Thendral Kamal, India

After a brief detour into big philosophical questions — and the launch of our new Inside the Habitat series — Aspiring Martians returns to what it does best: real conversations with real people who are actively building their way toward Mars.

In this episode, Joe is joined by Thendral Kamal, an aeronautical and astronautical engineering student at Purdue University with a minor in political science, and a résumé that already spans aircraft structural engineering at Delta Air Lines, satellite sustainability work in Washington, D.C., undergraduate research in aerospace reliability and international relations, and published astrophysics research.

But this conversation goes far beyond credentials.

Joe and Thendral talk about her early love of planetariums and astronomy, the importance of family and community support, winning a high-school payload competition that helped crystallize her path toward space, and what it means to “create your own luck” through discipline, curiosity, and saying yes before you feel ready. They also explore how policy, engineering, and global cooperation intersect in space exploration — and why those intersections matter for future Martian settlements.

At its core, this episode is about preparation. About stacking skills. About believing that extraordinary futures are built through very ordinary, very intentional steps. And about Thendral’s long-term vision to one day become the first Indian woman to set foot on Mars.

This is what becoming an Aspiring Martian really looks like.

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