Ariel Ekblaw

Don't off-world the humans.

Let them have a beautiful existence on Earth, but off-world the heavy industry and slowly let Earth recover as a garden planet.

So if you think about how space structures have been built in the last 20, 30 years, it's typically aluminum that gets pre-built and welded on the ground.

And then it has to be squeezed into a rocket.

It has to fit inside.

What we developed at MIT that we call Tesserae are basically like space Legos that have powerful magnets on their edges.

When those Legos, these modular pieces, are released in space, they float together.

That's because they're in microgravity.

They're basically in free fall around a planet.

We have videos from inside the International Space Station.

We've tested the prototypes twice now.

We're about to go back to the ISS in early 2026.

Exactly.

Prototypes that help us test the algorithm of self-assembly, test the energy required to pulse through the magnets, because in addition to coming together, it's a self-correcting system.

So the tiles have essentially like AI built into the pieces themselves, into the hardware.

Right.

And they can decide if they bonded correctly.

And we're really inspired by biomimetic systems, like how proteins and DNA self-assembles in the body and can correct itself.

It's both.

So I went on this amazing trip, and we had an incredible opportunity to help restore ancient Roman mosaics.