Elizabeth Frank (PhDGeol’14) is helping pave the way for a new era of space exploration and commerce as the chief scientist at  aiming to become the first private company to harvest the Moon’s natural resources, namely the stable isotope helium-3.

This useful gas, while rare on Earth, is abundant on the Moon and sought after for its uses in medical imaging, nuclear fusion research, quantum computing and more. For the extraction and transportation of the isotope, Interlune plans to build a lunar harvester that the company would fly via spacecraft to the Moon.  

What is the vision in terms of the future of space mining and space commerce?

We are trying to find novel ways to leverage the commercial space sector for planetary exploration. What makes people excited about Interlune is that even though we have this vision that seems kind of sci-fi, we have actual customers on Earth in areas like quantum computing, medical imaging and national security. There is an actual demand.

Your PhD was in planetary geochemistry at CU. What led you to Boulder?

There’s an incredible space community in Boulder — a lot of interdisciplinary work among CU departments and organizations like LASP and the Southwest Research Institute. When I was touring CU, I was handed a list of planetary scientists in Boulder that was upwards of 50 people. I thought, “Oh my gosh, there’s just so much going on.”

Your work seems to challenge the idea that industries exist in a silo. Can you talk more about your multidisciplinary approach?

When you’re a PhD student, you are expected to be a specialist. But I don’t actually identify anymore as a specialist. I’m a generalist — I have a PhD in planetary geochemistry, but I’ve also worked in spacecraft engineering, mining consulting, business development and more. To move humanity forward, you need people like me to stitch the specialists’ work together in new and exciting ways.

What topics in the field have been piquing your interest these days?

Ethics and sustainability are really top of mind. The mining industry has a long legacy of harming both people and the environment. I think that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. We want to be intentional and thoughtful about how we use technology and extract space resources for human use.

Any thoughts or advice for recent graduates?

I think PhD students and graduates should know that just because you got your degree in one topic, doesn’t mean you have to stay in that field. You can redirect your career in unexpected and exciting ways. Stay open to opportunities and take them — you never know where they’ll lead you. 

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(LASP) is the university’s first and highest-budget research institute — and the only organization of its kind to have sent scientific instruments to every planet in our solar system, plus the sun and a host of moons.

Founded in 1948 as a collaboration between the U.S. Air Force and the university’s physics department, LASP’s initial experiments included launching instruments mounted on captured German V-2 rockets in order to study the sun. Today, over 75 years later, the institute is made up of more than 100 research scientists who specialize in designing, building and operating spacecraft and spacecraft instruments.

As LASP looks ahead to the next 75 years, its dedication to innovation keeps it at the leading edge of space science. Here are just a few of the many missions LASP has helped propel forward.

Sun

2010–30

EVE on  examines variations in the sun’s extreme ultraviolet light over time.

• Mission Highlight: Recorded enormous solar 'tornadoes,' ultra-hot plasma plumes swirling above the sun’s surface.

Mercury

2004–15

LASP Spectrometer on  first detected magnesium in Mercury’s exosphere.

• Mission Highlight: Confirmed the presence of ice deposits in permanently shadowed craters at Mercury’s poles.

Venus

1978–92

Ultraviolet Spectrometer on  identified sulfur dioxide in the clouds, indicating potential volcanic activity.

• Mission Highlight: Pinpointed the highest point on Venus — Maxwell Montes stands 10.8 km high.

Earth

Scheduled 2027

LASP radiometers on NASA will record how much energy leaves our planet’s atmosphere on a day-by-day basis, providing crucial information about how Earth’s climate is evolving over time. 

Moon

2013–14

Lunar Dust Experiment on  gathered and analyzed lunar dust particles.

• Mission Highlight: Revealed tiny meteoroids deliver water to the Moon’s exosphere.

Mars

2013–14

Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on  discovered an aurora caused by proton precipitation in Mars’ atmosphere.

• Mission Highlight: Determined that solar wind has significantly stripped Mars’ atmosphere, altering its climate from warm and wet to cold and dry.

Jupiter

1989–2003

Ultraviolet Spectrometer on  observed the impacts of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragments on Jupiter.

• Mission Highlight: Found evidence of a subsurface ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Saturn

1997–2017

Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on  measured emissions from gases emitted by volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io.

• Mission Highlight: Detected an icy plume of salt-rich organic chemicals erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

Uranus

1977–C�ܰ�����Գ�

Photopolarimeter Subsystem on  discovered Uranus’ rings are younger than the solar system.

• Mission Highlight: Identified an irregular magnetic field, highly tilted from Uranus’ spin axis.

Neptune

1977–C�ܰ�����Գ�

Photopolarimeter Subsystem on found Neptune’s rings are incomplete circles created by dust knocked off tiny moons.

• Mission Highlight: Performed the first mission to fly past Neptune and detect its irregular magnetic field. 

