JTA — Jessica Meir has been making ready to head into condominium since the age of 5. She attended her first condominium camp after ending heart college and a coaching program at the Kennedy Dwelling Heart following her sophomore twelve months at Brown University.
It took Meir three tries to be chosen for NASA’s extremely selective astronaut coaching program, which she started in 2013 and from which she graduated two years later. Final month, NASA announced that Meir will likely be taking portion in her first mission.
It quiet feels surreal, she instructed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a cell phone interview from the Johnson Dwelling Heart in Houston.
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“[When] I’m sitting on that rocket about to delivery out, it’s truly going to be then that it at final models in,” the 41-twelve months-archaic astronaut acknowledged.
On Sept. 25, Meir will co-pilot a Russian Soyuz spacecraft launching from Kazakhstan with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka. They can be joined by Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, the first astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.
Meir, the daughter of a mother from Sweden and an Iraqi-Israeli father, holds Swedish and American citizenship. She can be able to be the first Swedish woman, the fourth Jewish woman and the 15th Jew overall to be piece of a condominium mission.
The mission will high-tail to the World Dwelling Explain, the build Meir will bag a fluctuate of physiological, medical and chemistry experiments to better understand the suggestions wherein being in condominium affects folk. Meir moreover hopes to kind some exploring outdoor the condominium space.
“I’m very excited to participate within the science. And moreover the assorted monumental element in my belief, my dream has continually been to head for a spacewalk,” she acknowledged. “There’s by no manner a yell — issues can continually replace with the mission after we bag up there — however factual now per the present thought I’m going to be doing spacewalks as smartly.”
Meir prepares to be submerged in NASA’s 6.2 million gallon Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory for spacewalk coaching. (NASA/Josh Valcarcel)
Meir has spent the final twelve months making ready for the mission. That functions studying Russian and coaching journeys to Russia. She has flee on an anti-gravity treadmill dilapidated to prevent muscle loss in condominium. She’s had to analyze her meals consumption and there’s been a fluctuate of medical checks.
She paperwork all of it on her Instagram web disclose.
The youngest of five childhood, Meir spent her childhood in Caribou, Maine, though her fogeys grew up far from there. Her gradual father turned into as soon as born in Iraq however immigrated along with his family to prestate Israel as a younger youngster, later preventing within the country’s Battle of Independence in 1948. He went on to change into a doctor and prefer a job in Sweden, the build he met Meir’s mother, a nurse who turned into as soon as raised in a Christian Swedish family. The couple moved to Maine when Meir’s father turned into as soon as equipped a job there.
Despite the truth that Meir’s mother did no longer convert, the family is known as Jewish and attended synagogue within the shut by metropolis of Presque Isle. Residing in a mostly Christian metropolis, Meir felt assorted now and then however did no longer ride anti-Semitism.
She says being Jewish is a fundamental piece of her identification.
“In my belief I’m no longer truly a non secular person,” she acknowledged, “however I judge that my Jewish cultural background is obviously a monumental piece of my culture and particularly traditions.”
Astronauts are allowed to bring a quite loads of of non-public items to the World Dwelling Explain. Two amongst Meir’s picks: an Israeli flag and a pair of socks with menorahs. (She is a monumental fan of novelty socks and will have faith to quiet encompass several pairs amongst her possessions headed for the space.)
Her piccolo, too. Meir, a music lover who moreover plays the piano, flute and saxophone, settled on bringing the instrument due to its miniature measurement.
Meir isn’t certain what introduced on her passion in condominium dash. As a teen, she didn’t know anybody who labored for NASA.
“Rising up, when you requested any of my childhood chums, or any of my college chums, or wherever the total manner thru, folk continually talked about that with me, they continually knew that turned into as soon as my element, that’s what I desired to kind,” she acknowledged.
As piece of her postdoctoral work at the University of British Columbia, Meir spent a while within the Antarctic discovering out a certain variety of flight — that of the bar-headed goose. She had beforehand researched oxygen depletion in diving emperor penguins within the Antarctic, so the matter wasn’t utterly off target.
One element that stands out to Meir about her mission is the international cooperation that made it possible, collectively with at the World Dwelling Explain, a joint mission of the condominium companies of the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada.
“To have faith that quite loads of to be residing and dealing in Russia, and coaching alongside the cosmonauts and launching with the Russians,” she acknowledged, “that to me, it’s truly somewhat amazing, especially given the climate this day.”
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