“One of many goals I had as a child was concerning the first day of faculty, and having the ability to construct and be artistic, and it was the happiest day of my life. And at MIT, I felt like that dream turned actuality,” says Ballesteros. Credit score: Ryan A Lannom, Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
By Jennifer Chu
Rising up within the suburban city of Spring, Texas, simply outdoors of Houston, Erik Ballesteros couldn’t assist however be drawn in by the chances for people in house.
It was the early 2000s, and NASA’s house shuttle program was the principle transport for astronauts to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS). Ballesteros’ hometown was lower than an hour from Johnson Area Heart (JSC), the place NASA’s mission management middle and astronaut coaching facility are primarily based. And as usually as they might, he and his household would drive to JSC to take a look at the middle’s public displays and shows on human house exploration.
For Ballesteros, the spotlight of those visits was all the time the tram tour, which brings guests to JSC’s Astronaut Coaching Facility. There, the general public can watch astronauts check out spaceflight prototypes and observe varied operations in preparation for residing and dealing on the Worldwide Area Station.
“It was a very inspiring place to be, and generally we might meet astronauts after they had been doing signings,” he recollects. “I’d all the time see the gates the place the astronauts would return into the coaching facility, and I’d assume: In the future I’ll be on the opposite aspect of that gate.”
Right now, Ballesteros is a PhD pupil in mechanical engineering at MIT, and has already made good on his childhood objective. Earlier than coming to MIT, he interned on a number of initiatives at JSC, working within the coaching facility to assist check new spacesuit supplies, transportable life help programs, and a propulsion system for a prototype Mars rocket. He additionally helped practice astronauts to function the ISS’ emergency response programs.
These early experiences steered him to MIT, the place he hopes to make a extra direct affect on human spaceflight. He and his advisor, Harry Asada, are constructing a system that may fairly actually present serving to arms to future astronauts. The system, dubbed SuperLimbs, consists of a pair of wearable robotic arms that reach out from a backpack, much like the fictional Inspector Gadget, or Physician Octopus (“Doc Ock,” to comedian guide followers). Ballesteros and Asada are designing the robotic arms to be robust sufficient to elevate an astronaut again up in the event that they fall. The arms may additionally crab-walk round a spacecraft’s exterior as an astronaut inspects or makes repairs.
Ballesteros is collaborating with engineers on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to refine the design, which he plans to introduce to astronauts at JSC within the subsequent yr or two, for sensible testing and person suggestions. He says his time at MIT has helped him make connections throughout academia and in business which have fueled his life and work.
“Success isn’t constructed by the actions of 1, however slightly it’s constructed on the shoulders of many,” Ballesteros says. “Connections — ones that you just not simply have, however keep — are so important to having the ability to open new doorways and hold nice ones open.”
Getting a jumpstart
Ballesteros didn’t all the time search out these connections. As a child, he counted down the minutes till the top of faculty, when he may go residence to play video video games and watch films, “Star Wars” being a favourite. He additionally beloved to create and had a expertise for cosplay, tailoring intricate, life-like costumes impressed by cartoon and film characters.
In highschool, he took an introductory class in engineering that challenged college students to construct robots from kits, that they’d then pit in opposition to one another, BattleBots-style. Ballesteros constructed a robotic ball that moved by shifting an inner weight, much like Star Wars’ fictional, sphere-shaped BB-8.
“It was introduction, and I bear in mind pondering, this engineering factor may very well be enjoyable,” he says.
After graduating highschool, Ballesteros attended the College of Texas at Austin, the place he pursued a bachelor’s diploma in aerospace engineering. What would sometimes be a four-year diploma stretched into an eight-year interval throughout which Ballesteros mixed faculty with a number of work experiences, taking up internships at NASA and elsewhere.
In 2013, he interned at Lockheed Martin, the place he contributed to numerous features of jet engine growth. That have unlocked plenty of different aerospace alternatives. After a stint at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart, he went on to Johnson Area Heart, the place, as a part of a co-op program known as Pathways, he returned each spring or summer time over the subsequent 5 years, to intern in varied departments throughout the middle.
