This Planetary Scientist Is Always Reaching for Something Big
Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a planetary scientist who studies the evolution of the terrestrial planets and life on Earth, fell in love with science as a girl because considering the vast scales of time and space inherent in studying geology gave her some solace from her personal troubles—it made them seem small and surmountable. A sense of the sublime seems to have permeated Elkins-Tanton’s approach to life ever since. She is always reaching for something bigger, for more meaning, broader questions, more significant projects.
Elkins-Tanton took an unconventional path to her current role as the leader of a NASA mission—for one thing, when she left MIT, she first went into business, a big taboo in academic science. But that early experience in business taught her invaluable lessons about how to manage complex human relationships that have served her well in some of her most far-reaching scientific research endeavors. Currently she is leading a NASA mission to send a spacecraft to investigate Psyche, a metal-rich asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. The launch is scheduled for late September 2022. It will travel using solar-electric propulsion to arrive at the asteroid in January 2026.
If I have a secret weapon or a tiny human-scale superpower, it is my drive to reject the unendurable.
Elkins-Tanton’s recently published memoir, , covers wide-ranging personal and professional terrain with depth and insight. She recently spoke about the Psyche mission, the events that led to one of the great mass extinctions in Earth’s history, and why she prefers starting lines to finish lines.
