First woman on the moon could be one of these pioneers from Bay Area.
Bay astronauts helping write new chapters in human space exploration
Sitting atop a millionpound rocket filled with the 91,000 gallons of fuel needed to reach the International Space Station later this year, Petaluma native Nicole Aunapu Mann will be relying on the thousands of hours she spent in a flight simulator, preparing for every conceivable error. Her next destination could be the moon.
“When I’m sitting on top of that rocket getting ready to launch, I will be laserfocused,” Mann told The Chronicle from her post at a NASA training facility in Houston. “I will be running through all my procedures and all my steps.”
Mann, 43, is training for the chance to be the first woman on the moon, one of three Bay Area women charting a new era of human space travel as NASA sets its sights on the lunar surface and beyond. Also being considered for the historymaking moonwalk is Napa native Kate Rubins, currently completing a sixmonth stay on the space station.
And rounding out the trio of Bay Area astronauts advancing deep
space exploration is Megan McArthur of Mountain View, headed to the space station next month.
A decade after NASA shuttered its domestic launchpad in the wake of the 2003 Columbia explosion that killed seven people, the agency has partnered with American aerospace companies Boeing and SpaceX for a series of pioneering missions intended to pave the way for commercial space travel and, perhaps one day, land a human on Mars.
But the path to deep space is
perilous, and past mistakes loom large.
“Spaceflight is incredibly dangerous and unforgiving, we understand that,” said Mann, speaking on the anniversary of the 1986 Challenger tragedy. “The risks that are taken are very calculated risks.”
It’s a calculation the Rancho Cotate High School and Stanford graduate knows well. She flew combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine Corps pilot before joining NASA in 2013. Two
years ago, Mann was chosen to pilot the first flight of the Boeingdesigned Starliner aircraft and began advising engineers as they perfected the spacecraft’s operating software, a process she described as “melding the human with the machine.”
To prepare for the highstakes flight, Mann practiced flying a supersonic jet and simulated equipment malfunctions with her three crewmates, making tweaks and improvements after each trial run. She also learned to use a giant robotic arm like the one she’ll need to maneuver during frequent spacewalks aboard the space station.
When the Starliner launches later this year, Mann will join McArthur aboard the orbiting laboratory. The two will overlap for several months. McArthur is headed to the International Space Station in late April. She will take the place of another Bay Area astronaut, Rubins, who will complete her sixmonth stay on April 16.
The sixmonth mis
sions are intended to give NASA the chance to study how the human body reacts to the longterm effects of life in zero gravity. In addition to facing higher levels of radiation exposure from the Earth’s magnetic field, astronauts can also experience longterm health problems caused by the irregular flow of fluids within the body in lowgravity environments.
For McArthur, who is gearing up to pilot the second SpaceX Crew Dragon mission, the sacrifices required for space travel are part of the bargain astronauts make in their dedication to advancing our knowl
edge of the outer reaches of the solar system.
The St. Francis High School graduate, whose parents reside in San Jose, knows she won’t be among those headed to the moon or to Mars. But her research in space will help sustain future generations of astronauts, especially as NASA sets its sights on the 34 millionmile voyage to the Red Planet, which it estimated could take about two years.
“Knowing that the research I did on the space station helped get us there, that’s really exciting to me,” McArthur said in a recent interview as she entered the final month of prep
arations before her April departure.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station spend much of their time on spacewalks doing routine maintenance and corralling incoming cargo vehicles carrying supplies. The astronauts will also perform a broad range of science experiments, some of which are meant to advance NASA’s understanding of how the human body reacts to a lowgravity environment — a critical field of study as NASA contemplates an eventual
trip to Mars.
“We’re doing tech demonstrations on the space station that may not sound scientific in and of themselves — like wringing every last bit of drinkable water from urine — but those are things that will enable us to be successful as we go farther away from our home planet,” said McArthur, 49.
Before joining NASA in 2000, McArthur spent years probing another environment inhospitable to human life: the ocean floor. As a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, she led deepsea diving missions to collect marine sediment for study.
During their months in space, Mann and McArthur will advance research Rubins began last year, when she became the first person to harvest radishes in space as part of a program to farm fresh foods in zero gravity. The farming experiments could one day allow astronauts to grow their own vegetables as a supplement to the current crop of dried astronaut food.
For now, the astronauts will rely on the muchmaligned dry space food, a far cry from the meals McArthur enjoys cooking for her family on land.
“Every day will be different and bring its own challenges,” she said.