“Foundations can take greater risks”

“Every NASA mission is difficult, impossible really.”

Even in the absence of an answer to this big question, you’ve achieved extraordinary goals in your career. From 2016 to 2022 you were Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA—arguably the biggest job in space exploration. How did you first discover astrophysics and then make your way to NASA?

I was interested in the skies already as a child. I grew up in alpine Bernese Oberland where the nights were dark. That really shaped me. The night sky in the mountains is very different to skies where there’s artificial light: you can see the Milky Way—our galaxy—and the colours of stars and planets. You can see the difference between stars and nebulae. Later, I began studying physics at the University of Bern and then switched to astrophysics. I had the opportunity to work in a satellite project and even built part of a satellite.
 

That was used in a NASA mission.

Yes. I not only did the analyses for the instrument: I built it. I had help from an outstanding technician in Bern who trained me and made sure I did everything correctly. And the instrument was still part of the inventory of the missions I was in charge of when I joined NASA.
 

After graduating, you went to the US, where you were appointed professor at the University of Michigan. How did you move to the leadership role at NASA?

I made my name in the US through the successful satellite experiments I conducted there, and also because I built up innovation systems. For example, at Michigan, I initiated one of the most important start-up systems in the US. Then, several people from NASA management called me to say the position in the Science Mission Directorate was open and that I should consider applying. Which I did.
 

So it was the combination of research excellence and entrepreneurial thinking that convinced NASA?

Exactly. The second quality is also very relevant. The people at NASA said they needed someone who understands both—and they had the feeling there weren’t too many viable candidates in the world of science.
 

You led one hundred and thirty missions at NASA. Which were the most interesting?

I launched thirty-seven new missions into space, one of which was the James Webb Space Telescope, the most complex and expensive mission ever. It caused enormous problems—it was one of those missions that started out difficult and that came close to being discontinued several times. Others had already saved it before, I saved it a third time. And then the telescope went into outer space. Ever since, it’s been writing science history week for week: whether it’s identifying new exoplanets or gaining new insights into stars or black holes.
 

What made the mission so difficult?

Every NASA mission is incredibly difficult, impossible really, and they all have their challenges. In essence, two things need to work: the technology and people as a team. We generally get the technology up and running, but the human component is more challenging—eighty percent of the problems stem from people. It’s about leadership, culture, people’s willingness to give their all to achieve a goal. That was the problem with the James Webb Space Telescope: team members were unmotivated and made unbelievable mistakes. Once, a thousand screws fell out during a test.
 

In other words, a key part of your work was motivating staff.

Absolutely. Missions will only ever succeed when everyone understands what they have to do, why they’re doing it, and under what constraints and conditions. And when everyone says they’re part of a team.
 

You mentioned that technical problems can generally be solved. Space research is renowned for bringing about technical wonders—for example, for miniaturising highly complex instruments and systems so that they can actually fit on a spaceship. How does this happen?

In space research, the goal is to find an easy way to do complex things. A lab like the one here at ETH Zurich would have to be transformed into an instrument that a single person could carry. That means you have to reinvent the whole thing. Miniaturisation doesn’t mean that each component is made smaller—an entirely new approach is needed.
 

Do you have an example from your time at NASA?

At NASA, my first step was to start initiatives building small satellites in every research area. A satellite that was the size of a bus had to be made to fit on a table, or even be as small as a loaf of bread. There are two advantages. First, small satellites are much less expensive. And second, you can use a hundred small satellites to view the Earth in high resolution round the clock—as soon as one satellite disappears behind the horizon, the next is coming. A single geostationary satellite can’t do that.
 

Did this also call for a new technical approach?

It did. A lot of scientists underestimate miniaturisation’s role in innovation, but making things smaller usually means they have to be simpler. You can’t conceal as many sins, as it were. For example, if a large satellite’s thermal system isn’t working at one-hundred-percent efficiency, a common solution is to simply add on a heater that weighs five kilos. You can’t do that with a small system, everything has to be just so from the very start. And we often need smaller systems when the aim is mass production, something innovators understand. These constraints mean we have to start rethinking everything, which makes room for completely new ideas to emerge.

Ideas and innovations are also at the heart of your work at ETH Zurich, where you’ve led the ETH Zurich Space initiative since 2023 and you’re Head of a National Innovation Initiative in the area of space research. What does this work entail?

We want to build three main pillars in the area of space research. The first pillar is a new master’s degree programme for space systems that focuses on data, constructing innovative systems and sustainability. ETH Zurich is a university where students are the most important people. After all, patents aren’t the best drivers of innovation. People are. Research projects are the second pillar. ETH Zurich has already been involved in past space missions, but we want to be even more active in future.
 

And the third pillar?

That would be innovation initiatives. We want to collaborate with yet more established companies. And we want to support the growth of start-ups with the aim of sharing Swiss technology and entrepreneurship to benefit society.
 

What elements are necessary to bring about major innovations?

Essentially three things: good ideas, smart and ambitious people—and funds.
 

What about being open to new ideas—and being lucky? Key developments at NASA have been used for many purposes other than space research. Just one example would be the NASA image sensors that make our smartphone cameras possible.

That’s the great advantage of basic research: new findings give rise to things that can find quite different applications. For the James Webb Space Telescope, we developed a technology that uses distributed optics to automatically and autonomously concentrate light on one spot. In the meantime, the system has been adapted for use in eye surgery. And luck is always important. While there’s a lot that can be planned—there’s a lot that can’t. In the field of innovation, it’s vital that we try crazy things. Not crazy in the negative sense of the word, but crazy hard, crazy ambitious. It’s this sort of environment that gives rise to findings that make things like the Internet possible. Multi-billion-dollar industries almost exclusively emerge from these kinds of research settings.
 

What can Switzerland and Central Europe do better in the area of promoting innovation?

Innovation is inextricably linked with the practical question of what happens when a project fails to bring about the desired outcome. If we have to stop after the first attempt, we won’t be innovative. That’s why it worries me to hear that researchers have to go to the US after attaining disappointing results—because they’re not given a second chance here. If I had a lot of money, I would invest in people in Switzerland who need a second chance. Or a third.
 

Do you have other concerns about innovation in Central Europe?

I’m also concerned that productivity is in decline. Whoever is trying to develop innovative, world-changing ideas is in competition with teams from across the globe. If they work twice as hard, they’ll have twice as many chances. Because I don’t think it’s the geniuses who win: it’s the people who work hard and stick to it. That’s something I learned growing up in the mountains. And the same holds true for Silicon Valley, Zurich, Berlin and everywhere else in between.
 

What part can foundations play in supporting vital research and innovation?

Foundations are incredibly instrumental in this area. They can take greater risks than state organisations. There’s a great deal of evidence that foundations invest more wisely than governments—and that their funding generates new, groundbreaking fields of research. That family foundations invested in the first telescopes used for observing space is just one example. The way we think about ourselves today is the result of these investments.
 

Space missions are typically long-term projects, while many funding instruments run for just a few years. Does this cause problems in space research?

There’s short- and long-term research, and both are important. But basic, transformational research takes time. A major project like the James Webb Space Telescope is only possible if full funding is secured for twenty years. The advances made in the process lead to Nobel Prizes and so on. I think a mixture of patience and impatience is a good innovation strategy.
 

As a last question, let’s return to “high aims”: what’s the best advice you have for young researchers?

Eighty percent of the time that goals aren’t met is because researchers didn’t try—not because they did something wrong. That’s why I tell young people: “You have a chance to do great things. Try doing something that will make the world a better place.”