Pursuing your childhood dreams, embracing rejection and the human ability to change with NASA astronaut Jessica Meir
Jessica Meir. Illustration by Borislava Karadjova.
Jessica Meir is a NASA astronaut, who left Earth on International Space Station Expedition 61/62 in 2019. She returned in 2020 into a pandemic, and a drastically changed planet.
During the first UK lockdown, Jessica’s @astro_jessica Instagram account was one of my favourites to follow – her shots of Earth from space were a comforting reminder that there was a big, swirling universe beyond the confines of my flat.
A few months later, I profiled Jessica for an international magazine which has had to pause its English edition (cheers, Brexit) so our conversation has found a home here too.
Talking with Jessica about her path to where she is now was yet another lesson for me in taking things one step at a time, and enjoying where you’re currently at. In pursuing what must be one of the most unlikely, unobtainable careers you can get, she took deeply grounded, practical steps to achieve her ambitions.
Perhaps the most heartening thing I took from our conversation is the idea that people can change. Quite literally – the neural networks in our brains can evolve and adapt to meet new challenges in life, if we have to. And that even when working in your dream job, you still need time to hang out, take photos and play sax in a space band.
“What we’re seeing in this current global pandemic is that humans are quite capable of change – very drastic and very quick change if we need to, if there’s a reason for it.””
Olivia Gagan: Tell me about when the idea of space travel first entered your consciousness. Because it sounds like you realised you wanted to do this from a really, really young age.
Jessica Meir: My mom said that I first started saying it when I was five. I don't have a distinct memory of that, but I do remember when I was in first grade we were asked to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I remember drawing a picture – that iconic image of an astronaut standing on the surface of the moon next to a flag – and I said that was what I wanted to do. And I never really stopped saying it after that.
Olivia: A lot of kids say, ‘Oh, I want to be a firefighter’ or ‘I want to be an astronaut’. Astronauts are a common thing for a kid to want to do. But you persisted with that dream.
Jessica: Yeah, I sometimes joke about that. Everybody else thought of something else and changed their childhood dream! But it was just something that always stuck in my head. I'm not really sure why – my parents were from other countries, they didn't know anybody that was at NASA. In Northern Maine, we were pretty far removed from all of that. So I think that it was just something about exploration really. That's been the driving theme of my life. My mom is Swedish, and I think most Swedes have a really strong connection to nature.
So perhaps that was what helped ignite that fire for exploration and understanding more about the world around me, and biology in particular. I grew up in a small town with a lot of trees, and the night sky was incredible. We could see so many stars because we were so removed from light pollution. I think it was just this desire to learn more about the world around me, so biology became my favourite subject at school. I always just had this dream. It was something that everybody knew about me. They called me 'space girl', they bought me space things, it was like my thing. And it just never went away.
Olivia: That sounds pretty amazing. It sounds like your parents actively encouraged that goal too, rather than shutting it down or suggesting it was out of reach.
Jessica: Yeah, they did. I don't know that anybody ever thought that it would actually happen, because like you say, a lot of kids dream about being an astronaut. And even when I did start making more concrete steps towards making it come true, I knew there was a very small chance of it happening. It doesn't matter how good you are – there are many, many other people that are equally or more qualified to do this than I am, but there's a lot of luck involved, and timing as well.
I think probably my family were just as surprised as I was when it finally did happen. I have four older siblings, three sisters and a brother. They were all incredibly good at everything they did, and I think that as the youngest child I just wanted to emulate them and be like them and do everything. My parents always encouraged everything we did. I was very fortunate in that regard.
Olivia: Given that you knew what you wanted to do from a young age, how did that shape your school years? Biology was your favourite subject, but during school and your teenage years, were you hyper-focused on this goal?
