Anna Menon: Polaris Dawn Future Astronaut & Lead Engineer of Space Operations at SpaceX

Introduction hello everyone my name is getika gorthy and today I'm very very excited and honored to be doing a very special space Champion Anna Menon Anna is an American engineer scheduled to fly on polarest on a private space mission Anna worked for NASA for seven years prior to joining SpaceX where she now works as a lead engineer of space operations as Elite space operations engineer at SpaceX he manages the development of crew operations and serves in mission control as both as a mission director and crew Communicator during her tenure at SpaceX she has led the implementation of dragon's crew capabilities helped create the crew Communicator operator role and developed critical operational responses to vehicle emergencies such as a fire or cabin depressurization Anna served in Mission Control during multiple Dragon missions such as demo 2 crew 1 and crs-22 and crs-23 as you can see Anna is a leading Aerospace industry leader and has much passion for space technology and space exploration I remember listening to Anna's talk during the asthma 2023 conference and I was blown away with her interest not only in space but her applications in biomedical engineering and medicine as well so welcome Anna thank you so much for taking your time to inspire the next generation of Aerospace leaders I'm very very excited to speak with you today thank you so much for having me and I am thrilled to be here yeah to go and kick off our conversation Typical Day as a Future Astronaut I wanted to start off by asking you a little bit more about your typical day at a future astronaut as a part of the polarist on crew I'm sure it must be very exciting but also a pack schedule so I'm curious to hear about how that's been going for you so I would say that a typical day is unique in that every day is different so what I one of the things that I absolutely love about this role is it's incredibly Dynamic and so we tackled the you know the fundamentals of the Dragon spacecraft we needed to learn the different systems and then we have learned a lot of um Mission specific training objectives to make sure we're preparing preparing ourselves well for the mission so focusing on some of the the major objectives that we're tackling as a part of this Mission and really fine-tuning those skills um and then we also have been working on a simulations so getting together as a crew as well as with our mission control team and working through complex scenarios um from both the crew and the ground perspective to make sure we're ready as a big team for flight but then as you mentioned I'm also a SpaceX engineer so I any days that I'm not in training I am working on in my day job at SpaceX doing my the work that you were describing before and so I kind of dynamic and interesting experience every single day yeah it sounds really fun and amazing and you know a lot of times I'm like All About the Polaris Dawn Mission hearing about all of these different commercial Crews launching into space to learn a little bit more about like polar it's done crew and what makes it different why is this um Mission particularly very special a perspace action for you first program is a first of its kind effort to rapidly Advance human space flight capabilities while simultaneously improving life here on Earth and raising awareness and funds for important causes here the Polaris Dawn Mission itself is has several key objectives that we're tackling so the first one is to go to the highest Earth orbit ever flown so we will we are striving to go to a high orbit and at that environment we will be exposed to higher levels of radiation and so we'll conduct some research up there and then after some time in that environment we will come to a lower R Apache to a coasting orbit from which point we will conduct the first commercial spacewalk ever performed a commercial spacewalk is exciting for a number of reasons um but one of the reasons is that SpaceX is developing a brand new Eva capable spacesuit to support this this is the first time in many many years that a brand new space Eva capable spacesuit has been developed and SpaceX is working really hard to approach it from perspective from ways that will make it incredibly scalable so that space But hundreds or thousands walking on our men and then thirdly we are our spacecraft what we hope this will be we can use as as we and others move further into space and do different missions in the future and then finally we're tackling a lot of science and research up there so basically we're filling the rest of our time on orbit um which is about five days in total with um science and research we have about 40 different experiments and they span lots of different areas and it'll be a really really fun time while we're up there yeah I remember yeah I remember you talking about some of those experiments you'll be doing to you know try to see how certain medical equipment or certain experiments work in a microgravity environments I'm very excited to see how those experiments perform and what it means for the future of space medicine and of course in other disciplines as well and also I'm very excited to see the design of the spacesuit when it comes out I'm very excited for this for this Mission and all that comes out of it and you know another thing that Being a Biomedical Engineer in the Aerospace Industry really intrigued me about your background the thing that I connected with personally was your degree in biomedical engineering which is something that I'm pursuing right now I think a lot of times when you think of space and space careers people think of engineering but most specifically aerospace engineering and every other degree seems to apply to any other industry but space but clearly there's a space for biomedical engineers in the space sector so I'm curious how did you get into the space industry uh with your more medical background and how did you kind of find your you know role evolving in the space sector even though you didn't come from the traditional aerospace engineering background yeah you know I think one thing that's really excites me about the space industry and its future is that I actually believe there's roles for a vast array of of