Pluto

2006–C�ܰ�����Գ�

on  was the first student-designed instrument to launch on an interplanetary mission.

• Mission Highlight: Discovered the largest known glacier in the solar system.

And beyond…

LASP has been involved in missions beyond our solar system, including operations for NASA’s exoplanet-hunting Kepler mission and the IXPE mission, which studies extreme space environments.

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Marsha Ivins (AeroEngr’73) is a retired astronaut who has participated in five missions to space. Over the course of her career, Ivins spent a total of 55 days in space handling various responsibilities, from monitoring systems as a flight engineer to managing photography. This year, she was selected as a 2024 inductee for the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, one of the highest honors in the industry. 

As a child, did you imagine life as an astronaut?

I have wanted to work in the space business in some capacity since I was 10 years old. Imagining opens the door to trying, and trying is step one in achieving. I wasn’t solely focused on just flying in space, although of course that was a dream. Everyone I knew, family, teachers and friends said it could never happen.

Of your career missions, are there any that you feel especially passionate about or regard as your favorite?

There is no such thing as a bad spaceflight. They all had shining moments for me.

Can you describe the feeling of looking out at the Earth for the first time from space?

I cannot adequately express the visceral feeling of realizing you are no longer on the planet. What you see is only a sliver of the feeling.

What were some of your career goals when you were studying aerospace engineering at CU Boulder?

NASA was not hiring astronauts when I graduated from college. I applied as an engineer to the Johnson Space Center (JSC), but 1974 was a severe downtime for aerospace engineers in all industries. I also applied for 27 other jobs around the country that were not hiring at the time. I was offered and accepted a job with Abbott Laboratories, and shortly after I got a call from the JSC saying I’d been offered an engineering position in a new class — which I then accepted.

How does it feel to be selected for the Astronaut Hall of Fame?

I am honored to have been considered and selected for induction. There have been 106 men and women inducted into the AHOF since 1990, covering the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs. It is overseen by the Astronaut Scholarship Fund which, to date, has given over $8 million in scholarships to more than 790 students in STEM fields at partner universities across the country.

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Consistent Yoga for Good Health 

A CU Boulder study found yoga to be very beneficial to those who practice it — when done regularly. The study, which examined both typical yoga classes and those with only stretching, found the benefits of better emotion regulation, self-control, distress tolerance and mindfulness lasted about a week after either type of class. “One yoga class is not enough to reap long-term health benefits,” CU Boulder Institute of Behavioral Science research associate Charleen Gust told Researchers hope further study will determine how often people must practice to experience benefits. 

Study Abroad Hits Record Number 

This spring, the number of CU students studying abroad at the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. Nearly 1,200 students were enrolled to study abroad this spring, with Western Europe serving as the most popular destination. CU Boulder’s study abroad program is ranked 15th-largest in the nation

CU Economist Tackles English Mystery 

From 1761 to 1834 the mortality rate of English people dropped from 28 to 25 per 1,000 people, a statistic that has confused historians due to the population influx around that time. “With people coming into cities to work, you would expect, given the level of sanitation they have, that the big killer is water,” CU Boulder economics professor Fransica Antman told the in December. Antman authored a study linking the change to the rise in tea consumption. In 1784, the tea tax went from 119% to 12.5%, boosting tea consumption. Boiling the water when making tea, Antman explained, killed off the bacteria that was prevalent in drinking water at the time, thus saving lives. In her study, Antman examined the quality of water sources for about 400 parishes in England and determined that the death rate declined even in those parishes with poor water quality due to the high prevalence of tea. 

Heard Around Campus 

“CU naturally attracts really outstanding leaders.”

— Stefanie Johnson, director of the Center for Leadership, told the in January after and Statista named CU Boulder one of the top 100 best colleges for future leaders. 

Digits: 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

4/8

Date of eclipse

11:28 a.m.

Time solar eclipse appears in Boulder

1,500

Children participating in Fiske’s eclipse outreach program

15

U.S. states will experience total solar eclipse

4

Fiske Planetarium films related to the total eclipse

7,500

Public and K-12 visitors watched the planetarium’s eclipse films from May 2023 to January 2024

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Photos and illustrations courtesy Pixabay

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On Sept. 24, 2023, a space capsule about the size of a used tire landed in a patch of Utah desert not far from Salt Lake City. Aboard was a tiny chunk of an alien world — roughly half a pound of rocks from an asteroid called Bennu. 

This “sample return” was the culmination of one phase of a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched in 2016, beginning a seven-year journey to study and even pick up a piece of Bennu — which is about as tall as the Empire State Building and shaped a bit like a spinning top. 

Researchers at CU Boulder were along for the ride. Daniel Scheeres, distinguished professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, led a team that used the spacecraft’s navigational instruments to peer deep inside the asteroid. The group’s research data is opening a new window into the dawn of the solar system billions of years ago.   

