Finding a new perspective from space.
Imagine waking up in the morning looking out your window and seeing the entire planet stretched out below you. That's the reality for astronauts living and working on the International Space Station. There's a special kind of magic seeing our planet from above, one that can totally change your perspective on our spaceship, Earth. Only a few people have had this amazing experience, and today we're talking with one of them, Dr. Cady Coleman.
Taylor: Hi, I'm Taylor from WOW STEM. And today I'm sitting with former NASA astronaut named Cady Coleman. Dr. Coleman has flown multiple missions with NASA. She's also a chemist, a mom, a musician, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and a passionate science communicator. Dr. Coleman, it's such an honor to have you speaking with us today.
Dr. Coleman: It's so nice to be here. You know when you read that list, I mean, it's always funny when people ask, like, who you are, what you do. Like, I do all those things. I'm always a little worried when I go “Well, I am a musician”, but, you know, if you make music, then you are.
Taylor: I want to start by talking about your time in orbit. You flew three total spaceflights, two in space shuttles and one on the International Space Station, the ISS. What were the goals for these missions?
Dr. Coleman: The first one. I mean, they're all my favorite in a certain way, right? But the first one, I'm originally a polymer scientist, a plastics chemist. More on the sort of organic chemistry, pour things together making different kinds of molecules and chains of molecules. And so the first mission was a science mission that was literally like a pathfinder for the space station, because it was right when we were really planning the space station to be this international laboratory.
And so how can we figure out, like, what do the astronauts have to do for scientists who can't be up there? And what is it that we should make we should actually bring the scientists for and could we change the instrumentation? Literally just what kind of video and communication and time and safety, and it was is a practice mission. And so I really got to learn a lot of cool things.
Taylor: Can you talk a bit about why are you doing these missions in space? What is the physics and chemistry there that's different?
Dr. Coleman: The way I think of it is in gravity, and you understand this more than I do, but, you know, gravity is this force. I mean, it's actually quite large. Down here, there's a lot of other forces in play. And up in space, when you take something that significant away, it just gives us a different lens to do experiments. And I can I tell you about my favorite experiment?
Taylor: Please!
Dr. Coleman: Where it's because it was so simple, the first ones that were done.
And it's a it's a guy at Portland State named Mark Weislogel, and he basically took different kinds of different shapes of containers and put liquid in them. And what shape that liquid is going to take as it's climbing up the walls, it's going to be different depending on the shape of the container. And so bringing those containers to space, introducing the liquid and seeing what shapes in a microgravity environment they take really was just-- and video is, video and photography, gave all this information.
And now there's just been years of experiments on understanding that, and really having better understanding of everything. This flow through pipe in a factory, but also medical tasks where you've got the interaction of the liquid, that capillary flow interaction of a liquid with solid, that's a medical test that tells you something about your health. So I loved that at this pretty you know, I don't know, individual people can have ideas that no one else has had, and I think it could change the world.
Taylor: So you mentioned how there's different experts on these missions with you. Can you talk about like how many other astronauts go up on these different missions and what kind of different expertise each of them has?
Dr. Coleman: So my first mission was that laboratory mission six people, four scientists, two NASA astronauts, Kathy Thornton and myself, and two actual full-time scientists, part-time our guest astronauts, who came to do their science and actually science that was similar to theirs. There's nothing like having the real person with you both to learn from and understand, but also then to get some ideas of what else we could be doing up there.
And then my second mission was to launch the Chandra X-ray Observatory. So very different kind of mission where we launched one of the great observatories. And Chandra is the one that is looking at x rays. So the way I think of this is, you know, when galaxies are colliding, when stars are exploding, supernovas, you know, when black holes are sucking things in, they're also spewing things out. And each of those higher energy processes. These are all lessons that are going into what could we be doing in space and in what does it mean for Earth? What does it mean for learning the universe and what does it mean for going further? I would say.
Chandra was the biggest and heaviest thing we ever brought to space. So it was it was so big. There was only five of us on the crew. Just not enough room for more like water and food, right? And so then we get to the space station where typically the crew, when I was going, it was six people. Now it's seven. But then there's other vehicles coming up, not just the space shuttle, which we've retired by now, but other vehicles bringing a crew, being there for a few weeks, doing science together or bringing supplies or bringing experiments home.
And it really is a place that I think now that we have been up there a long time, we're not just bringing experiments that we know are going to work. We're able to actually be discovering. And I think hopefully bringing more and more scientists up there for just that reason.