backgrounds not just in many many engineering disciplines but but all sorts of disciplines and there's so many different ways to contribute and so if you have an interest in space there is a way most likely for you to contribute to this industry and so um you know for me I think that I I grew up loving space I grew up in Houston and with that I was exposed to NASA and the space World from a very young age and I had the great Fortune of going on a field trip to NASA when I was in fourth grade and that field trip exposed me to a day in the life of both a mission control flight controller as well as an astronaut and I realized at that point that that's what I want to do with my life um I want to contribute to this industry and so but as I went along and school I continue to pursue fields that I loved and that I I felt like um resonated with my interests and skills and so that's what led me to biomedical engineering I loved medicine I loved engineering and it was this wonderful Synergy of those those fields but I carried with me this whole time this love of space and kept seeking for ways to kind of bring all those fields together and so I was really fortunate when I got out of my master's program that I was able to get a job at Nasa doing biomedical engineering flight control so it was really this this blending of all of these different loves of mine and I um I felt so so grateful to get to to bring together all of these interests um and contribute to the space industry in that way and it it was just a demonstration of um how there are so many different ways to contribute to this industry and to give you you know a Hands-On example at Nasa the work I was doing I was applying biomedical engineering hardware and software skills to support the lives of astronauts on the International Space Station me and my team of flight controllers we supported um them as they used this different hardware and software and it was really neat way to apply both a love of medicine as well as a love of engineering and math that's amazing I I feel so connected with some of the things that you're mentioning first off what you mentioned in the beginning you know space is truly for everyone I love to think of space as like its own little mini world so every career you know from a technician to an artist to A food scientist anybody would need in the real world you're gonna need just in the space industry so it's such a bad face and it's only growing um so I'm very excited to see all the unique career opportunities that continue to um you know open up as we continue expanding the space sector um and you know it was really great hearing your story as well because for me there was a program at Nasa called the sisters program at Goddard Center that I went to in seventh grade that kind of had that same effect on me so it's incredible how there's just this one aha moment and the fact that it sticks with us and we you know just try combining all of our interests together uh to find this perfect career choice for us it's nice to know that you don't have to go the traditional path in space and that there's other ways you can combine your passion for space to develop your own unique career choice totally agree with you yeah and you know with your interest in Future of Telemedicine medicine I'm curious to hear about your insights on the future of telemedicine and Faith medicine overall how do you think um you know the role of space medicine will evolve and how does that help health care here on Earth I feel like a lot of times uh we hear the you know a lot I feel like a lot of people who are not in the space industry always question why are we investing in space and I think this question comes in the engineering aspect but also even in healthcare I'm a strong believer that doing space medicine research will help medicine on Earth for everyone so I'm curious to hear kind of your perspectives on this topic and you know the role of telemedicine in the future absolutely so um gosh you know I think the future of space medicine in and of itself is extremely bright I think that there are a lot of people working across the globe in this field um and it's a really exciting time to be a part of a part of this industry um there are obviously a lot of vehicle challenges as you consider how to get to Mars and how to you know make life interplanetary and sustain people in space for indefinite amounts of time but really there are a lot of human challenges as well and humans actually present a tremendous complexity um and so there are there are just so many exciting ways to learn to support the human in that space environment and there's a lot of different challenges that this industry and this field in particular needs to tackle and is already tackling in order to get us to some of our our you know Collective dreams um you know thinking about telemedicine and how we can use some of these these building blocks that we are building today you know I think about um some of the goals of to give you an example the research that we're doing on our mission you know when we sought out to you know build a suite of research to perform on this Mission the research goals were to research that it was bettering life here on Earth and or bettering future life for humans in space and so there is a lot that we can learn in space that can improve life here on Earth and similarly some of that does both it improves life today and it improves life can improve the life of us collectively tomorrow as well um one of the experiments we'll perform on our mission Works to um use a device that is a sort of ambulance in a box that provides capability to do ultrasound ECG monitoring um different Vital sign collection in a telemedicine capacity we'll be testing that out on orbit um using the starlink system and leaning into some of the different technologies that we'll be testing on our mission and so that's just an example of how space flight can really test different technologies that can apply both here on Earth today as well as you know many years into our Collective future yeah definitely I mean even the aspect of like imagining you know the idea of understanding medicine without the element of gravity and all that we can uncover in the experiments have already been done in the international