#73 Anna Menon: SpaceX Engineer and Future Astronaut

and uh it keeps vibrating it's s-p putting Anna welcome to the Astro Ben podcast how you doing I am doing great thank you so much for having me oh thank you for coming on uh you're the last member of the Polaris Dawn mission for me to speak to um before you take to the skies at some point this year I'm hearing well I heard from Sarah actually a couple of weeks ago uh potentially this summer um so yeah thank you for coming on and um it's an honor to have spoken to all of you individually so uh yeah thank you for coming on oh it's our honor to to chat with you too so thank you so how are you getting on um I I I imagine things are hotting up um and as the weeks go past and the months go past and you know I feel like I don't know where 2023 is gone uh just living my normal life back here on Earth how has it been for you with the with the training has it sort of escal ated as you expected any surprises over the last few months I wouldn't say there's been any surprises and it has honestly escalated as I expected um you know it's it's kind of been an exponential curve in in my perspective of training we started off uh about a year ago in training um with the the basics of the Dragon spacecraft orbital mechanics the the Falcon rocket Etc and we have worked through over the course of the last year a lot of different teamwork um mental toughness and different types of competencies like that and we are now in the phase of the final mission preparations getting into what we call joint simulations where we're both working with both our our crew in space as well as our our ground team in Mission Control to run through a lot of different simulations of all the phases of flight um and getting ready to to fly this thing yeah you say that so casually fly this thing um so so so I asked Sarah about how she found out uh she was going to space and she told me that she found out um before you and she had to walk back into an office sitting a few desks away from you and like try not to look you in the eye or give it away um how how was is that how you remember it do you remember her looking any different or you just didn't have any idea you know I don't remember her looking any different she played it very cool very impressive um but that day stands out very strongly all of the memories and the emotions from that day stand out very strongly to me I had a meeting near the end of the day put on my calendar it was a Friday um my husband and I had just gotten back from um Houston where he had been announced as a a NASA astronaut candidate and we know we were making preparations to move our family from Los Angeles to Houston where we would live to support his his career um and I was called into a meeting and in the meeting was sitting Jared as well as several other wonderful um people whom I trust and and we chatted for a few minutes and out and then very quickly Jared asked me if I would like to fly to space um and I was completely floored uh I expected to be going into this meeting to talk about some upcoming Mission Endeavors that SpaceX and he were pursuing as well as some past work that we had done together on inspiration for um and definitely didn't anticipate this this change in the conversation um I you know it was so many emotions hit me in that moment and I I remember connecting with Sarah a little while later and just both being in total shock um but incredibly grateful for for this turn of events and um it's been quite the journey ever since then as your as your like how people treated you changed like I guess if you're you know your husband's an astronaut C this sort of slightly different but it's almost like um you know becoming a celebrity overnight it's that kind of like you know you it's a big thing so do you have you felt any like people treating you sort of differently like within the company and in your personal life or uh anything that surprised you like that you know nothing really stands out I think what's been really cool to me is that Sarah and I both have retained our our normal roles as as engineers at SpaceX this whole time too and so we've continued to do development and Engineering with with our our um companions at SpaceX and so still working in the in the exact same ways that we were working for the years leading up to this Mission and so I think that's been um very comforting to me very one I I have always loved my work at SpaceX it's always been a great joy I've loved it both from the technical perspective as well as the relationships and the the getting to work on these teams together and so um I think it's been um it's it's felt like home to be able to retain that while kind of like living this this new unexpected this new unexpected world of training for space no sure and so let's let's take a step back how did you were you always interested in space or was there a is there a sort of pivotal point where you sort of started looking up at the stars or how did you can you remember where your interest in space started and how did that lead you to being at SpaceX that's a great question I definitely remember it I I grew up in Houston Texas which is you know the the home of human space flight for NASA and I was introduced to space at a young age in a field trip in elementary school where um my one of my teachers was the daughter of a Challenger astronaut and so she had the great privilege of taking us to a a special field trip where we got to experience a day in the life of an astronaut as well as a day in the life of a mission control flight controller and I I remember that that field trip to this day and I remember how much I fell in