Whereas the time at JSC gave him an enormous quantity of sensible engineering expertise, Ballesteros nonetheless wasn’t certain if it was the best match. Alongside along with his childhood fascination with astronauts and house, he had all the time beloved cinema and the particular results that solid them. In 2018, he took a yr off from the NASA Pathways program to intern at Disney, the place he spent the spring semester working as a security engineer, performing security checks on Disney rides and sights.
Throughout this time, he acquired to know a couple of individuals in Imagineering — the analysis and growth group that creates, designs, and builds rides, theme parks, and sights. That summer time, the group took him on as an intern, and he labored on the animatronics for upcoming rides, which concerned translating sure scenes in a Disney film into sensible, secure, and practical scenes in an attraction.
“In animation, a number of issues they do are fantastical, and it was our job to discover a strategy to make them actual,” says Ballesteros, who beloved each second of the expertise and hoped to be employed as an Imagineer after the internship got here to an finish. However he had one yr left in his undergraduate diploma and needed to transfer on.
After graduating from UT Austin in December 2019, Ballesteros accepted a place at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He began at JPL in February of 2020, engaged on some final changes to the Mars Perseverance rover. After a couple of months throughout which JPL shifted to distant work in the course of the Covid pandemic, Ballesteros was assigned to a challenge to develop a self-diagnosing spacecraft monitoring system. Whereas working with that staff, he met an engineer who was a former lecturer at MIT. As a sensible suggestion, she nudged Ballesteros to think about pursuing a grasp’s diploma, so as to add extra worth to his CV.
“She opened up the concept of going to grad college, which I hadn’t ever thought of,” he says.
Full circle
In 2021, Ballesteros arrived at MIT to start a grasp’s program in mechanical engineering. In interviewing with potential advisors, he instantly hit it off with Harry Asada, the Ford Professor of Enginering and director of the d’Arbeloff Laboratory for Info Techniques and Expertise. Years in the past, Asada had pitched JPL an concept for wearable robotic arms to assist astronauts, which they shortly turned down. However Asada held onto the concept, and proposed that Ballesteros take it on as a feasibility research for his grasp’s thesis.
The challenge would require bringing a seemingly sci-fi concept into sensible, practical type, to be used by astronauts in future house missions. For Ballesteros, it was the proper problem. SuperLimbs turned the main focus of his grasp’s diploma, which he earned in 2023. His preliminary plan was to return to business, diploma in hand. However he selected to remain at MIT to pursue a PhD, in order that he may proceed his work with SuperLimbs in an setting the place he felt free to discover and check out new issues.
“MIT is like nerd Hogwarts,” he says. “One of many goals I had as a child was concerning the first day of faculty, and having the ability to construct and be artistic, and it was the happiest day of my life. And at MIT, I felt like that dream turned actuality.”
Ballesteros and Asada at the moment are additional growing SuperLimbs. The staff just lately re-pitched the concept to engineers at JPL, who reconsidered, and have since struck up a partnership to assist check and refine the robotic. Within the subsequent yr or two, Ballesteros hopes to carry a completely practical, wearable design to Johnson Area Heart, the place astronauts can check it out in space-simulated settings.
Along with his formal graduate work, Ballesteros has discovered a strategy to have a little bit of Imagineer-like enjoyable. He’s a member of the MIT Robotics Staff, which designs, builds, and runs robots in varied competitions and challenges. Inside this membership, Ballesteros has fashioned a sub-club of kinds, known as the Droid Builders, that goal to construct animatronic droids from in style films and franchises.
“I believed I may use what I realized from Imagineering and educate undergrads how you can construct robots from the bottom up,” he says. “Now we’re constructing a full-scale WALL-E that may very well be totally autonomous. It’s cool to see every thing come full circle.”
MIT Information