Taylor: So related to what you can bring up. You already mentioned, you know, in that one mission not even having enough room for another person for food and water. But do you get to bring any personal items up with you sometimes on these missions?
Dr. Coleman: We do. And then they happen in two ways. One is sort of official kinds of things. Let's say you wanted to bring something up for your university or, you know, some some something that would actually kind of speak to a greater audience. And then I also brought some flutes up with me. Some were personal and some were more official.
I brought my own flute and I also brought one from Ireland that was about a hundred and something years old. And having that on this sort of old flute and new space station. And yet it's about that very human kind of need to express yourself.
Taylor: So playing music, would you actually play the flute that you brought?
Dr. Coleman: I totally would.
Taylor: When I see videos of astronauts working on the ISS, I'm always struck with how weird everything is in microgravity. Even like the most basic things, like eating, sleeping. I feel like could be very different. Could you talk a bit about daily life in microgravity and how it affects?
Dr. Coleman: So when you said it sounds weird, like, what have you seen that made you kind of go, “whoa”? I think the weirdest one that I've seen is like seeing water where it would form its own little blobs... a little bubble. Yeah, And to me, I tell people, like even eating is a science experiment. And I think it's also it reminds you of the possibilities of understanding other things and the fact that, I mean, eating macaroni and cheese is not actually hard up there because it sort of sticks together. But chicken soup, you know, that's going to be like maybe in a package you might cut off just the corner and maybe just kind of like, you know, scootch it out kind of thing.
And so you're really thinking about each different thing. And and I think that it made me think about a lot of different kinds of material science about how to mix things and what it meant to actually build things and actually what a structure, what is a structure, you know, so if you've created like this kind of structure with like rice and Thai food, I mean, you know, what does that mean for space structures, you know, for future vehicles?
They just don't have to have the same rules that we do. And and even I think about what we eat and growing fresh food up there, thinking about things like, you know, I, I live in western Massachusetts and when it gets to be August, we eat corn every single day because it's right out of the fields. It's really amazing. And yet, if I was going to grow corn up in space, the cornstalks, I mean, we don't really need all that structure to support corn.
Taylor: I'd never thought about that.
Dr. Coleman: And, you know, and so, you know, so you change it. And yet down here we talk a lot about synthetic biology and what does that mean and is it okay to do? And yet if we want to go places that we haven't been, how much do we keep that’s us and how much do we try to learn to adapt to what's there? And what to what do those lessons be when we go back home? So I love being part of that cycle and that's why I love being part of, you know, space exploration.
Taylor: So I imagine that this not only affects like the food that you're eating, but also the body itself. For example, how do you even exercise in space?
Dr. Coleman: When you ask me these questions, you know, and I'm answering them as if like, I'm responsible, but but really, there's entire teams of engineers that have been thinking about exercise in space and how to make it so it really works for us. And what the measure of that is for us is how is bone loss? Because we lose bone about ten times faster than a person who has osteoporosis, who's about 70 years old. From what we found so far, that exercise is here to stay.
And we do different kinds up there. We have a bike, your rear end never gets sore on the bike, okay, this is a good thing right. But we have it. We have a bike, you know, for our aerobics. We also have a treadmill. And so we're literally just held down on the treadmill and we can increase the amounts of gravity that we feel or the amount of weight that we feel as we get stronger and stronger up there.
Taylor: So you spent you spent a long time in space--
Dr. Coleman: Not long enough.
Taylor: Do you wish it was even more?
Dr. Coleman: You know, I really do. And I don't know if everybody feels that way, but many do. So I guess you must have got used to the weird environment in the end. Or maybe it wasn’t weird at all. Well, I mean, I think I think it is wonderfully weird, and I think it's amazing what the human body can adapt to And, you know, several of us have flown several times in space. And then as you, you know, fly subsequent times, I get up there and I'm like, “I'm here”. And your brain just knows that these rules, these are the rules that are different.
And then you come home. And even though part of me knows that when you hand me a bottle of water, it's not really I mean that it's going to be heavy, right? It's still this kind of like like I'm slow to think and you hand me something or my husband's always making fun of me because I end up dropping a lot of things, everything from the salt and pepper to my watch to when I get home because you're just so you're like, How did that happen?
Taylor: What does that even look like?
Dr. Coleman: The thought that occurs to me, you know, just looking down at our planet, I mean, it's incredibly beautiful. And we talk about fragility. And I think fragility is the atmosphere, but the planet looks like the planet is like it's not going anywhere. This is our planet and everyone except six or seven of us that are human are all down there.
