And the images in that are really dramatic. You can see what they make on the ground and under the same conditions in space. They're all about the same size, tiny little balls. And that led Merck on to ultimately reformulate that product. And they ran a new crystal form of that product through all the way through phase clinical trials. Not the product they're going to market with, but it was successful in clinical trials. And I think that was important from not just the science, but it also for me demonstrated the applications to an industrial commercial application. This is a great time to be involved in space-related work. There's access, there's money, uh, there's great results that are coming out in biology and chemistry and physics. People have said that it's like being in the 60s again with the Apollo mission environment.
SPEAKER_04So, what do you wish people would know about chemistry and doing chemistry for space?
SPEAKER_07People should know that space has been democratized, at least in the United States to a large extent. There's a lot of funding for people to do science that they would normally do on the ground and try to do it in space. And NASA and I would say in general, the federal government is really enthusiastic about that for a lot of different reasons. They want us to try to do things, to find opportunities and to find reasons to go to space or to help people through the enablement of work done in space.
SPEAKER_04You're right. There's there's such a momentum and also very high level of interest from the public, which kind of fuels it. What do you think is going to be one or maybe several of the great discoveries that are coming towards us through the research that's going on right now? What is there for us to discover in the chemistry of space in the next 100, 150 years?
SPEAKER_07What do they say? Making predictions is hard, especially when they're about the future. So uh what I would say there's there's a couple of things. So, first of all, I think, and what I've seen in general is that breakthroughs are coming faster and faster, and they're bigger and bigger each time, whether it be semiconductors or uh metal organic frameworks or uh pharmaceuticals or what have you. So I think there's a great opportunity there. And I would argue that the greatest near-term breakthroughs are going to be in the field of chemistry. Chemistry and biology are connected. And if you look at what's happening in biological work in space, it's very early, it's fledgling, but there are some very interesting results. And ultimately, I think that the greatest breakthroughs for humanity are in chemistry-enabled biology. And so I think those are further out, but as we get more and more sophisticated and as we try to go to Mars and beyond, the biology piece is going to become more and more important, whether it be in the form of testing pharmaceuticals or finding new therapies, whether they be cellular or chemical or what have you. And those will change people's lives. They already do. And more and more you're gonna start to see things, products that aren't just made for space, but are made in space for the benefit of people on Earth in some way. We will benefit from that.
SPEAKER_03Shane, I was one of those kids who got images of Jupiter and its moons and like printed them out, but instead of being from JPL, which is pretty legit, it was from my county observatory. A little lower quality, but just as exciting. Okay, so we have Luke, inspired by Legos, Ken by the Viking Project. We have one more guest.
SPEAKER_02Right, and funnily enough, it wasn't until I was putting this episode together that I realized each one of our guests has a specific aha moment where they really fell in love with science and space.
SPEAKER_03Space is the place.
SPEAKER_02That it is. So our final guest was, at least in part, inspired by one of the most monumental events in space exploration history. But he didn't start out thinking his work would have anything to do with space. George Rodriguez began his career studying chemical engineering. Born in Peru, George came to the US in part because he viewed it as a center of scientific advancement and discovery. And his curiosity and drive for knowledge led him to a very unexpected shift late in his career.
SPEAKER_03I'm guessing towards space, but we'll have to see. Okay, let's listen to the interview.
SPEAKER_05My mother was an educator and also a mesa soprano, and they instilled the ethos of hard work and genuine love for the rich Peruvian culture that surrounded us, surrounded me as a child. So growing up in Peru, science was everywhere. Brain trepanations performed 2,000 years ago, textiles that are 12,000 years old, stone buildings using 100-ton rocks that carved to fit so precisely you can't slide a knife between them. It is a country with 5,000 years of magnificent empires, whose UNESCO World Heritage sites like Machu Picchu, Nazca, and Keral, one of the six cradles of civilization, still inspires awe. They fuel my fascination with how humans use science and engineering to build incredible cities that even today remain a mystery how they were built. And then came July 20, 1969. I was 14, watching black and white TV images of Neil Armstrong, first step on the moon. And that moment convinced me that science was the greatest tool to make the impossible possible.
SPEAKER_04That's fantastic. It was such a key moment in so many millions of people's lives. It's just embedded in your mind where you were and who you were with, what you were doing that day. That is a very great memory. So tell us about your chemistry journey, your education, your industry experiences. How did that arc of your career develop?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, my chemistry journey started in Peru, where I studied chemical engineering to support the grown industrial base. I later earned my master's degree in industrial management from Georgia Tech. And my career focused on bridging science and business.
SPEAKER_04What transformed your career trajectory towards the chemistry of space?