Jessica: Now, I'm aware of a lot of resources for kids that NASA and other organisations have, but when I was growing up – and I think particularly where I was growing up – I didn't really know about a lot of those opportunities, and I didn't have anybody directing me towards them. The first concrete thing I did was the year before I started high school. My sister was in graduate school at Purdue University. Several astronauts have gone to Purdue, and they actually have a space camp there. It isn't the official NASA space camp, but it's, you know, their own version of a space camp.
My parents sent me to space camp that summer, when my sister was out there in graduate school. So it started. I tried to do as many things as I could, once I started finding out about them. I would say that really picked up once I got to university and I had more resources, and more ability to find out about what options were out there.
I knew biology was my favourite subject. I wanted to kind of pursue both things in tandem, and so I studied biology at university, even though it didn't seem like the most direct path to becoming an astronaut – a lot of people think you should be a pilot, or study engineering. And it certainly is true, that most people in our office do have engineering degrees, and we still have a lot of pilots, just like we did with the original astronauts.
But the nice thing now about the astronaut office is that it is incredibly diverse. There are other kinds of scientists, there are medical doctors, military, so there are various backgrounds that aren't just pilots, which is really, really good. I think it makes it such a nicer place now that you have this diversity. It just makes it a more interesting place to work, and I think it makes us better at our jobs because we approach problems with a more diverse array of backgrounds and experiences.
NASA used to have what they call the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities, where you could design an experiment. If your experiment was selected, then you got to come down here to Houston to the Johnson Space Center and fly on the 'Vomit Comet'. That was an aircraft that would fly in a parabola-shaped pattern, in order to generate 30, 35 second-periods of weightlessness. So that was something that I did as an undergraduate as well – I just tried to keep involving myself, anytime there was an opportunity that I knew about.
Then after graduating, I went to pursue a Master's degree at the International Space University, which was also something that I had never heard of until I was an undergraduate. I was working in a lab with a guy that told me about it. It was kind of just one step after another of working towards this.
Olivia: Was there any point where you considered alternatives, where you thought ‘actually, maybe this isn't for me’, or did each new experience just further your desire?
Jessica: Each experience just fuelled my desire even more. But there were times people would say to me, 'Oh, you're so lucky that you know exactly what you want to do, that you have this dream. I wish I had that.'
I understood why they said that, but at the same time, I sometimes wondered if it was actually a little bit of a curse. Because I knew that there was such a small chance of it happening. And then, well, what happens? Am I ever going to be content and happy? Most likely, it's not going to happen…so am I lucky that I have this? And if it doesn't happen, will I ever have something else that I find so fulfilling? And that kind of brings me to the next chapter, of when I went to graduate school [as a PhD student] and started a career as a comparative physiologist, studying the physiology of animals in extreme environments.
I felt so fortunate to have found that. I kind of stumbled into that field, and it actually did fulfil me. It was something that combined this mental and physical challenge of working in extreme environments, with animals in the wild. It combined my love for the outdoors, and my inquisitive nature about the world around me and science and living things…
I was so happy in that career. I remember having this realisation in graduate school and thinking, 'Thank God I found something else that is this fulfilling. Maybe I could still try to be an astronaut, but chances are, it's just not going to happen.' I felt incredibly fortunate to have found another field that really did fulfil me. But that's kind of the ironic thing I think about this career – in order to become an astronaut, it's because you're doing well in another career that you've found. It's a little bit bittersweet, actually, that you have to give that up.
Olivia: It took a couple of failed applications before you made NASA’s astronauts pool. Was that really crushing, or is that just part of how it works? Is it completely normal that you have to try and fail a few times? Or do people normally give up at the first 'no'?
Jessica: It’s pretty normal, historically there've been a lot of people where it does take a few tries. Part of that is because it’s a numbers game. There are so many incredibly qualified applicants, and the classes are so small. It’s not just about picking individuals, it's about finding the right team at the right time. And you may or may not be one of those people at the right time.
