From Moon to Mars

He was still in elementary school in January 1986, when, 73 seconds after takeoff, NASA’s Challenger space shuttle exploded, killing all seven crew members. The tragedy had the unexpected effect of inspiring Kshatriya. He remembers watching the investigative hearings into the disaster, in particular the testimony of Richard Feynman, then a professor of physics at Caltech. Feynman sat before the cameras with a glass of ice water and a piece of an O-ring, which had been designed to seal a joint in the Challenger. On live TV, Feynman showed that in cold temperatures, such as those on the morning of the ill-fated launch, this small piece of rubber lost its flexibility, a tiny flaw that had led to massive failure. For Kshatriya, the demonstration was evidence that his respect for the United States and NASA was well placed: “We had a government that could sit there and question itself and have one of the most amazing scientists in the world stare down this committee and say ‘we need to get better.’”

Still, Kshatriya did not yet see himself in Mission Control. “I was more interested in playing baseball for the Astros than actually being a part of NASA,” he says of his earliest career ambitions. But Kshatriya’s parents, both Indian immigrants, stressed the importance of an education in math and science; his mother was a chemist and his father an engineer. Kshatriya began to see that as a path to “what I really wanted to do: be a part of big things.” That desire led him to Caltech. He first studied physics and later mathematics, but the most important lesson, he says, was humility. “You realize very quickly that you are not nearly as smart as you think you are,” Kshatriya says. “To me that was super liberating.”

On this late spring day, Kshatriya is about to launch into a three-day mission integration review of all the products that need to be built for Artemis II, which is the second mission of a four-part effort to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon as a step toward exploration of Mars, with additional Moon missions to follow. The uncrewed Artemis I mission was a successful test of the Orion spacecraft, NASA’s new space exploration vehicle and its most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System. The crewed Artemis II mission will conduct additional tests before the Artemis III mission lands astronauts in the Moon’s southern polar region, which may be home to substances that will help scientists create a source of water. Artemis IV will return astronauts to the Moon’s surface and build the Lunar Gateway, a space station in orbit around the Moon, which can be used as a base for longer missions.

These Artemis missions are, at their core, about scientific discovery. “What we’re trying to do is expand people’s brains,” Kshatriya says. Global leadership—what Kshatriya describes as “making sure that the exploration of space is covered by our values as a democracy”—is also an important motivation. But for Kshatriya, the most vital reason to return to the Moon is the same thing that turned his attention to the stars: inspiration.

The memories he treasures most from his time in Mission Control aren’t populated by astronauts, but by the children of his coworkers who came to visit a room most have only seen on TV and in movies. “They would walk in and they would look up on the front room board, and they would see astronauts bouncing around, doing experiments, and they would stop. They’d do a double take.” Kshatriya loved to take the time to explain what they were seeing. “At some point there’s a realization that what they’re seeing is actually happening. And this is something that they can be a part of. And whether or not they decide that they want to be a part of the space program, they recognize that you can do incredible things,” Kshatriya says. “All the problems we have—cancer, the environment, all the things that we need to do—will be solved because of that kind of inspiration.”