NSS Space Forum - In Space For Earth: Breakthroughs in ISS In-Space Production Applications

National Space Society Space Forum, September 18, 2025 - In Space for Earth: Breakthroughs in ISS In-Space Production Applications

Featuring

Lynn D. Harper
Strategic Integration Advisor to the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory
NASA

The International Space Station (ISS) is more than a platform for exploration—it is the first National Laboratory beyond Earth, enabling pioneering research that delivers tangible benefits here at home. In recent years, the ISS National Lab and NASA’s InSpace Production Applications (InSPA) program have reported extraordinary results in microgravity manufacturing and biomedical research—many driven by small U.S. businesses and universities outside traditional aerospace states.

In this Space Forum, Lynn D. Harper—Strategic Integration Advisor to the ISS National Lab and NASA InSPA—will present highlights from a series of groundbreaking investigations. The InSPA portfolio helps U.S. innovators bridge technology’s “Valley of Death” (Technology Readiness Levels 5–9) by testing and validating concepts on the ISS. These efforts are paving the way for products that can ultimately be scaled on future commercial LEO destinations and free-flying platforms to serve markets on Earth.

By the end of 2024, the ISS National Lab and InSPA had demonstrated microgravity-driven advances across every level of matter—from quantum to human. Independent reviewers confirmed that space-based processes delivered disruptively superior products with higher yields and faster timelines than ever achieved on Earth. These breakthroughs show how in-space manufacturing could transform global high-tech industries and secure U.S. leadership in the industries of the future. Lynn shares how space innovation is redefining medicine, materials, and manufacturing—and why these results demand a new vision for low Earth orbit.

Lynn D. Harper serves as Strategic Integration Advisor to the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory and NASA’s InSpace Production Applications Portfolio. Since 2019, she has overseen 10 investigations on the ISS designed to use space to develop products with practical applications on Earth. Her career began in 1978 with her first flight project on the Space Shuttle through the Boy Scouts Explorer Program. Since then, Harper has contributed to more than 100 NASA-sponsored payloads flown on multiple vehicles, to a comet, on Mars, and into deep space, as well as payloads on parabolic and suborbital flights.

Harper was the initiating founder of the science of Astrobiology and co-founder of the NASA Space Portal, NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, and the InSpace Production Applications (InSPA) initiative. She played a key role in creating seven new space initiatives that received Congressional funding and has served on national-level study groups on human exploration of the Moon and Mars. Since 2005, she has led Integrative Studies at the NASA Space Portal, advancing commercial space enterprises for public benefit. Her honors include NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal and Exceptional Achievement Medal.

Harper has supported more than 70 live ISS operations since 2022—from her bedroom—demonstrating that space is more accessible than ever.