We’re getting intergalactic on this episode with NASA’s Director and System Capability Leader of the Advanced Communication and Navigations Division, Donald Cornwell, who takes us on his journey developing better space communication technology (5:37). But first, he brings us back to his childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut (10:00) and into his NASA internship during his days at the University of Maryland (15:53). Of course, that led to a lifelong career at NASA (minus a few detours that we’ll get into) in which Cornwell focused on laser technology for navigation and communication (21:03). He explains the benefits of lunar laser communication (30:04) as well as what we’re doing to pull better data from Mars (37:12) and the moon (45:41). Finally, he concludes by revealing some of the most exciting projects NASA is conducting throughout the next five to ten years (56:20).

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