Something out of this world

Eric Yam has an impressive resumé — and he’s not yet old enough to vote.

He’s won awards from the United Way and at a biotech competition. But now he has a new, highly prestigious entry to add to the top of his CV: winner of the 2009 NASA space colony design competition.

Yam’s design was up against 309 submissions from around the world.

“It’s pretty exciting,” says Yam, the first Canadian to win the competition in its 16 years. “It’s not everyday that you get noticed for all the work you do by NASA.”

The Northern Secondary School student’s physics teacher introduced him to the competition three years ago and he jumped at the chance to create a space colony for 10,000 people. But he didn’t do it for the prize, he says.

“(The project) brought together all my ideas on engineering, technology, sociology and biology,” Yam says. “I didn’t care if I won, but I wanted to be able to say that it’s my magnum opus and that it really describes me as a person.”

That it does: his project incorporates Canada’s healthcare and immigration point systems.

Yam completed a 92-page report in nine months while balancing his school work and a long list of extracurricular activities. And he had only minimal help from his staff advisor, he says.

His mom, Becky, says she remembers Eric working on it during a vacation to Cuba.

“Even on family holidays, he was busy writing and writing while we’re enjoying ourselves on the beach,” she says. “He was in the room tapping away on the computer.”

His work paid off and he created his space colony, called Asten, which is another name for Thoth, the Egyptian god who mediates divine law.

Yam’s colony is a 1.6 kilometre-high, 1 kilometre-wide self-sufficient structure that could house up to 10,000 people.

Looking at his project now, Yam says he’d try to improve on the feasibility of the colony, which would cost an estimated $563 billion US, as well as improve on the engineering and technical aspects.

But those changes aren’t likely to happen anytime soon.

“I focus my head towards the future,” says Yam. “When it comes down to it, this is nothing but a fantasy: it’s not like NASA is actually going to take it up to space and build the design.

“It’d be nice and I recognize that, but now I’ve got to figure out, Where can I apply my skills and be used?”

Yam finished high school a year early and will be heading to Waterloo’s mechatronics program.

“I love the future of designing and I like the engineering aspect of it,” he says. “I also like the idea of social conscience and designing with the people in mind.”

Though Yam might be able to design an orbiting habitat of the future, he still needs to learn a few more down-to-earth skills.

“He’s a baby, he doesn’t even know how to cook yet,” says Becky.

But Yam says he isn’t worried.

“I’m sure I’ll learn the stuff in university somehow,” he says. “By trial and error maybe.”