Welcome to the second season of Testing 1-2-3 from NI, where we speak to engineers, experts, and those on the forefront of some of the world’s biggest inventions and possibilities to look at the world around us from the lens of testing. In this episode, we explore the meteoric rise in space travel and exploration, and what that means for testing and the future of sending humans to space. Host Derek Burrows talks with author and founder of The Mars Generation, Astronaut Abby, about the unique challenges that come with testing for space, and specifically Mars. The conversation then shifts to Omar Mussa from Virgin Orbit, who touches upon the ethics of testing in space, and the one area where big hairy failures happen most. It’s an out-of-this-world conversation this week, get ready for blast off! 

Learn More About: 

• How space exploration is one of the most extreme environments that we can explore.
• What are some of the rigorous physical testing requirements that go into astronaut selection?
• Last year, there were 133 successful orbital launches around the world, beating a record for annual launches that dates back to the Space Race.
• Is there even space for human beings in space?
• With only 5% of space launches being crewed, how much can we really do without human presence?
• We are now testing both for longer explorations in space, but also shorter missions with commercial tourism.
• Omar talks about what it’s like building something that blasts off completely unsupervised.
• What is vibration testing?
• Why do we need people in space if it’s so hard, expensive, and dangerous?
• What do Abby and Omar think the future of test will look like in space?

Resources Mentioned: 

• NI
• Astronaut Abby 
• The Mars Generation
• Omar Mussa
• Virgin Orbit | Virgin Orbit YouTube | Above the Clouds | Blue Skies Went To Black 
• We’re hiring! If you’re interested in exploring a future career supporting a small sat launch, check out Virgin Orbit Careers.
• A special thank you to one of Omar’s LabVIEW mentors, Fabiola de la Cueva, for building the “Our Giants are Female” movement within the LabView community of presenters.
• GDevCon