And then when I look down and see all the places, it just seemed I just want everyone to realize how connected they could be. And so I loved that. Looking back at the planet, I wished everyone could realize that there may be some friction involved, but we really are all connected and if only we would make those connections. There's so much more that we can solve.
Taylor: Are there any big plans for the future of the space station or space travel? The science of space?
Dr. Coleman: I'm going to say yes. That's I mean, it's definitely true, right? But the problem is and the wonder is, is that we don't know what they are, all of them, because space and the exploration of space is expanding so quickly. Doesn’t it mean that, like you've already missed the boat, it means there are just so many possibilities of how individual people can participate because first of all, more countries are participating in space travel building or partnering with people and sending up satellites or information gathering devices that are important to their country, to their land, to their agriculture.
And so there's so many more international players. But then just within companies, I mean, people are thinking, okay, so we're going to go to the moon and maybe you know, being on the moon, you know, that's once we gotten to the moon, that's sort of the hard part of getting out of Earth's gravity. Right. And then being able to go further.
Is there a way to find fuel on the moon? There's there's all these different kinds of ideas. And it's wonderful that we have space agencies like NASA, like the space agencies of the different countries all over the world. But what we're finding is that there are other entities that can be powerful with their ideas, with what they can make happen.
Taylor: Yeah, I feel like this also ties back to just the broader picture that you got being an astronaut. That there's so many people on this earth that we can really gain more knowledge from.
So thank you so much for telling us all about your time as an astronaut. I'm curious to hear more about how you got to your position today. Where did you grow up?
Dr. Coleman: I grew up in a Navy family where my dad was an explorer, on undersea, helping to do something like undersea habitats when we first were living in those. And so exploration was really real to me. And yet I didn't really see my face in those explorers. And so to me, it's really wonderful now to be able to see whether it's in science fiction, whether it's in literature or song or art or actual history, like Taylor, you and I get to make every day, right? I am just glad that more people get to see their faces in these kinds of endeavors that are just so amazing to get to do.
Taylor: How did you decide that you wanted to be an astronaut?
Dr. Coleman: It was literally in an auditorium at MIT meeting Dr. Sally Ride and just always thinking the astronauts were somebody that just wasn't me. And it's not that I just thought, well, if she can do that, I can do that. It's more that I just felt like I could identify with her. It seemed important that she was doing her best to learn everything she could about her field, that she was excited about trying to, you know, bring her ideas to her field. And yet she had this adventure and kind of fun in her work that I, I don't think I'd really realized I wanted it until I saw it.
And I thought, wow, I kind of do want more than just the lab, even though I loved the lab.
Taylor: So you're such an inspiration to young scientists, and to me, it's so great chatting with you. Do you have any advice for young people who themselves might be interested in becoming an astronaut one day?
Dr. Coleman: I have really boring and not easy advice, and that is that it's so important to think about how you fill out applications.
Now, people my age think about like a piece of paper or writing or whatever, and then there was typing. Now it's on computers. But whatever form this application takes, it is your way of saying, Hey, this is me and this is how you get hold of me. And this is like, this is what I think I can bring to your team.
And it takes a surprising amount of courage to say, Hey, I think like I bring this! And and think of the person who's looking and I'm now like using paper. They're looking, looking. So my advice is like, write these applications or write the list of things that you are good at and write it as if no one is going to read it.
Taylor: I think that's great advice. It's hard. Yeah, I'm still working on this as I apply for next positions.
Dr. Coleman: Well and I think that's what friends are for too. You know, and I think there is this myth that these things are done alone. Science is done alone. Being a scientist is done alone. Filling out an application is done alone.
I mean, getting getting help, getting perspectives. It may not be your way, but if it is your way, don't think that that makes you less. I really just don’t think it does and you’re important, and having your voice out there, Taylor, is important. And so if that's something that you want to be better at, I'm not lecturing you. I think you know then, then I think, you know, realizing, hey, I'm just going to like show it to other people or whatever way you think would make it better.
It's these things don't just happen. None of them just happen. They're all a series of persistent steps.
Taylor: Thank you so much for chatting with us today. It was really inspiring to hear about your work and how it's really changed your perspective. I know it's changed my perspective as well, just chatting with you about it. I'm excited to see the future of space missions and maybe some of the people even watching this will be the future of these space missions themselves.
Dr. Coleman: I would guarantee you some people watching would play some part and there's so many parts to play.
Head Writer: Caroline Martin
Video and Sound: Madelyn Leembruggen & Caroline Martin
Interviewer: Taylor Contreras
In collaboration with AstraFemina
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