love with it I loved the dynamic the dynamic nature of the work I loved the the fast problem solving the technical challenges that the teams had to work together to to overcome and uh it lit in me a spark that made me realize I wanted to contribute to this industry with my career and so I I carried on through school ended up pursuing math in in my undergraduate because I simply loved math and then went on to get a master's degree in bi medical engineering because again I I loved I loved math but I wanted to do something with the math that that was pretty Hands-On I realized and so um and I also always loved medicine and so it was this interesting melding of the love of math and love of the human body um but I still carried with me all of this time this this love of space and I never I never really let that go and so when I got out of grad school I was lucky enough to to land a job at at at Nasa in Houston doing biomedical engineering so it it's this this wonderful uh thenen diagram of all of my interests coming together and I worked there for about seven years as a biomedical flight controller supporting the International Space Station helping the astronauts with the biomedical hardware and software that they use while they're living in space and then I moved on to SpaceX where I've been for about five years now working in astronaut operations and that means developing the how a an astronaut lives in space so how do you put on your space suit to how do you fight a fire respond to a rapid depressurization and then supporting those astronauts when when they fly in space via mission control and so that's what I've been doing ever since I I continue to just pursue things I loved um and was was I feel incredibly fortunate to be getting to work in the space industry I I I have continued to think that every day is is the best day because it's it's new problems every day to solve and and um I'm getting to do kind of my my childhood Dream by just contributing to this industry so didn't didn't expect this across my path but it certainly awakened that that childhood love of dreaming for the stars and dreaming to experience them firsthand oh sure we contributing in in a big way um so you're not just a uh uh not just the uh the engineer on on Polaris dorm but you're also the medical officer um how does that change uh sort of responsibilities for the flight is there a uh do you feel a sort of heightened sense of responsibility um uh you know in a worst case scenario where something goes wrong are you're the you're effectively a sort of the doctor on board right um what how was that affected your training what do you have to do differently to prepare for that that's a great question it I do feel a pretty large responsibility to be honest I SpaceX put me through a a week-long intensive training program at with a a medical team here in Houston where I got to do a lot of simulations as well as a lot of Hands-On practice of procedures in a hospital environment um but ever since then I've also continued to to do Shadow shifts in the emergency room to kind of keep those skills fresh and make sure that they're not atrophying over the course of time since I first learned them um you know I I do I'm lucky because I'm I'm certainly not alone we have a fantastic team here on the ground we have what's called flight surgeons and they're supporting from mission control and they have a huge bread of knowledge that they will work with with me to help help support the crew if anything were to were to arise um I I can be the the physical hands there but I'm also supported by a great team on the ground yeah and I guess that's the uh that's the good thing about being relatively close to Earth because you're going is it 500 miles from Earth which is uh something like that something like that yep yeah so you're near enough where you still got basically real time Earth coms which uh must make it easier um absolutely and and you know there's there's not a guarantee of always having communication there's you know certainly like gaps in in Satellite coverage and things like that so that's why you always want to to arm your crew to be prepared to handle things independently but but we are lucky as you said to to be relatively close to Earth so that we do have a a low latency and in calm response as well as as pretty pretty solid satellite coverage throughout the mission I uh I I asked Sarah about the uh obviously the the Eva that's obviously a big Focus of the mission um I have to ask how do you feel about it are you uh are you excited uh do you think do you think there's going to be any surprises for when you sort of feel feel well just look at your hands and see them against the Blackness of space and realize there's just essentially a layer of clothing between you and the expanse of the universe have you have you like have you sort of sat down and thought about that I I do think about it at times I I'm really excited to be honest I think uh it's a it's a really important technological step for SpaceX and for human um human exploration I think it's a it's a step that we need to take in order to get to the point that we have thousands of people living and working on the moon and Mars and so I'm excited for what we collectively as a team will learn and you know I I really I think we as a team both the crew and the ground teams and all the engineers uh developing the hard and the software to support this this endeavor are working really hard to you know turn turn over every Rock and think about every angle for The Space Walk So that we are we're ready for it so and you're obviously you know talking about sort of Ground Control you've