Strategic design · Systems · Storytelling

Designing an equitable future in low Earth orbit

PartnerNASA

RoleDesign strategist

Timeline15 weeks

ContextParsons capstone

A 15-week strategy project with NASA, through Parsons, on a deceptively simple question: how do you get people to care about space research they already rely on every day? My piece was a prototype that makes that dependence impossible to ignore.

Strategy
Systems
Storytelling

01 / 04

The ISS is ending. The story is just beginning.

The International Space Station retires in 2030. After 25 years of continuous human presence in orbit, the lab quietly behind cancer detection, weather forecasting, and food preservation is being decommissioned.

NASA came to Parsons with a challenge that wasn't scientific, it was strategic: how do you build public investment in something most people don't realize they already depend on?

The end of an era, ISS retirement, leading into the start of a new one, commercial LEO destinations — The end of one era, the ISS, and the start of the next: commercial destinations in low Earth orbit.

02 / 04

Space is everywhere in our lives, and invisible in our story.

Digging in, we kept landing on the same insight: the benefits of space research are widely distributed, but the narrative is narrowly communicated. The conversation lives inside scientific and policy circles, so the public stays disconnected, achievements stay hidden, whole audiences get missed, and funding feels like it's only for the big players.

That reframed the question for us: how might the next era of low Earth orbit be equitable, participatory, and genuinely supported by the people it serves?

Three problem signals: hidden achievements, audience gap, and funding imbalance — Three signals we kept seeing: hidden achievements, an audience gap, and a funding imbalance.

Imagine the world without weather forecasts, GPS, camera phones, fresh food, filtered water, and life-saving healthcare — Most of us already live on space research, weather, GPS, clean water, without ever noticing.

03 / 04

Turning an overwhelming problem into something actionable.

We broke the opportunity into six strategic domains, public engagement, commercial activity, governance, scientific research, financing, and space sustainability, then mapped the full constellation of people who shape and are shaped by space: the space industry, educators, students, creative professionals, impact-driven institutions, and communities historically left out of science and policy.

From there we laid a three-stage roadmap, Prepare to Launch (build the storytelling infrastructure now, before the 2030 window narrows), Lift Off (scale engagement and deepen participation), and In Orbit (codify an equitable governance model that keeps space science accountable to people, not just funding bodies).

Constellation mapping of stakeholders grouped into investors, government, research, commercial, public, and sustainability — Mapping the constellation of everyone who shapes, and is shaped by, space.

Stakeholders organized into primary, secondary, and tertiary tiers — Sorting those stakeholders into primary, secondary, and tertiary tiers.

Three guiding principles: breaking down complex science, visual storytelling, and leveraging NASA's existing channels — Three principles guided the work: simplify the science, tell it visually, and ride NASA's existing reach.

04 / 04

My prototype: A Day in Life Without NASA

My piece of the project was a counterfactual experience, timed to NASA's 25th anniversary of continuous human presence in space. It walks you through an ordinary day as if ISS research had never happened: the cancer screening, the weather alert, the food-safety standard, all gone.

The point isn't data, it's the small shock of recognition. Loss turns out to be far more mobilizing than statistics, and that emotional turn is what makes people lean in and actually care.

Storyboard frames 1 to 6: what happens up there changes life down here, from the ISS to healthcare breakthroughs

Storyboard frames 7 to 12: weather tracking, climate monitoring, clean water, everyday tools, and every mission in space is a mission for humanity — The storyboard behind the film, every mission in space is a mission for humanity.

Learn more

A capstone collaboration between Parsons School of Design and NASA's ISS program. NASA →

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