Known variously as "Mohawk Guy" (thanks to Barack Obama) and "the sexiest nerd at Nasa", Bobak Ferdowsi might just be the most famous man working in space who has not actually been to space. Not only did he land the Curiosity Rover on Mars, but he got his own meme in the process.
Speaking about the mission at Pioneer's Festival in Vienna, Ferdowsi says "we hit the first part bang on the head -- we found out within six months, that yes, Mars could have supported life".
But while Ferdowsi still has a place in his heart for Curiosity, he has clearly moved on. His mind has wandered through our solar system, his attention now firmly fixed on a little moon known as Europa. "We believe it has as much water as the planet Earth," says Ferdowsi. "This could be a great place for life to rise."
The instruments that will be taken on Nasa's mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, were announced earlier this week. They will be tasked with answering many of the same questions as Curiosity. Is Europa habitable? Could life have survived there, or could it even survive there today? "I want to find life, I want to prove that it's not just one spot," says Ferdowsi. "I want to know what the context for us is, i want to know what it means to be human. What does other life look like? We've answered a lot of questions about science -- we don't know about biology. We haven't answered the question as to whether biology is universal yet."
Getting to these answers, he acknowledges, "is going to take time". While he is prepared to be patient about this, however, Ferdowsi has other ambitions to occupy him elsewhere. "I want to go to space hotel," he says. "This is what is possible nowadays. The idea that I could visit it and see the world from a different perspective -- that's a great motivator."
Astronauts like Chris Hadfield, he adds, are very good at relating what it is like to be in space, but soon it could be a tangible thing. "We're at the point where some people in this room can afford to go to space for the first time," says Ferdowsi to the audience -- many of whom are venture capitalists. But that doesn't mean that space tourism will always be a privilege preserved for the super rich -- the price will come down. "Maybe in ten to 15 years, it's a decision between do I buy a new car, or do I go to space?" says Ferdowsi.
But while Nasa has been pushing boundaries for years, it is the private space companies that have brought about this particular change, he adds. "These guys have brought the cost down of access to space -- they absolutely deserve the credit." "The one thing I would love to see more of is the democratisation of space. I would like to develop a platform where people could come up with ways to use space," he says. "We should invest in a future that allows us to live somewhere else."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
