Rice University’s Space Humanities Initiative made its case at Ion: if we are going back to the moon, we better take our humanity with us.

There is a crater on the moon called Shackleton. If you laid a map of Houston over it, the 610 Beltway would trace its rim almost perfectly, and right at the center, you’d find Ion. Houston’s heart of aerospace innovation, sitting at the center of where humanity is headed next. A good metaphor to remind us where and how we should proceed.

NASA Tech Talk, hosted in August by Montgomery Goforth, NASA Johnson Space Center’s Chief Technologist, the conversation went somewhere unexpected: the human dimension of space exploration.

The panel brought together Alexander Regier and David Alexander, co-leads of Rice University’s newly launched Space Humanities Initiative, alongside artist and filmmaker Dario Robleto and neuroarts tech founder Ryn Delpapa. And through the evening, one question kept surfacing: as we prepare to return to the moon, are we building a mission, or are we deciding what kind of species we want to be?

Alexander, who has spent decades inside NASA’s ecosystem said: “We kind of forget that we were a wide-eyed kid at some point who wanted to do this.” The builders of missions, consumed by the next launch, the next milestone, can lose touch with the wonder that started it all. He recalled watching an Apollo documentary narrated by Tom Hanks, everyone in the room already knew the ending. But hearing it told by a storyteller, what it meant for the human race, made us realize that, “this is the story we want to tell.” It is that wonder that draws new minds into the work. It is the engine.

Robleto, who is writing a book on the Voyager Golden Record, took the conversation deeper. The question “Are we alone?” is one we usually hand to scientists. But he asked it as philosophy, as something rooted in an understanding of loss. “Maybe it’s loss that drives the asking at all.” When you zoom out, the same longing that makes us look up at the sky is the one that makes us grieve what we might never find. 

Delpapa annotated that with, if wonder and loss are what move us, then art is how we process both. Engaging in aesthetic experiences, like making art or listening to music, literally changes body, brain, and behavior. Citing research from University College London, engaging in art even once or twice a year decreases mortality by 14%. For astronauts enduring months of isolation, this means art is not a nice-to-have, it is part of how you survive.

The conversation shifted when the panel turned to what was already happening on the ground. NASA holds bilateral agreements with seventy countries on space collaboration, and these are not government-to-government treaties. They are about how to get involved, how to explore together. Public-private partnerships are the future. No one owns the moon, so how do we explore without exploiting? How do we make sure we do not carry the same patterns we regret here?

“We have to start implementing ethics now,” Delpapa urged. The humanities and sciences cannot just talk to each other in conference rooms. That dialogue has to produce real frameworks, real policy. “Not just sending beautiful letters, but also beautiful laws.”

The Dialogue to be Continued 

What made this evening different from a typical panel was the audience. People asked about grief and ecological loss, about how art can challenge the colonization mindset, about what it means to carry culture into space. These were the questions that shape policy, mission design, and ultimately, who gets to be part of this story.

It is through questions like these, through this community dialogue, that we make sure we are taking the right steps towards the human exploration of space.

The last NASA Tech Talk of 2026 will take place on 22nd Oct 2026. This month you will get a first look into Deep Space Autonomous Robotics Challenge (DSpARC). Whether you are an engineer, an artist, a policymaker, or simply someone who still looks up to see the stars, join us.

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