space stations and in future commercial space stations all the work that will be done to uncover or to bridge certain knowledge gaps we still have on so many of these mechanisms it's very exciting but also the idea of developing these medical devices um that can help astronauts but also help improve a lot of things in the hospital today that we use for granted I like to believe that space kind of forces us to solve problems that are not necessarily needing to be solved right now in our moment so it kind of pushes human technology and the technology that we want to solve for which enables us to improve life automatically here on Earth which is what we did already we can see with like the GPS the phones the satellites solar panels all all the technology we're using stem from space so yes I definitely agree that telemedicine and space medicine in general is a very exciting field absolutely earlier yeah and earlier when Overcoming Obstacles you were mentioning how you got into space you mentioned you right after your biomedical engineering uh you know degree you got into NASA and you found like this perfect role that fit all your interests but in your journey um did you have any obstacles pursuing your career or even during your education did you have any obstacles and if so how did you overcome them a lot of times we can look at someone's like LinkedIn or see all that someone's accomplished and been like oh everything came easy to them or you know they didn't learn anything because everything was perfect so I'm curious to hear about your own journey and if you had any of those moments where you kind of had to step back and you know learn a lesson from that experience absolutely and I think I'm so glad you asked because I think it's really important to talk about that um I think that those are the things that every one of us has obstacles and so um and you know learning from each other and you know reflecting on our own I think teaches us a tremendous amount for me um certainly one that stands out is you know I I mentioned before I had this this dream of working in the space industry and when I was in college I was pursuing a mathematics degree that was my undergraduate degree and um I while I was there I I continued to carry with me this this love and desire to contribute to the space industry and so I applied to a number of of internships in that industry and and didn't get them I was turned down um and but I just kept trying and I kept pursuing different Avenues and different opportunities and eventually I did get an internship you know when I finished my undergraduate degrees when I first landed an internship at Nasa um after you know a number of times not succeeding there and as I that ultimately he was one door that ultimately led to me getting to work for years in my dream job and getting to do this work that I so love to get to contribute to on to this day and so you know as I reflect on that experience I think the things that stand out to me and the lessons that extend out to me are you know the importance of perseverance the importance of having a good support system around you that encourages you you know working hard and pursuing your passions um with that hard work and you know with all of those factors in mind um a lot pans out that even in the face of obstacles you may not see in that moment but continued perseverance can lead to great great moments yeah I think it's really you know it's really nice to hear it from someone who's doing like the dream job we all hope to you know become astronauts or even work in the space and sector you know just to hear those experiences and realizing that it's normal to not always get your first choice internship or even to get an internship of your choice during your first or second year and to see how you just never gave up and you still pursued that path I think that's really amazing and also comforting for students like myself who are kind of currently kind of going through that process so really thank you so much for sharing that of course yeah and you know How Will Space Exploration Look Like in the Next 20-30 Years? in your journey you've obviously built up so much experience um you know from the government side when you worked at Nasa but more so recently with the commercial aspect and I feel like commercial um space has really been creating more buzz and excitement around the space sector and making things more move more rapidly and quickly so I'm curious to hear from your personal opinion your personal perspective how do you think space you know and commercialization the space industry overall will look like in the next 20 or 30 years how do you think exploration will be I I'm curious to hear what you envisioned for the next 20 30 years from now goodness it is you know I I think that it's hard to to put a finger on exactly where we will be a certain date in the future what I do think I see is that I deeply believe that we are heading into a future where life is multi-planetary and I am incredibly excited by the commercialization of space and all of the contributors to the space industry having all of these different people contributing to our knowledge base just helps us get there faster helps us get there more safely um you know you know when I think about what our mission is is we're we're pursuing the plurist on Mission you know we are hoping to build on the vast array of work that has already been done out there to help us collectively understand you know how we bring humans to space and how we sustain life there um and the more people we have working on this the better and so you know to give an example as I was mentioning earlier we you know we're doing about 40 research experiments on this Mission and so each one of those is providing building blocks to our Collective knowledge base that we not just SpaceX but and not just the Polaris program but the the whole world can use to con continue to evolve and get closer to our our Collective goals in human space flight and so I think it's a really exciting time to be a part of this industry and I am thrilled to see what where the future leads us yeah definitely I feel like it's so unpredictable because even just like 10 15 years ago I feel like people weren't expecting this sudden you know rapid