Who We Are
Ariel Waldman
2013 IFTF Fellow
Founder, Spacehack.org
Global Instigator, Science Hack Day
Author, What's It Like In Space?
Ariel Waldman is the founder of Spacehack.org, a directory of ways to participate in space exploration, and the global instigator of Science Hack Day. She is also an Institute for the Future 2013 Fellow. Previously, she worked at NASA’s CoLab program whose mission was to connect communities inside and outside NASA to collaborate. Ariel has also been a sci-fi movie gadget columnist for Engadget and a digital anthropologist at VML.
Recently, Ariel was appointed to a congressionally-commissioned committee run by the National Academy of Sciences on the future of human spaceflight. She is the author of What's in Like in Space? Stories from Astronauts Who've Been There and a white paper on Democratized Science Instrumentation that was presented to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Ariel has been awarded grants for her work on Science Hack Day from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. She has keynoted DARPA’s 100 Year Starship Symposium and O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention, as well as appeared on the SyFy channel as part of their “Let’s Imagine Greater” campaign.
Fellowship Project:
Prototype a book on hacking science and space exploration ...
... called The Hacker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Q&A with Ariel Waldman
Q: What is the most surprising story or turning point that led you to your current work and interests?
A: I emailed NASA on a whim and serendipitously got a job there despite having no formal science background. It changed my life and set me on a path to enlighten others that they, too, can actively contribute to space exploration.
Q: Ten years ago, where did you expect you would be now?
A: I expected to be a Director or VP at an interactive agency.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges that your field will face in the future?
A: Making space exploration and science disruptively accessible.
Q: What do you wish you could "steal" from the future?
A: It would be great to "steal" the discovery of alien intelligent life from the future and bring it to the present day, as it would open up so many avenues in science that we could use right now.
Q: Which do you value most for the future: Happiness, resilience, or legacy?
A: Happiness.
Q: What cliché of the future would you most wish to retire?
A: Jetpacks.