um you know you've been a you've been a mission director at SpaceX as well so you kind of have the the perspective from um looking at the control center or whatever you call it um how how is that going to be for you like have you sort of do you do you think you're going to be thinking about sort of what it's like looking back the other way um sort of at the screens have you kind of have you kind of processed about how that's going to feel now you're the one actually you know doing the Eva doing these things absolutely I think about that a lot and I I feel um grateful to have had that experience on the on on the ground with the team down there and I think a lot of times when we're doing our simulations and I'm sitting in our in our capsule simulator I think about you know what are the conversations that they're having down there and I can almost almost imagine myself in that room and hear the voices of the different experts you know contributing to the conversation to to drive to a path forward um so I I hope that I can um be of of use to the teams you know having that background and and you know leaning upon it and I'm certainly going to be envisioning it when we're up there in the spacecraft and and gaining the perspective of what it's like to be up there and then I hope that on the other side of this Mission I can bring back that perspective to contribute to uh the human space flight Endeavors on the other side absolutely um and you you talked about your uh your husband as well I'm just sort of interested in what it must be like you know a real sort of power couple you know astronaut candidates um uh how how does he how does he feel about it you know because I guess when you're when you're going to space like I talked to Jared about it as well when I chatted to him on the podcast like when you've got kids kids it does add a sort of heightened sense of of uh of nerves um well not nerves but like you know you you you're kind of you almost I I assume you're sort of going to put that to the back of your mind you know when you're sitting on the launch pad you're just focused on the mission um but uh I imagine you'll be very relieved to see your kids when you get back right oh I I dream of seeing their faces uh upon coming back to Earth I think that's one of my like very strong images in my head uh that I dream of upon that return but you know I think I think I'll be carrying them with me when I'm in space I I'm bringing a little something for each of them with me um little photo of them as well to to make sure that they're they're kind of getting to to experience this in in kind of a unique way also along for the ride so um you know and I think my husband and I both when these these opportunities presented themselves to each of us we we took it very seriously we talked about it very seriously and made sure that um we were really intentional and thoughtful about our decisions to move forward so it's it's a it's a family family Endeavor and journey ahead yeah uh when you uh I I assume you have it in the US but when like your parents or you have to say what your parents do for a living um that must be quite quite cool for your kids U when do you have to I you said you sort of bring a photo of them to space and I I I was sort of joking with Sarah that she should bring her violin you know uh if there if there's room uh which would be super cool beautiful beautiful player I'm sure she is but when do you need to when like when do you start stocking the the capsule you know how far in advance is it sort of a month or two when do you need to make the decisions as to what can go onto the onto the mission the decisions have to come pretty early because they have to do testing of all the things every single item that we bring with us not just personal items but research hardware and everything else that's living in that capsule has to be tested to make sure um it does no harm uh especially now that we're taking the entire capsule down to vacuum we have to make sure that everything is safe to be in there in exposed to that environment and so we had to make the decisions of what to bring actually a while ago um and so we provided you know copies of everything that will go through rigorous testing on the ground before it's ever even packed for the spacecraft and then it once it's it's passed through that testing then it gets packed and and really stored away in a really particular way to make sure the spacecraft uh center of gravity is correct um and that all that packing will happen a little bit closer to fight about a month or two in advance that's fantastic what um what what excites you most about the Polaris Dawn Mission particularly it does seem sort of the start of obviously it's the start of the Polaris program um and there's some really ambitious Milestones there but what excites you most about the the mission that you're a part of and and and how does it differ from other missions that SpaceX has done over the last few years you know I think that I am particularly excited about kind of the the variety of bold Endeavors that are being undertaken by this Mission you know we're we're seeking to do to test a number of different Technologies on this Mission from seeking to go to the highest Earth orbit ever flown to performing the first commercial spacewalk to testing out starlink laser-based communication systems from a human in orbit um as well as doing close to 40 research experiments across our five days there and so all of those provide really strong building blocks to the future endeavors that SpaceX wants to Embark upon for our future missions um just to give you an example The Space Walk you know