Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1493016
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2023 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 47 we know we don't want it to be filled with junk when we do need it. Nguyen: I'm a high school student going to college in a few months. What do you think about potential jobs? What does the future look like for students like me? The future in the space industry is blossom- ing and there is so much going on. Right now, the biggest boom in the space industry is in satellite constellations. It's so cheap to make satellites, and there are new business models popping up. For example, SpaceX's internet satellite constellation is Starlink, but they were not the first to try building a network like that. This has been attempted multiple times in the past, but it was just so expensive that other companies went bankrupt before they were able to achieve it. Now that this is more sustainable, other busi- ness models are coming online to not just provide internet, but also data and imagery. For example, a few years back, you could log onto Google Earth and see a picture of your house, but that image was anywhere from three to five years old. Because of the number of satellites now in space, we can see an entirely new selfie of the planet every single day. That changes things. There's a new company called SkyFi whose app lets you pick an address that a satellite can then take a picture of, all at the cost of just a few hundred dollars. I am fascinated to see how this changes journalism, or real estate—all sorts of things. There are so many new jobs on the horizon related to not just building, developing, and launching these satellites, but also in analyz- ing the data generated by them. That's the new wave of innovation. We have the data, now what do we do with it? How do we use it to help governments prepare and repair after natural disasters? We can see where the majority of the damage was done from an aerial perspective, for example, so we know where to invest our time and resources. Nguyen: That sounds really exciting. With that in mind, what skills should students consider as they head into higher education? Computer programming will be the most sought-after skill set in any tech industry, but the aerospace industry will increasingly be competing for those jobs. Something that will be really fascinating is using this new data we're gathering to help us understand climate change and how our planet is changing. Having an interest in envi- ronmental sustainability will play an impor- tant role in the space industry. We have this data, so how do we use it? How do we bring this to policymakers? The data can be used to justify investments in certain policy mea- sures, so there will be an interesting inter- section between environmentalism, space technology, policy, and the future. If you can combine those skill sets—your understand- ing of and passion for both sustainability and environmentalism, alongside an understand- ing of satellites and policy—that will be a triple threat in this industry. Te: In addition to satellites, what do you think will be the next "big thing?" The government and NASA will be increas- ingly subsidizing and investing in lunar- based technologies with a goal of creating a sustainable human presence on the moon. Because helium-3 is ubiquitous on the moon, it could be used as fuel to produce energy by nuclear fusion. This is a type of renewable technology that could help bring power to the entire world for thousands of years. Once we expand our economic sphere to the moon, certain resources that are cur- rently considered non-renewable or limited will suddenly become more available, and