It is home to the nation’s oldest Aerospace Engineering department. It was the birthplace of space science instruments that are now at work across the solar system. It’s an alma mater of the entire Apollo 15 moon mission crew. Michigan Engineering is a key player in the American space program. It will continue this tradition, according to astronauts, scientists and engineers who spoke Oct. 28 at a panel discussion in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Wolverine-crewed Apollo 15. The speakers shared their insights on the past, present and future of space exploration and Michigan’s role.

Astronaut and Apollo 15 crew member Al Worden opened remarks with a mention of a student-built mini satellite, RAX, that had launched that very morning.

“I witnessed the radio signals from a little satellite that they put up this morning,” Worden said. “It’s a tenth of a watt signal, but it was a signal. These students are the people that are going to get us to Mars someday.”

Worden is a strong supporter of human space exploration. The astronaut, who rode in the orbiter across the dark side of the moon, said robots can’t solve problems like people can. Case in point: A water leak sprung during Apollo 15.

“Imagine a little bubble of water sitting on the end of a tube, and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger,” he recalled. “If the bubble got lose, it could have shorted out all of our electrical equipment. But if you touch it, you could have 1,000 little bubbles. I would defy any robot to figure out how to solve that one.”

The astronauts absorbed the water in a towel.

“It’s fun to think about what was, but it’s even more fun to think about what will be,” said Tony England, a shuttle astronaut who is now a professor in the U-M departments of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences; and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. England shares Worden’s enthusiasm for human spaceflight. It’s a view he wasn’t sure of until he went to space himself.

“I found it so comfortable,” he said. “I feel strongly that humans do have a future in space, and the young engineers that we’re teaching now are going to help get us there.”

These students could have a hand in robotic or manned missions to low-earth orbit, the moon, asteroids, the moons of Mars and even the planet Mars itself, said Mike Hess, an alum and deputy CFO of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

“We need the folks here to keep up the pipeline of excellent and innovative engineers so that NASA can take us, as a country, into the future,” Hess said.

Ending on a sobering note, the panelists pointed out that our survival as a species might hinge on whether we can move off the Earth. As the sun ages and expands, it is likely to envelop our planet more than 5 billion years from today.

“When the time comes,” Worden said, “We’re going to want to be capable of sending a contingent somewhere else.”