the the space suit that the engineers are developing for this Mission it's the one of the it's the first first Eva capable space suit built in many years and they're not just building a space suit but they're building one that's that's aimed at being really scalable if you envision a world where we have you know thousands of people living on the surface of Mars you're not going to just need one or two space suits for that you're going to need thousands of space suits for that and you're going to be able to need make them efficiently at a at a low cost and so the the thoughtfulness and the technology that the engineers are putting into the the development of the space suit for this mission is going to is going to make big strides towards that long-term goal and I'm excited to see where all of these Technologies lead absolutely how how are you uh how are you preparing for the the mental side of uh a long duration Mission I mean it's you know it's it's five days but that's still that's a long time you know how are you how are you sort of mentally focusing on it do you do you do like meditation or anything like that like you know any kind of normal thing that us normal people do um I I just I I wonder what you know based on things like the inspiration for Mission you know what what have you been uh I don't know if Jared sort of given you any advice on how to how to get in the right head space for it because obviously there's only so much that uh you know you've got a lot of amazing people that can sort of you know help you with the training but uh yeah I'm just curious what's your sort of attitude to to to getting ready mentally for this mission I love that aspect of it I I definitely am undertaking different techniques to prepare mentally one thing I do is I do do meditation in my mornings I have a a practice that kind of uh Works through visualization I also journal and so uh you know throughout this entire course of training um and then I Envision doing so through space flight and even afterwards I I journal and reflect on experiences um emotions relationships uh the whole the whole gamut um and then finally you know I think we've been fortunate to to have a crew and a and a team of people supporting us from a training perspective who are also focused on preparing us mentally for this endeavor some of the training exercises we have done are focused on on the mental side not just the the physical or the technical side so things that we've done include you know climbing a mountain in COD axi uh kotap paxi volcano in Ecuador that's close to 20,000 ft tall and and you know really needing to dig into mental toughness getting comfortable being uncomfortable working together through stressful situations um and all of those sorts of of kind of soft skills but skills that are really important honestly not just to space flight but to life in general but will be certainly applicable to space flight oh definitely I can imagine it's it's the most important thing um especially you know not everyone is like like uh you know sort of a born and raised test pilot who is um yeah as you say used to to being uncomfortable that's definitely something you have to get ready for uh Sarah was telling me about um you know doing uh like parachute jumps solo parachute jumps um for the first time which uh you know that alone is sort of pushing the boundary for me that's pretty crazy so so so on the Polaris Thorn Mission what would be your typical day um so what were your you're obviously doing you're doing science you're all doing science but what roles and responsibilities are specifically yours throughout the mission sure so you know our days are going to be action-packed so we we have five days up there and we want to make sure every every moment counts and so we will be packing them in with with research with the different technical test Endeavors that we are pursuing so you know over the course of the the days in orbit we'll have a tightly packed timeline um we've already started to practice going through for example the research timeline and and pairing up in teams and and working through different different protocols to make sure that we can get through every single experiment and getting all of the the pis here on the ground is as greater research as possible um and then sprinkled in throughout that we'll also be having our our our test objectives like I mentioned earlier so for example at one moment we'll hit the highest apog uh of our mission and and in that moment you know we'll we'll be making sure to do specific experiments that take advantage of that unique environment so um for example we at that one of the benefits of going to that that high orbit is the the higher radiation environment that that we will be exposed to and that can be can teach us things about how astronauts live and can live in in a high radiation environment when they're they're going on future long duration missions and so we have several experiments that take advantage of that unique environment for ex we are doing one that attempts to harness the the radiation environment use a camera and harness that high radiation environment to do a technology demonstration of to see if you can get X-ray images up there because if you think of life you know going to the going to Mars one day that's a far distance to bring something as large as an x-ray machine but if we can figure out creative ways to form technologies that can that can go with us and provide us strong diagnostic capabilities um that will be really powerful so you know we're we're making sure to to be performing all of our research along the way and and also pausing to to take advantage