It could be an unclassifiable superhero from Marvel or DC. In the mornings he teaches his students at the University of Southern California how to build interplanetary ships; in the afternoon he deciphers the potential of hydrogen to replace fossil fuels from his company Hydroplane; then he connects with colleagues at NASA to advise them on missions to Mars or Venus, and at sunset he flies over the Grand Canyon in a small plane while envisioning the clean-flying revolution to come.
Aerospace engineer Anita Sengupta is not just any superhero, she has always tried to break with conventional wisdom. For them there is no stress, only challenges. She appears in the most complex missions, the brown ones that everyone wants to avoid. It encourages you to step out of your comfort zone. American of Indian and Scottish descent, Sengupta (Glasgow, age 45) was responsible for planning the Mars landing of NASA’s Curiosity 2012 mission, an idea so effective it was used again in the 2020 Perseverance Expedition.
More information
The system integrates a hyper-resistant parachute (the rover weighs about a ton), a heat shield and retro-missiles that reduce the ship’s supersonic speed from about 2,000 km/h to 1 km. All in a matter of seconds and with a single chance for the robot, which costs around 2,500 million euros, to land on the surface of Mars.
If you want to support the development of quality journalism, subscribe.
Subscribe to
After 16 years at the space agency, his focus is now on the problems of the earth and above all on hydrogen, the most common element in the universe. His research, supported by the US Air Force, aims to harness energy through a process called fuel cells. Gaseous molecules release electrons that provide electricity. Might dwarf that of The Avengers for its multi-ethnic and multi-disciplinary profile, Sengupta and his team are working to decarbonize aviation, one of the most polluting forms of transportation.
The new generation of electric aircraft eVOLT (for its English acronym), of which companies like Airbus or Boeing already have prototypes that look like large drones, are waiting to flood the city skies. The first flying taxis are scheduled to go into operation in 2023. “Anita takes you with the great enthusiasm that radiates in everything she does,” says Brit Darrell Swanson, director of Swanson Aviation, which specializes in electric aircraft.
Sengupta’s creativity is a laser that sneaks into corners. The space station, for example, has a laboratory it designed to freeze and analyze atoms, which is unprecedented due to the volatility of the particles. However, its laser has crashed into a wall: the Hyperloop maglev train, which would make it possible to travel from Madrid to Barcelona in 45 minutes. As Vice President of Virgin Hyperloop, Sengupta assumed that the high costs made the project unfeasible for the time being.
Anita Sengupta grew up in New York immersed in comics and science fiction films, charting interstellar travel as another passenger on the USS Enterprise, the mythical ship from the Star Trek series. In her own film, she would play Commander and First Officer Spock, the pointy-eared, methodical Vulcan who inspired him, and Data, the silver-skinned android always in search of a better version of himself and what it means to be human .
“We are all made of stardust. We are part of something bigger,” he emphasizes like a mantra at his conferences around the world. His love of exploration and aviation is linked to his multicultural background: his father, an engineer from Bengal; his mother, a British French teacher, and his early emigration to the United States. Her first flights across the Atlantic to visit her family in the UK would forever shape her as a child.
Sengupta is an airline pilot and civil aviation disaster volunteer. “She is a careful, well-informed pilot. Don’t take unnecessary risks. He is the person I would have liked to have been when I was his age,” explains Indian researcher and pilot Sandya Narayanswami. They met at the Caltech Flying Club, where they acted as pilot and co-pilot. Narayanswami, 67, highlights conversations about the obstacles she faced as a woman and of Indian descent. “The women of my generation were looking for husbands and that was the end of the story. How often do you see two Indian women piloting an airplane?” she exclaims.
For Anita, it was another form she broke. In addition to being an aerospace engineer and pilot, she is also an expert in scuba diving, rock climbing, snowboarding and motorcycling. She loves living in the real world, listening to nature and of course dancing and laughing to a Bollywood musical. When she visits India, she is greeted like a rock star.
Faced with climate change or the possibility of a nuclear conflict, he continues to believe in the future. She is convinced of human networking and that we will find the solutions. As a young man, a math teacher gave him a superpower that has stuck with him. He gave her confidence and she believed him.
Subscribe to the weekly Ideas newsletter here.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits