In science fiction, the most compelling characters rarely stop after achieving the impossible.
They complete one mission, leave their footprints on a distant world, and immediately begin preparing for the next journey. For Alexander Kaplan, whose path began in Richmond and continued through Virginia Tech classrooms in Southwest Virginia, that storyline is now becoming real.
For young Virginians who spend evenings staring into the night sky and wondering what comes next, Kaplan offers something increasingly rare: a hometown example of someone helping shape the future of space exploration.
That future arrived in dramatic fashion this year, when Kaplan’s work moved from possibility to recognition.
Kaplan was a member of the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission 1 team that received the 2025 Robert J. Collier Trophy, widely regarded as the highest honor in American aviation and aerospace. Administered annually by the National Aeronautic Association since 1911, the award recognizes “the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America.”
In aerospace circles, winning the Collier Trophy is often compared to receiving an Oscar, a Nobel Prize, or a championship title. It is reserved not for promising concepts but for proven accomplishments that fundamentally advance aviation or spaceflight.
This year’s award honored Firefly Aerospace for completing the first fully successful commercial lunar landing and delivering NASA science payloads to the moon. The achievement showed commercial companies becoming major players in deep-space exploration.
Kaplan played a critical role in that achievement as spacecraft mechanisms lead.
The title may not attract public attention the way astronauts or rocket launches do, but the responsibility is enormous. Spacecraft mechanisms control the deployment and operation of the moving systems that enable a mission. Hinges, latches, actuators and deployment systems must function flawlessly millions of miles from Earth.
In space, there are no repair crews.
The achievement is now permanently recorded on the Collier Trophy displayed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Kaplan’s name also appears on an individual award presented by the National Aeronautic Association, linking a Virginian’s work to one of aerospace’s most celebrated honors — and setting up what comes next.
Yet the moon may prove to be only a waypoint, as Kaplan has already moved into his next challenge.
Kaplan has already moved to a new challenge at Lux Aeterna, a Denver-based aerospace startup pursuing a goal with enormous implications for the future of the space economy: reusable satellites.
Today, satellites are largely disposable. After completing their missions, they become inactive hardware, burn up during reentry, or contribute to the growing challenge of orbital debris. Thousands of objects already orbit Earth, posing hazards to future missions.
Lux Aeterna aims to change that model.
The company is developing spacecraft designed to return from orbit, undergo refurbishment and fly again. If successful, reusable satellites could lower costs, reduce waste, extend mission lifetimes and make space operations more economically sustainable.
Just as reusable rockets transformed launch economics, reusable spacecraft could transform the economics of everything that happens after launch.
The implications extend beyond engineering and help explain why Kaplan’s next work matters. A sustainable off-Earth economy will require technologies that make space operations affordable, repeatable and responsible. Reducing orbital debris while increasing the value of spacecraft assets addresses both challenges.
For students in Richmond, Blacksburg, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Emory, Wise and communities across Virginia, Kaplan’s journey offers another lesson, one that leads naturally to the next one.
Sometimes it begins in Virginia classrooms, with curiosity, mathematics, engineering and the willingness to tackle difficult problems.
Kaplan’s story shows that the opportunities emerging in the commercial space economy are no longer science fiction.
They are careers that are helping shape what comes next.
Alexander Kaplan is helping build the infrastructure of an emerging off-Earth economy — and the story does not stop there.
And if his trajectory is any indication, touching the moon was never the destination; it was the start of what comes next.
Jack Kennedy is a Southwest Virginia native, semi-retired Virginia attorney, and subject-matter expert at the Space Force Museum in Cape Canaveral. He holds an M.S. in space policy and saw from the University of North Dakota and previously served on the Virginia Spaceport Authority and the Virginia Aviation Board.