But I also think that rejection is character building. If you aren't willing to take a risk and to fail along the way, I don't think that anybody can accomplish whatever it is that you truly want. Whatever is truly great does take a lot of hard work, and you have to fail sometimes along the way. So for me, it was just part of the process. First time around, I made it to that final round and I interviewed here at NASA and the interview went really well. And I thought, well, you know, I can't really have any regrets. When they told me I didn't get selected, of course it was incredibly disappointing, but at the same time, you know that there's such a small chance of it.
When I had the opportunity to apply again, four years later, I had kind of thought that I wouldn't have that opportunity again, just because of my age and with the types of astronauts they were selecting. I thought that had been my chance, the last time. There was a large part of me that was like, ‘well, I am so lucky to have this other career that's so fulfilling and that I love. Maybe I don't need to apply again and go through all of that mental anguish, because it is a lot to go through. Maybe I don't need to apply. Maybe I'd be better off if I'm not an astronaut.’
I did have that internal dialogue for a while, but then I realised it was silly, because of course, if I didn't apply, it was never gonna happen. And I couldn't really do that for something I had been thinking about for so long.
Olivia: And then it happened. How did it feel when you heard you had been selected by NASA?
Jessica: Really, disbelief. Everybody remembers exactly where they were when they get that call. I think that’s just a normal human response, and I’d gone through it before and I'd gotten the call, but I wasn’t selected. So that was exactly what I was expecting. When I heard the opposite, it was shocking. I didn't really know what to say. I don't think I was incredibly eloquent. I just said something like "Really?!" It's a moment you always remember, for sure.
Olivia: And that's just the start of a very long training process before you even have a chance of going into space. What did your time on the ground at NASA teach you?
Jessica: So after we go through the first two years of basic training for five different jobs throughout the office, you kind of rotate through those different jobs on the ground. I worked in mission control, I was the capsule communicator for several missions. At that point, you’re just supporting all of these different functions at NASA and waiting for your first flight assignment.
Olivia: Once you finally got up there and you started on your expedition, what did your training absolutely prepare you for? And was there anything that your training simply can't prepare you for, that you have to sort of learn on the job?
Jessica: Because of those long lead times, and the fact that space is this extreme and risky environment, most of our careers are spent training and working on the ground. I had essentially been training for this mission for six years, since I was selected as an astronaut. So when we arrive on the space station, we are incredibly well prepared. Technically, we have all the knowledge that we need, whether it's fixing the toilet of the space station, conducting a scientific experiment, going for a space walk, flying a robotic arm. So that's not a problem. There are certainly no training deficits, because we have these hundreds or thousands of incredible people that are training us and supporting us on the ground and helping us, really enabling us to do all of those things.
There are things that you can't train for though. And that's just how it feels to be floating and living in space. You suddenly become an infant again, because you have to learn how to walk and how to eat and how to go to the bathroom. All of those things are just background noise to life on Earth, they're just automatic things that you do. But if you remove gravity, you have to do all of those things differently. You have to actually use brain power to do everyday little tasks. It's really interesting. Those first few days, you're just kind of trying to remember how to do all the things you need to do, or learn how to do all the things that you need to do to stay alive – to feed yourself and to do all these things in microgravity.
Olivia: Obviously it is utterly surreal to be in space and to be floating, but I feel like humans are very adaptable and can get used to bizarre scenarios quite quickly. Was there ever a point where it felt normal to be floating? Did you ever have boring or mundane days in space, or were you constantly feeling amazed and surprised by what you're experiencing?
Jessica: It does become normal, but it never becomes boring. It was really interesting that after being up there for a few months, I couldn’t imagine putting shoes on and walking. I was wondering what that would feel like, because floating started to completely feel normal. And like you said, the brain and the human body is remarkably adaptive. I found that really remarkable in the beginning, because I could actually feel and observe in myself the plasticity of the human brain, and how it is so resilient and capable of adapting. That was so interesting to experience.