SPEAKER_05It happened later in my career, but it felt completely natural. The shift to space really took off in 2016 when I was supporting the chemical marketing and economics, a topical group of the ACS New York section. And I was presenting that award, the CME STEM Leadership Award, to the NASA administrator, Charles Bolden. And I asked him if there was a dedicated conference on chemistry and chemical engineering in space. And he said no. And uh it took me a nanosecond to invite him to uh start one. So with the collaboration of ACS leaders and also NASA leaders, we started the first CME NASA symposium in 2017. And we had a reception at the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space in Washington, D.C. So it's really a spectacular event. Now we're in our 10th year, and it has become an ACS president recommended event, bringing together Nobel laureates, pioneers like Craig Venter, Robert Langer, and senior NASA leaders, as well as you as the Partner of Energy National Laboratory directors.
SPEAKER_04So, you know, you've been in this for 10 years. What do you wish the people knew about chemistry and space exploration? You know, what is it that maybe on the surface people don't realize? But you know, if you study it for a while, you start seeing some of these insights about chemistry in space.
SPEAKER_05Many people think that chemistry in space is mostly about the loud booms at launch and the dramatic heat of reentry under the capsule. The reality is far broader and much more exciting. We're entering the second phase. Of the space age with chemistry at its center. This goes well beyond reaching orbit. It's about building sustainable habitats, producing fuel and materials off-world, protecting astronauts on long missions and developing new technologies. What excites me the most is the huge growth in job opportunities for chemists and chemical engineers in the coming decades, plus the fact that nearly every breakthrough we make for space delivers major benefits back on Earth.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's so true. There's been a lot of synergies between what people have discovered on the Earth and then transported into space laboratories and then returned. What is the most unexpected chemistry lesson that you've learned from all of these projects that you've been involved in throughout your career?
SPEAKER_05The key lesson is how fleeting most scientific advances really are. One example that always stays with me is the rise and fall of videotape. The incredible chemistry behind ultra-thin polyester films and advanced magnetic coatings made consumer video recording possible. That technology enabled an entire era, yet it was completely replaced in a couple of decades by solid state memory and smartphone cameras. Consumers bought in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s about 500 million tape-based video recorders. But we now bought over 21 billion smartphones with video capability, 40 times more since 2003. And it wasn't always the best technology that won. Betamax, for example, was technically a superior system, but lost badly to VHS because of better marketing and economics. So the real lesson is brilliant chemistry and engineering are not enough. They must be paired with sharp market insight and practical economics and keeping track of new technologies that completely change the performance parameters and the uh goals for any particular industry segment.
SPEAKER_04That is a terrific insight, George. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, it really highlights the need to be agile as we are going through our scientific careers because, you know, as you just pointed out, things are constantly evolving. Nothing stays the same. And so, you know, what you learned two weeks ago may have already evolved into the next iteration of whatever that science is. You just have to keep moving, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So you've seen a lot of chemistry go by now in the last 10 years. So now we're going to turn our attention towards the future. What new chemistry of space research are you excited the most about right now?
SPEAKER_05The ones that will allow humans to do extended trips, like going to Mars and beyond, involve fuels, metallurgy, and life sciences. In the field of fuels, nuclear thermal propulsion. A nuclear reactor heats liquid hydrogen to extreme high temperatures and expels it for thrust. This gives roughly twice the efficiency of chemical rockets, cutting a typical six to nine month trip to Mars down to about three to four months. This means less radiation exposure for the crew and makes missions beyond Mars more practical. Life sciences, closed loop water and air recycling chemistry, reactors and filtration systems now turn astronaut urine sweat and exhale CO2 back into drinkable water and breathable oxygen with over 90% efficiency. That may not be enough. We have to do better than that, and that's the challenge for chemists and chemical engineers and related professionals.
SPEAKER_03Ah, so cool. I have to say that after these interviews, I want to know a lot more about all the ways that chemistry is used in space. Um, and actually, we've been toying around with doing a whole miniseries about it.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that would be cool.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's so much to unpack. All right, so we have three presidents, but four episodes in this miniseries. So how are you planning to bring us home next week, Shane?
SPEAKER_02I got a real treat for y'all. I got to chat with professor, communicator, and creator Chemical Kim.
SPEAKER_03Chemical Kim! Fangirling over here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I don't often get starstruck uh with science folks, but I was geeking out a little during our conversation. I know that folks will really enjoy hearing from her.
SPEAKER_01So do you have a little taste of what we might hear?
SPEAKER_02I do. Roll the tape.
SPEAKER_01I remember my first chemistry class in college, and I sat there in that first lecture taking notes, and I remember after a lecture just feeling like I did a workout and I looked around me. I'm like, am I the only one that feels like I just took a foreign language class?
SPEAKER_03More of that next time on Chain Reaction. This was Chain Reaction, a podcast by the American Chemical Society. Our executive producer is Sam Jones. Our producer is me, Margot Wall. This miniseries was also produced by Shane Hanlin in partnership with Brand Lab. Production help from Michael David and Matt Radcliffe. Theme song by D. Peter Schmidt.