what is my goal

many people have asked me this, and impulsively, I've always said "I don't know. I just keep doing what interests me." Now, this is somewhat true. I have jumped between interests ranging from pure computer science all the way to pure hardware. Growing up, I wanted to be an athlete, astronaut, software programmer. maybe even sometimes a computer engineer trying to redesign the mac. or sometimes, an aerospace engineer, or even at times... a farmer. I jump between so called "occupations" if you will, because a lot of things have interested me in the past and they still do. How a computer works, how programming languages are built, how do crops grow (how to take care of them, etc), are some of the many questions I've always had. And so in pursuing to trying to find an answer to these, I would always find myself kind of "locking myself in" this one-path because once you get the answer, you naturally ask "why" or "how," and then it becomes a never-ending train of thought.

I believe this is how I got to the place where I am - using reinforcement learning and world models to build self-learning control systems to enhance robustness and safety of rockets and satellites. Obviously, such a niche would not have been taught all at once. It's not something you would see someone or something on TV or social media, and be like, "yup, that's what I want to do." The way I truly came about this niche was based on the intersection of where the industry and economy were going along with my interests and skills. Since I was a kid, I was always interested in astronomy and airplanes. I always wanted to know what it would be like exploring the universe, going in black holes... really just unveiling the truth of this big vastness of space and time. I have no particular reason on why I liked airplanes, there were always something I found interesting especially how they used to take off with so much speed. Now when you combine airplanes and astronomy, it's natural to think about aerospace, so that's where the aerospace interest came from. Now with the introduction to AI, it's quite obvious that working with it is a must, and learning how to use it can truly accelerate your productivity. Especially since there's a large amount (arguably disproportionate) of money being poured into the technology, as well as the fact that it is truly getting smarter than humans. I saw a lot of my friends work in the field of AI either as Inference or Research engineers, and their work really did inspire me about how computers think. Especially with the inclusion of frontier papers, and keeping up with models, I started to grow an interest in the field and naturally wondered if it could be applied in physical engineering domains. That's when I came across Reinforcement Learning and World Models and how it can be applied to physical domains like aerospace - the field I am currently in.

Now the question becomes, will I stay with this niche forever? Honestly, I don't know for sure, because it really depends on where my curiosity leads me. However, I would love to do meaningful work in this field because I do believe it can truly accelerate the progress of the aerospace industry toward the goal of becoming a planetary species. But I did decide that unlike in the previous years of jumping between fields completely, I will stay in aerospace and reinforcement learning. The reason is because there are a lot of unsolved and overlooked problems that engineers are not focusing on. And I truly believe that other than benefiting society, by solving problems that can accelerate the development of human society can you truly create value for yourself. A lot of engineers are working on either propulsion-side of things, and all the computer/software engineers are moving toward AI labs and Inference roles. Now what this creates is a gap in avionics/software engineers, which is arguably the most important system of a rocket. Moreover, it's something that cannot be vibecoded either because it's safety critical, so the margin of entry is already high.

I truly believe that someone needs to be a frontier figure and push toward having more engineering work being done on this side of aerospace, and I believe I can be that individual. If we truly want to push humanity toward multi-planetary species, we need more individual like Elon Musk to push 100% lock in and push on that vision. But what does that mean? I mean we need more engineers making side-projects in the domain of avionics/GNC, posting their projects/work on social media platforms (similar to AI researchers and software engineers) to really showcase the type of work being done. I feel like because a lot of the work is under closed-doors, the industry doesn't get to spotlight some of the true cool work that is being done.

Since I was young, I always felt that I was different from the rest and that I had a lot of potential. It's time that I now use that belief, my passion, and technical ability and push toward making the impact I have always envisioned with aerospace.