The biggest thing I think is when you go to space, you're switching from this two-dimensional paradigm on Earth. Here on Earth, you know, we have this gravitational vector. Even though it's three-dimensional, it's kind of just two-dimensional, because on Earth, you're not really using all of the volumetric space around you. Everything's based on the floor, and you're putting things down in front of you. You're not using the ceiling. You're not really using the walls, other than to hang things. But in space, we can use all of those surfaces. So we have this whole volumetric usage of space.
That’s very overwhelming for your brain at first, because it's usually using this gravitational vector in order to spatially orient and navigate. That's always been present, in the entire evolution of humans. Your brain has evolved over millions of years of evolution to work in the way that it does. Even our own physiological systems are gravity-dependent. So when you suddenly remove gravity, it was remarkable to me how after just a few weeks, my brain had already adjusted and started to change.
In the beginning, if I was working on the deck, which is like the equivalent to the floor, that would feel normal to me. Because that's how our simulators are built down here [on Earth]. You have to have a floor when you're training down here [on Earth], so that was called the deck. So if I'm down there working that has the normal kind of layout that I would expect. But in space, if I suddenly went up to the ceiling, first of all, you feel like Spiderman. Even though there's no difference to being on the floor in space, your brain still has this [concept] of what rooms are, it remembers things that way.
But then after you had been staring at the ceiling for a while, because you're working on something there, and you're involved and focused on your task, then I would actually feel and become mentally aware of this flip-flop that my brain would be doing – where it would somehow try to interpret the ceiling as the floor, because if I was in contact with it, then it must be 'down', it must be the floor. In order to spatially orient and navigate on Earth, you depend on that. So in space when you leave that spot and you try to go to your next destination, it's hard to figure out where you are because your brain is like, flip-flopping.
Within a few weeks that stopped happening, and I think my brain accepted different cues to map things, like the location of certain objects within the space station, for example. And then I knew which way to turn and where to go. That was something that as a scientist, and a biologist and physiologist was so remarkable to me. To observe that plasticity of the human brain and of myself. It shows how resilient and adaptable we are as the human species. It was really, really interesting to experience.
Olivia: Did you have ever have the time or mental space for fun while you're working as an astronaut? It does sound like it's just inherently fun to be, you know, somersaulting through space.
Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. Everything's more fun in space! Even though it became normal to feel like I was floating, it was certainly never lost on me that we were. It just makes everything more fun. You might be having dinner, and turn around, and your colleague is doing somersaults or jumping up and down, just because he can. That feeling of floating turns everybody into five-year-olds. You're just a little bit more playful and fun, and there’s a little bit more levity in everything that you do because you're floating. The sense of that floating when you're looking down at the planet, it's just remarkable. So I was certainly never bored, even though floating did start to seem normal.
And you do have a bit of free time, but our expedition was even busier than normal, just because of the way things worked out, with the number of spacewalks we had and the number of visiting vehicles we had. We're supposed to get every weekend off, but that wasn't really the case for us during our mission.
But you do have some time, and you need that time. For me, most of my free time was for looking out the window and taking pictures. You just have this really exceptional, unique view. And you have family calls and you can talk to your loved ones and we had a little band, sometimes we'd play instruments. So there are things that we could do, and it was important to still do those normal human recreational things as well. It's just never quite enough free time as you'd want, but that of course is for a good reason. We're up there once, with a lot of really important work to do, so it makes sense.
Olivia: The first all-woman spacewalk made a big impact in the media, and it was a historical event. Did it feel that way when you and [co-astronaut] Christina Koch were doing it? Obviously personally, it's highly momentous, but did the impact of it reach you while you were on the expedition?
Jessica: Kind of yes and no. The first spacewalk that you do is all-consuming. Any spacewalk you do is all-consuming, but particularly that first one, when you just don't know what it's going to be like. And mine was when I'd only been up in space for a couple of weeks. I was still figuring out how to move around in space, let alone in a spacesuit. So I needed to really focus on that, and get ready for the space walk and prepare. That was my primary focus.
