This story is from September 26, 2026. For the latest, see today's news.
In a video interview, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Ryan McClelland discusses his work exploring how artificial intelligence could help design spacecraft, moving from written descriptions to physical hardware. The conversation covers why AI-generated designs often look unusual compared to human engineering, and the challenges of trusting machine-designed components for space missions.
The discussion also touches on broader applications, including lunar manufacturing possibilities and concepts like O'Neill cylinders, which are theoretical rotating space habitats. McClelland and hosts John Werner and Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross consider how quickly AI tools might accelerate the ability to build infrastructure beyond Earth.
The episode is part of a series called Conversations in Action, focused on emerging AI applications across industries.
This is an AI-written summary. The original reporting belongs to Imagination in Action. How we write these · Spot a mistake?