A Caribou native is about to make her first flight into space. According to a NASA press release, Jessica Meir will launch to the International Space Station in September.
In a video interview released by NASA, Meir says hers was the first astronaut class to have the same number of females as it does males. She says that while that is a reflection of what is happening in society, she recognizes the importance of having role models people can identify with.
“One of my favorite appearances was when I went back to my hometown to the school system there and talked to the students, and one girl after the talk came up to me afterward and said ‘that just changed everything for me, that was really game-changing because I grew up in the same town as you, and it just suddenly made me realize I can really do anything I wanted,’” says Meir.
Meir was selected as an astronaut in 2013. Before undergoing training to be an astronaut, served as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital. She holds a doctorate in marine biology from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Meir described her astronaut training in a conversation with All Things Considered host Nora Flaherty in 2015, including everything from learning to fly jets and practice space walks in a buoyancy pool to learning Russian.
Updated 2:26 p.m. April 17, 2019