I didn't want to try to think about the other things, because I just couldn't afford to get distracted by them. A spacewalk is the most mentally and physically challenging thing that we do, so I needed to be all-present and just preparing for that. There was a lot of background noise because it was the first all-female spacewalk, and all these other factors. So on the one hand, it was just me focusing on the job that I was given to do. The fact that I was doing it with Christina…it wasn't really any different for me than if I were doing it with a man. Because when we came in as astronauts, half of our class was female and half male. We had the same set of training objectives and everybody was held to the same standard.
So skillset-wise, it didn't really matter if it was a man or a woman out there with you that day. We were just the ones assigned to the task. So part of it was just us doing our job. But that doesn't mean that I took it lightly, or that I didn't comprehend the historical significance of what we were doing. I think though that is something that came more to me after, rather than before, and during the event. Partly because I actually, was honestly completely overwhelmed with the excitement and enthusiasm that people showed for it. I didn’t expect it. I think part of that is, we get asked all the time, even here in Houston, 'Oh, do we still have a space program? You're an astronaut?’ You know, people don't necessarily know what NASA is doing, and don't pay attention to it, for a lot of reasons. There's a lot of things to pay attention to in the world right now, there's an overabundance of information.
Yet I think more people watched that spacewalk than probably any other spacewalk since the beginning of spacewalks. It was really surprising to me to see people feel that involved, who felt that connected to it. And that was inspirational for both Christina and me as well, because we realised how important it was. It wasn't as if we were celebrating our own personal achievement, we didn't feel that way at all. Rather, we felt that we were paying tribute to the generations of women, and really all minorities, that have pushed the envelope and really broken down glass ceilings. We didn't always have this seat at the table. Of course, we still do have a lot of areas for improvement in a lot of these arenas for women and minorities, as is very apparent right now.
So, you know, all of that was just really overwhelming for us. But it also was such a privilege and an honor to be representing that and to pay homage to all of those people before us that made it happen. Because they're the ones that got us to where we are today. I hope that they are the ones that can really celebrate it. Personally, it does feel really incredible and inspiring to have these messages from young girls and from all types of people of all ages, contacting us and telling us how it meant so much to them in different ways. To us, it just represents what is possible when you have a dream and work hard towards it. It doesn't have to be about being an astronaut, or doing a spacewalk. Really, whatever it is, that's your particular dream. That, for whatever reason, seem to really resonate with a lot of people on Earth. So that was an incredibly special moment for us.
Olivia: It sounds like from what you've just said there as well, that it is such a team effort and everything that you do while you're in space is a collaboration, both with yourself and the people on the expedition and the people on the ground, which is kind of ironic. ‘Cause I think lots of people imagine being in space must be very lonely. Has it felt strange, or more isolating emerging back onto Earth in this bizarre new world, where everybody's self-isolating and where we've all been in quarantine? Did it feel more...I don't know what the word is. Did it feel less lonely in space, than it can do on Earth at the moment?
Jessica: Yeah, and I think that's exactly right, that is exactly how I feel. Isolation in space is part of the job. We're prepared for that. It's part of our mission and it's for a really good reason – because we simply cannot survive as humans in the vacuum of space. There's a reason for that isolation, and you are surrounded by all of these extraordinary, exceptional opportunities. Just knowing that you're floating all the time, makes everything much more fun and more enjoyable. So I find the isolation that we're all dealing with on Earth right now to be much harder to endure, much more difficult. Probably especially on the heels of seven months where I didn't get to see my family and friends, or hug a lot of people and, you know, have those kinds of personal contact and human interactions that we really do need as humans.
I find this isolation on Earth much more difficult because our society is just not built for it. We expect it in space, but here on Earth, society is not built that way. Most of us, you know, we go out, we work somewhere else. We live our professional and our personal lives not within the walls of our own homes. Particularly for me, I live alone – so it's even lonelier as an existence when I can't go out and do and see all the people that I've been missing for many months. So yeah, I do find it a lot more difficult than the isolation in space.