Among other things, the researchers — which included four graduate students — discovered that Bennu’s interior may be much less dense than its outer layers — like a créme-filled chocolate egg in space. 

As for the sample of Bennu, Paul Sánchez, senior research associate of aerospace engineering, will help analyze that treasure. He’ll explore how tiny grains of rocky material can hold themselves together to form a massive space behemoth like Bennu. 

“We were hoping to find out what happened to this asteroid over time, which can give us better insight into how all of these small asteroids are changing over millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of years,” Scheeres said. “Our findings exceeded our expectations.”

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Photo courtesy NASA

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Jim Voss (MAeroEngr’74; HonDocSci’00) served as a U.S. Army colonel and NASA astronaut. He flew into space five times (202 total days) on NASA’s space shuttles. He also worked aboard the International Space Station and completed a nearly nine-hour spacewalk, the longest recorded. Jim returned to CU Boulder as a professor in 2004, where he teaches students about human spaceflight in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. 

How soon after waking up do you look at your phone? When it rings.

App you wish you had the inner strength to delete: None — I don't use many.

Last person you called: My wife.

Duration of longest call last week: 2 minutes.

Location and description of last selfie: Skiing with friends at Breckenridge.

Does anyone else have your passcode? Yes.

Oldest photo on your phone: It’s too old for me to remember when it was taken.

What is your lock screen or background image? I had to look since I don't pay attention to things like that — it’s a photo I took of fall foliage with orange and yellow trees.

What do you use your phone for most? Phone calls.

Most used apps:

Camera, Yelp, Maps

Most used emoji:

Birthday cake emoji

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Photo courtesy Jim Voss

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Space environmentalist Moriba Jah, a 2022 MacArthur Fellow, is on a mission to manage space debris.

Astrodynamicist and space environmentalist Moriba Jah (MAeroEngr’01; PhD’05) is among the prestigious 25-member cohort of the 2022 MacArthur Fellows Program.

After receiving roughly 2,000 nominations per year from a pool of invited external nominators, the selects individuals demonstrating exceptional creativity and a history of significant achievement who are on the precipice of great discovery or a game-changing idea. Jah, a CU Boulder alumnus, is one such individual.

He won the fellowship for laying the foundation for a safe, prosperous and sustainable near-Earth space environment. 

“Much like people are keeping track of things moving on land, air and ocean, my job is to keep track of human-made things moving around in space,” said Jah, associate professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Saving Space

Jah’s work also involves policy guidance and public education concerning the framework of space environmentalism, which he likened to human exploration of Earth’s assets. “That exploration was led by those most resourced, and it always came to the detriment of the environment — we’re doing the same thing with space.”

While Jah said he’s still in some disbelief about receiving a , he wants “to invest these resources in me and my vision. Basically, I want space environmentalism to be mainstream across humanity. … I’m going to look for every means possible to be able to achieve that.”

A challenge in his field, he said, is the lack of empathy toward solving the problem of space debris. 

“That’s the most difficult thing — mostly because people don’t have the awareness of what the problem is,” he said. “Then once they learn about it, it’s hard for them to see why it should matter to them.”

Jah strives to fix this by showing evidence “of the dependencies that we have, certainly in western civilization, on space-based infrastructure, services and capabilities in our daily lives.”

Together, Jah and his colleagues created a system to gather and catalog data through and , free online visualization tools they’ve developed. 

The alarming amount of space congestion he tracks includes expired satellites that continue to travel at high speeds. When satellites stop functioning, they will hurtle through space for centuries or more, he said. While space is often thought of as large and infinite, Jah confirmed orbital highways — where satellites are placed — are very finite.

Just a few years ago, a dozen satellites were launched in a year. Now, “we’re launching about a dozen satellites per week, at least,” said Jah. “We’re just sending stuff up but not coordinating it with other countries.

“It’s a recipe for the tragedy of the commons: Space could become unusable because we keep on participating in that finite resource without the benefit of planning, coordinating and even understanding the decision-making processes of other people that are doing that as well.”

I want space environmentalism to be mainstream across humanity.

On the Horizon

Looking ahead as a MacArthur Fellow, Jah underscored his belief in the interconnection of all things: “We are in an existential crisis; our only way through it is by having a successful conversation with our environment,” he said. “Stewardship is really what’s being asked for us to become, embrace and honor.

“I hope that my work is able to recruit empathy from people to raise awareness, show evidence of the interconnectedness and hopefully motivate people to see themselves as stewards of the environment.”

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Illustration by Lisk Feng; Photo courtesy John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

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Astrodynamicist and space environmentalist (MAeroEngr’01; PhD’05) is among the prestigious 25-member cohort of the .

