Sparking interest in space within the minds of today’s youth is a key part of ensuring the field continues to flourish for decades to come.
For one young aerospace engineer, facilitating an environment that sparks that interest in an interactive and meaningful way is a major facet of his career.
Akhil Turai, a 26-year old aerospace engineer has launched the innovative Space Science LLC, which is incorporated in Delaware; a platform designed to not only teach a younger audience about the wonders of space science, but to also push them to their academic limits through competition, quizzes, and interactive games.
The Space Science LLC platform was just recently released to the public and features a long list of educational activities that help develop an interest within space, and it even has tangible rewards for users who take their knowledge of the field to the next level.
The Space Science Olympiad features a first-place prize that allows the winner to attend a once-in-a-lifetime luncheon with NASA astronauts as one of the program’s most notable rewards, and there is a long list of incentives beyond that.
However, Akhil has recently pushed his goalpost even further by attempting to shape the field of space engineering towards a persistent, life-threatening issue: Planetary Defence.
Besides the Space Science LLC’s push to spark a younger generation’s interest in topics such as planetary defense, Akhil Turai is taking his own proactive approach and launching an initiative that aims to deal with three core issues in the field:
- Climate change
- Natural disasters
- Asteroid collision
The organization Akhil is building has an uphill battle to climb with all of these issues, but the primary target is to find a solution for asteroid collisions.
With climate change, the organized efforts of leading scientists are bolstered by a plethora of known possible solutions that need further research and development to become practical.
Natural disasters, while still nearly impossible to defend against in sure-fire ways, have seen multiple developments over the years, and Akhil’s group effort can be used to spur more effective ideas into full-blown solutions that provide real results.
In contrast, finding a solution to asteroid collisions is nearly impossible with the information currently available to not only the Planetary Defence Organization but to the scientific world in general. It’s a lot like the fight to cure cancer. There are theories that have the potential to work, but there have yet to be any major strides towards practical, reliable solutions.
Akhil’s organization will aim to change this within the coming years. It has already begun setting up the framework to facilitate such a complex and mentally taxing group effort, and the organization plans to have more information available regarding the specifics of the group’s endeavors by late 2021.
Between Akhil Turai’s devotion to engaging today’s youth in the world of space science, and the innovative approaches he’s taking towards some of Earth’s most pressing issues, the world of space science is bound to experience a boom of innovation within the coming decade.
