A
stronauts are among the most highly trained people in the world. Most of them have advanced degrees, not to mention years of experience in highly demanding military or technical fields. Sending them to the International Space Station is expensive–it costs around $130,000 an hour to keep its crew in orbit.
But despite all this expertise and expense, astronauts spend a great deal of time doing menial, tedious work such as routine maintenance or moving and organizing cargo. Ethan Barajas, 22, and Jamie Palmer, 25, want to fix that. Their company, Icarus Robotics, is developing robots that can do the grunt work so that the station crew “can focus on the groundbreaking discoveries that only astronauts can do,” he says.
Barajas and Palmer are just two of the innovators on this year’s 30 Under 30 Science list. For more than a decade, Forbes has highlighted young scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs with the help of nominations from the public. Of those named to the final list, 37% are women, 47% identify as people of color, and 53% are founders.
To be considered for this year’s list, all candidates had to be under the age of 30 as of December 31, 2025, and never before named to a 30 Under 30 North America, Europe or Asia list.