Olivia: Maybe that's the key to whether working and living in isolation is a positive experience or not. Everyone on Earth has been forced into it. Whereas when you were in space, it was something you actively chose. And it came with the payoff of being in an incredible place and getting to experience amazing things. So that isolation and your particular ‘unprecedented circumstance’ was only a positive thing.
Jessica: Yeah, absolutely.
Olivia: How long do you think you could have stayed up there before you would have felt like, right, I'm ready to come back to Earth now?
Jessica: I'm not sure. It's a good question. I certainly was not ready at seven months. I saw Christina up there on her mission, which was 11 months. I think I could have done that and still really loved every minute of it. Especially given how busy we are up there, time really flies by – no pun intended – but it does fly by. Literally. It's just gone before you know it. Every month I sat back and I was like, I cannot believe I've been here a month. I cannot believe I've been here two months. I can't believe I've been here three months, it's just going so fast. And then it was over.
I'm sure at some point, you’d really start hankering more for some of those things that you can't have in space. Which is basically just the people you miss, of course, more than anything else. So probably at some point, I would've felt ready to come home. I'd say maybe after a year or so, I'd be like, okay, it's time to go back. But for me, at the seven-month point, I certainly wasn't there. I would have rather stayed, even without this COVID business. But add the element of coming back to this drastically changed planet...that didn't really make returning seem any more exciting.
Olivia: What has the experience of being in space taught you about what humans need to survive in extreme circumstances? Your doctoral research investigated this in animals, but what have you taken from your work as an astronaut in terms of what humans need to thrive in bizarre and unprecedented scenarios?
Jessica: One of the most interesting things was what I described earlier – experiencing within myself how remarkably adaptive we are. The plasticity of the human brain, and how quickly it is able to cope with an entirely new, alien environment. That was surprising for me, even as a physiologist. What we’re seeing in this current global pandemic is that humans are quite capable of change – very drastic and quick change if we need to, if there's a reason for it.
That's something that I've thought a lot about in terms of climate change, and the changes needed to protect our planet. Humans are very resilient, but are often quite hesitant to change. People get stuck in their ways and start believing that change isn't possible, or think we can't make the changes that we would need to make to make a difference in society. I think that we can absolutely do these things, under the right set of circumstances and with the right motivation. Unfortunately, a global pandemic has been a really negative motivation which has forced drastic changes to all of our behaviours. But viewing it in a positive light, I think it's very interesting to see that as humans, we do have the ability to cope with this level of change and to deal with it, and to adapt.
Olivia: Now you’ve realised your childhood dream, has it quelled your career ambitions, or is it only fuelled it? Has it made you hungry for more work in space? Where do you feel you want to go next with your career?
Jessica: I did wonder what would happen when I came back to Earth, after wanting this my entire life. I thought, 'Oh, I'm going to be much more relaxed, I'm gonna be more chilled, because I'll have fulfilled that goal, and now I can focus on my personal life and things like that…' So it's interesting to see...I don't think I've really become more chill! First of all, I'm dealing with this pandemic too, it's certainly been an interesting way of coming back to everything. But actually, I've thought more about going back to space since I've been back than I have about reintegrating back to Earth. I think after experiencing it, I just have this desire to go back.
I've heard that from other astronauts before too. I think my ultimate dream would be to be involved with the Artemis missions. NASA is planning to put the first woman and the next man on the moon, hopefully in the near future and eventually on to Mars. We are making concrete steps toward that now. I would absolutely love to be one of those crew members, going to the moon. And if not, to be involved with it in some way. So that's the next thing on the horizon. I've gotta make that first childhood drawing come true – I've gone to space, but I haven't actually stood on the moon yet. So that would be the next goal, but we'll see how it all plays out.