I build robots for NASA. I face avalanches, toxic gases and even live volcanoes to test my inventions – it’s dangerous but I love it.

• Kalind Carpenter, 41, is a robotics engineer at NASA in Pasadena, California.
• Carpenter builds space robots that scale walls of ice and dive into alien oceans.
• He has tested robots in Antarctica and also carried them into the active volcano Mount St. Helens.

This essay is based on an interview with Kalind Zimmerman, a 41-year-old robotics engineer from Pasadena, California, on building robots for NASA. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I remember the first day I walked through the doors of NASA and was shown the building where the lunar rovers were born. I was hooked.

I studied industrial and product engineering at Arizona State University and then started a master’s program in mechanical engineering at California State University in 2010. funded project for 18 months.

Before completing my masters, I worked as an engineering intern for NASA in Pasadena. Without the ties of CSU-LA as a NASA research center, I would not have had these opportunities. I cried with joy when I was accepted. Now I work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

For the last 8 years I have helped design robots

I represented ASU in gymnastics, and this skill helped me think about all the different ways I can get robots to balance and move. I worked on the puffer, a robot for Mars that inflates on site – its tractor-like tires help it roll and climb steep surfaces. I also worked on the Ice Worm, a robot that can scale icy walls, and I helped design a robot that would find life in the ocean on one of Saturn’s moons.

One of the best perks of working for NASA is seeing missions come to life. NASA attracts an amazing group of individuals from all over the world, and being able to interact with people who deeply respect you is another huge benefit – the launch parties are a plus too.

The most memorable party was the Mars 2020 landing party during the pandemic when the Perseverance Rover landed on the Red Planet. It was February 18, 2021, just before Mardi Gras, so there were colorful hats everywhere. There were VIP groups, limousines and press, but the strangest thing I can remember was when my colleague and I had to give a presentation about EELS to a huge auditorium later that day. We wore two of the hats so everyone could see us on stage.

The Pasadena lab has been working on different iterations of a robot for years, seeking out the most extreme environments on earth to test its robots to their limits. I’ve sent my robots to Antarctica, mapped volcanic fissures in Hawaii, and used Rainbow Pool and Pisgah Crater in the Mojave Desert as analogues to Mars.

One of my most challenging trips for NASA was in July 2021

I went into the glacial caves of Mount St. Helens volcano. Mount St. Helens is so dangerous that parts of it are closed to the public. On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted with 500 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb. Today, only a handful of glacial cavers and scientists visit the cave each year to look for signs of future eruptions.

While they explore, we go into the cave with them and test the robots. We chose this network of ice caves filled with vapor vents as an analogue for Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. Enceladus also has water vapor vents, but they geyser into space to form one of Saturn’s rings. I worked with a team to develop the posable Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS) robot, which looks like a string of pearls and adapts to hilly terrain. It was designed to dive into one of the vents on this moon and explore the ocean below.

When we work on Mount St. Helens, we face rock falls, avalanches, opening crevasses and toxic gases. I’ve been a caver since I was a teenager. For this expedition, NASA protocol required us to climb many of the peaks in Southern California, including Mount Whitney, for physical and environmental training. We also had to do CPR and hypothermia training, and the mountain safety team conducted on-site helicopter, rope, and ice safety training.

On this expedition we camped on the glacier at the top of the volcano, but a wave of warm weather melted the glacier beneath the tents. We constantly had to dig new flat areas where we could set up the tents.

As we taught the robot how to find new life on other planets, it helped us potentially find new life on Earth

Our goal for this expedition was to test the payload of the EELS. We manually fed the robot dirt and ice samples from inside the caves so it would learn what to do when it reached Enceladus. When we ran the samples through a digital holographic microscope, we found swimming single-celled creatures about 1/100th the thickness of a human hair.

Our expedition into the cave also helped us test which sensors can create accurate maps of this environment. Ice reflects light and lasers differently than rocks and plants, and water vapor also makes it difficult to see.

It will take 12 years for the spacecraft to reach Enceladus from Earth, but EELS only needs 90 minutes to send its results back to Earth. We hope that the Orbilander flight in 2038 will carry an EELS robot.

When I was 4 years old, I would often look at the night sky over my parents’ farm and dream of becoming an astronaut

When I was eight I wanted my bedroom to be wallpapered with pictures of the planets and by the time I was ten I was building Lego space bases, robots and spaceships.

I still dream of the moon, but now I also think of the sea world and the moons that are scattered throughout our solar system. I know that the technologies that will be built will help us on Earth fight climate change, produce sustainable energy, and increase food safety and security.

At the same time, as a robotics engineer for NASA, I want to inspire more four-year-olds to achieve their dreams and give them a better future.