Musings · Field notes · May 2024, recut Sept 2026
We tried to build a space shield
An honest account of an ambitious proposal, a rejection letter, and a better mission.
In early 2024, the studio did something that still sounds improbable out loud: we proposed an experiment to the International Space Station. The concept was an advanced Whipple shield — spacecraft micrometeoroid armor — combining cold-welded titanium (metals bond naturally in vacuum) with self-healing composites designed to close their own microfractures. We submitted it to the ISS National Laboratory's research announcement (NLRA 2024-6), with early field-test assemblies that really did stop high-velocity projectiles.
On May 29, 2024, the answer came back: rejected.
What the reviewers said
The feedback was candid and, in hindsight, correct. The concept lacked sufficient technical detail and a clear rationale for why it required the space environment. The economics weren't demonstrated. No implementation partner had been identified, and the cost estimates were unrealistic. In short: the idea was too ambitious for the stage we were at.
Why we stopped instead of resubmitting
- Science requires patience and rigor. The proposal was imaginative but not grounded in the stepwise discipline NASA and CASIS rightly expect.
- AI wasn't ready to lead the work. It helped us draft and model — but it cannot carry the scientific method, peer review, or deep engineering judgment. We learned the limit by leaning on it.
- Our mission is design that inspires joy. Somewhere between the materials tests and the rejection letter, it became clear the studio's best work happens at human scale — where iteration and imagination matter more than orbital mechanics.
The rejection wasn't the end of an idea. It was the beginning of a more honest one.
What it bought us
We learned how the NLRA process actually works. We learned, precisely, where AI assistance ends and human justification begins — a lesson now written into every step of the studio's process. And we learned to keep failures on the record: this article stays up for the same reason the work ledger keeps its "not implemented" row. A studio that only shows its wins is showing you marketing.
The pivot that followed is the bench you can see today: the consulting practice, the objects headed for the store, and a game about ordinary life — built by the same hands that once tested spacecraft armor in a field, and happier for the trade. Failure, embraced honestly, is how the work gets somewhere worth going.