TO THE ENDS OF THE EAR
Jessica Meir goes to extremes to advance science .
BY MALINDA DANZIGER ’ 00 AND JARRETT HALEY
Right now Jessica Meir , PhD ’ 09 , is 220 miles above Earth , traveling at 17,227 miles per hour , orbiting the globe every 90 minutes aboard the International Space Station ( ISS ). She saw 16 sunrises today , just as many sunsets , and in one eyeshot can view nearly a quarter of our planet , say , the horn of Africa , the boot of Italy and the aurora borealis above Russia all at once . Right now she may be talking to schoolchildren on a live NASA feed or capturing her mission on social media , or she may simply be sleeping — floating , of course — in crew quarters the size of a phone booth .
Depending on when you read this , right now she may be collecting medical readings on her crewmates , or herself , or on “ extravehicular activity ,” more commonly known as a spacewalk . When she ’ s wrapped up her tasks for the day , she may be taking a moment in the Station ’ s cupola , a dome-like observatory module providing an extraordinary panorama of Earth and the depths of space beyond . If you know where to look in the night sky , you might see her , or at least the tiny point of light that is the ISS — a bit smaller than a star , moving just about as fast as a plane silently across the sky . That ’ s where she is . She ’ s up there .
There was a time , not too long ago , when a scientist wouldn ’ t have had such a role . Space in the early days of exploration was more of a barrier to break , a place to be raced to . NASA sought trained pilots from the military to get us there . But as that race slowed and evolved , space became something to study , a new variable in human knowledge with the potential to yield exciting discoveries , from mapping the cosmos to studying how humans react to microgravity . With the establishment of the ISS in 1998 , there came the opportunity for long-term studies beyond short-term shuttle missions , and space was solidly a scientific environment , albeit an extreme one — exactly the kind that Meir has made herself ready for .
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TRITON | WINTER 2020