commercialization in Space the number of launches we're having every day I feel like now we have like apps where you can see how many launches there are every day around the world so it's amazing to see how fast this industry has been growing and I think it's very hard to predict in the next 20 30 years what it'll look like but as you mentioned I think we're building the blocks in the right direction for more um you know regular scientists here on Earth who maybe have no interest in going to space or no means to go to space will not start thinking about oh what if I do this exact experiment in microgravity what could it tell us so I think it's starting to create more access to space and opening up the doors to a lot more researchers scientists individuals who just want to experience you know the overview effect I think there's a lot of that's going to happen and you know it's very very exciting and do you have any Things to Be Cautious of for the Future of the Aerospace Industry anything that makes you nervous or kind of things that you think we should be cautious of as we are also rapidly growing in this in this sector you know I think I'm just really excited by this this chapter of of growth in this sector you know there are just as I look around me you know as I work in my day job at SpaceX and I've worked through the years in this industry I just see so many brilliant people in this field working to make progress every day so many people with putting so much heart and soul into what they are doing um and I think to be a part of this incredible industry is that is changing the world um is is quite a privilege and and it's all happening very quickly and so you know I think as I watch I as I watch us all learning people are learning quickly people are um as we like to say at SpaceX failing forward fast we're learning we're making progress um and it is the work that this Collective group of people of of Engineers researchers Etc throughout this industry um they're Paving the way for our kids and our future generation it's honestly very exciting I know there's a lot of comments all the time about oh space like we should be you know we should be cautious for the safety aspect which is a huge concern or like the engineering aspects there's a lot of pieces that people are a little bit cautious of but I think as you said there's just everybody's working in such different directions and we all are you know we're taking the right steps in the right direction which is what's important so you know I definitely agree with you and now that we're able to Final Piece of Advice for the Next Generation of Aerospace Leaders learn a little bit more of kind of about what inspired you to come into space a little bit about your journey as well as the exciting mission that you have for space my last and final question for you is what final piece of advice you've given plenty of advice especially when you're talking about the obstacles you faced but uh you know I'm curious I'm more like general advice if you can kind of go back in time and give maybe you know college student or young professional and a piece of advice what would that advice be it could be regarding pursuing a passion in space stem or really just career or life advice you wish you knew when you you were a little bit younger absolutely you know I think I would advise to pay attention to the intersection of what you love and what you are good at and then follow that lead to guide your decisions about where to contribute in this world you know to give an example I loved biomedical engineering and I love space flight I didn't plan on flying to space but I you know as I continued on my journey I continue to pursue these fields that I loved and I continue to pursue roles in which I felt I could be of service using these interests and skills and this opportunity was born out of that intersection you know there's a lot of things that we can't control in this world but what we can control is our awareness of our interests and skills and how we use that awareness to inform our decisions and inform our preparedness every step of the way and you know life has taught me that when you follow that gifts and passion and talent passion life tends to work itself out yeah I think that's really great advice I remember when I first was interested coming into high school I was interested in space and medicine and I was like oh I have to pick between one or the other there's no career where I could combine them and then just randomly one day I searched up on the Internet faith and medicine like really expecting nothing to pop up and to my shock there was a whole career on Space medicine and I remember talking about it with like yeah with like my guidance counselors and teachers and they would all kind of look at me like are you sure that's a real career and I started explaining it to them and just like wow that's so cool you know and people have told me wow I wish I knew about these types of careers like in space policy face Commerce uh you know being space lawyer you know there's so many career opportunities and I think you know that's what we do with ignited thinkers like you know you go to elementary schools and we start like showing students like hey have you thought about this really cool career did you even know it existed um so I think sometimes just taking that extra step of like that leap of faith to be like it's okay to be untraditional untraditional and to like follow interest that interest you and kind of make up your own career and maybe there's someone who did it and I'm sure there's someone who did it before you so I can just uh and like you said just finding those interdisciplinary aspects and I think especially in the space sector it's such an interdisciplinary industry that you will find every role in it so I think that's wonderful advice and I'm sure every student or every young professional or anybody who wants to change their career it will take this advice to heart so thank you so much Conclusion Anna for taking your time to do this interview I'm very excited to see your launch to space um and so yes again thank you so much for taking your time to speak with me today oh thank you so much it was such a joy to talk to you and to be here so thank you for your time thank you