Alex Longo, a 15-year old from Cardinal Gibbons High School, speaks during the First Landing Site/Exploration Zone Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars held at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015, in Houston, Texas. The agency is hosting the workshop to collect proposals for locations on Mars that would be of high scientific research value while also providing natural resources to enable human explorers to land, live and work safely on the Red Planet. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Alex Longo has been fascinated with space exploration ever since he saw a Space Shuttle launch at age five. He was fortunate to participate in the landing site selection process for the Perseverance Mars rover, beginning when he was 13 years old. He is also the author of “Launch America,” an e-book on the SpaceX Demo-2 mission and its crew. Alex is currently a graduate student and planetary scientist at the University of North Carolina, where he studies Artemis landing sites and weathering on Venus. As a writer for AmericaSpace, he is documenting the story of the Artemis program – and, more importantly, the people who are making it possible.