After receiving roughly 2,000 nominations per year from a pool of invited external nominators, the individuals demonstrating exceptional creativity and a history of significant achievement who are on the precipice of great discovery or a game-changing idea. Jah, a CU Boulder alumnus, is one such individual. 

He won the fellowship for laying the foundation for a safe, prosperous and sustainable near-Earth space environment. 

“Much like people are keeping track of things moving on land, air and ocean, my job is to keep track of human-made things moving around in space,” said Jah, associate professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Saving Space

Jah’s work also involves policy guidance and public education concerning the framework of space environmentalism, which he likened to human exploration of Earth’s assets. “That [type of] exploration was led by those most resourced, and it always came to the detriment of the environment — we’re doing the same thing with space.”

While Jah said he’s still in some disbelief about receiving a , he wants “to invest these resources in me and my vision. Basically, I want space environmentalism to be mainstream across humanity. … I’m going to look for every means possible to be able to achieve that.”

A challenge in his field, he said, is the lack of empathy toward solving the problem of space debris. 

“That’s the most difficult thing — mostly because people don’t have the awareness of what the problem is,” he said. “Then once they learn about it, it’s hard for them to see why it should matter to them.”

Jah strives to fix this by showing evidence “of the dependencies that we have, certainly in western civilization, on space-based infrastructure, services and capabilities in our daily lives.”

Together, Jah and his colleagues created a system to gather and catalog data through and , free online visualization tools they’ve developed. 

The alarming amount of space congestion he tracks includes expired satellites that continue to travel at high speeds. When satellites stop functioning, they will hurtle through space for centuries or more, he said. While space is often thought of as large and infinite, Jah confirmed orbital highways — where satellites are placed — are very finite.

Just a few years ago, a dozen satellites were launched in a year. Now, “we’re launching about a dozen satellites per week, at least,” said Jah. “We’re just sending stuff up but not coordinating it with other countries.”

“It’s a recipe for the tragedy of the commons: Space could become unusable because we keep on participating in that finite resource without the benefit of planning, coordinating and even understanding the decision-making processes of other people that are doing that as well.”

A Career Takes Off  

“We’re just sending stuff up but not coordinating it with other countries.”

Jah’s career is founded on astrodynamics — the science that studies motion of objects in space — orbit determination and statistics, “as taught to me by the late George Born, professor emeritus and director for the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research.”

Jah explained how Professor Born gave him the opportunity to work alongside him during graduate school at CU Boulder. “I wasn’t a great test-taker; I didn’t do well on my GREs. ... But I did meaningful research and he said, ‘I want you to be a grad student here.’ It was an ‘I believe you should be here — now prove it to yourself’ sort of thing.”

He fondly recalled his time as a student and the beauty of campus, where his son is now an undergraduate engineering physics major.

Among his favorite CU memories are the meaningful exchanges shared during dinners that Professor Born and his wife, Carol, hosted for graduate students. Additionally, Jah said his camaraderie with other students has lasted for years, as he continues to keep in touch with former classmates. 

On the Horizon

Looking ahead as a MacArthur Fellow, Jah underscored his belief in the interconnection of all things: ”We are in an existential crisis; our only way through it is by having a successful conversation with our environment,” he said. “Stewardship is really what’s being asked for us to become, embrace and honor.”

“I hope that my work is able to recruit empathy from people to raise awareness, show evidence of the interconnectedness and hopefully motivate people to see themselves as stewards of the environment.”

Photos courtesy John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

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Much of the world was awestruck when NASA published the first images from the , the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope.

Erica Nelson, CU Boulder astrophysical and planetary sciences assistant professor, is part of several programs that are spending more than 1,000 hours on the telescope, including about 700 on its main infrared camera. “We are seeing galaxies which formed at much earlier times than we previously thought possible that may pose a threat to what we thought we understood about the universe on the grandest scales,” she said.

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Photo by Space Telescope Science Institute 

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Very few official UFO studies have been conducted, but CU Boulder boasts one of these rare reports. In the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force commissioned Edward Condon, a former CU professor of physics and astrophysics, to conduct a scientific investigation into the possibility that UFOs may be of extraterrestrial origin. The “Condon Report” officially concluded UFOs did not warrant further investigation. 

However, other CU voices remain passionate that studying unexplainable phenomena is crucial to adding to our knowledge of the universe. Philosophy professor Carol Cleland, affiliate of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, believes studying these anomalies could help lead to major scientific breakthroughs.

14,885

pages long

59

UFO sighting case studies from 1947–1968

11

file boxes of documents, journals, research papers, international newsletters, film reels of suspected “sightings” and books 

37

scientists wrote chapters or parts of chapters for the report

5

Categories for Cases:

1. Old UFO reports (from before 1966)
2. New reports
3. Photographic cases
4. Radar and visual cases
5. UFOs reported by astronauts

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Photos and scans courtesy of the Edward U. Condon Collection, Box 5, University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections

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