of the unique uh technological demonstration moments throughout throughout our timeline as well what do you talking about the future you know what do you see as the the future of space exploration and how do you see it evolving in the coming years and decades you know obviously you can't speak for Elon Musk or SpaceX as a whole but I imagine there's a you know clearly the company mantras is making human life multiplanetary it's such a bold goal and and it seems like everyone I speak to at SpaceX is genuinely working towards that goal what's what's the feeling actually like is it is that generally what everyone's focusing on long term do you think I do think that um it's it's a really bold goal but I actually do think it's possible I think that you know SpaceX pushes themselves to work extremely hard and dream big but they can they they have demonstrated time and time again that they can achieve those dreams and so I think that you know the future of human space exploration is really bright I I think we're already living in that future to a certain degree we're in the beginnings of it I think you know just the the fact that we have we in an era where we have gone from spaceflight being accessible solely to from government agencies to now being accessible to commercial entities as well I think that that in and of itself is is really exciting to watch and I think will only grow over time and I think in addition it continues to access to space continues to broaden to a wider and wider population and I think that you know it is my dream and my great aspiration to watch as in In Our Lifetime space can become accessible to to anyone on on the planet that that wants to wants to venture there absolutely what what advice would you give to young people who are listening to this um I know I asked this question a lot people that listens to the podcast will say but it's genuinely interesting you know other than the only things she can't say is uh networking going to space conferences what other ADV just because that's a common thing um which is important but it's a common thing um what other advice would you give to young people um you know perhaps want to go to space themselves one day you know and there's clearly there's not one fixed path and you know everyone the Polaris daor Mission has had a a different path to get there but what sort of general advice would you give to young people that's a great question and I I also love hearing people's answers to that um but I you know I think my advice would be to pay attention to the intersection of your interests and your skills and use that awareness to drive your decisions and where you choose to contribute to this world so for example you know I I didn't expect to get to fly to space I loved math I loved biomedical engineering I loved space and I contined to pursue Fields I loved throughout my life and roles where I felt that I could be of service and this opportunity was appeared out of the inner out of out of that you know I think there's just like you said there's many things we can't control and but what we can control is our awareness of where our gifts and our interests lie and use that awareness to inform our decisions and our preparedness life life tends to work itself out if you follow that inner section of of interests and talents in my opinion I think that's great advice um yeah I'll probably listen to that back and uh try and absorb it because I think you're right I think you're right and you have to follow your passions because you're never going to go all in on something or you know you know we've all had well I definitely have had jobs where you kind of like wake up every day and your heart's not really quite in it but life is too short you just have to you know you just have to go for it and if you're passionate about something you'll probably make a bit of money out of it and you'll be able to survive But ultimately you'll be more fulfilled um which is great obviously you've been doing so much training um and you will still continue to do training for another few months um what have you learned about yourself um doing the training is there anything that surprised you and if there isn't that's totally fine oh that's such a great question um I you know I think I've continued to to just gain confidence over time with training getting more and more comfortable in my own skin and more believing in myself I think a a powerful moment in training for me was the the skydiving experience I think you know we we worked we drilled incredibly hard to prepare for that skydiving we were trained by Cadets at the U the US Air Force Academy um they drilled both nominal and emergency procedures into our heads so that we knew them backwards and forwards and then when we went up in that plane you know I think the very normal emotions of I'm about to jump out of an airplane naturally arise you know the stress response you feel it um but but you press forward through that and as I pressed forward through that and I jumped out of the plane and I began to just execute from memory all of these procedures that they had drilled into our heads and then ultimately landed on the ground maneuvered myself landed and felt the Elation of having gotten to that point I I think that that emotional Arc and the lessons I took away from it of pushing through challenging times even difficult things um and kind of the the joys that can be felt the confidence that can be felt on the other side were really powerful for me and things that I will carry into both space flat as well as just into my life in general that's fantastic well just before you go uh let's go a bit extracurricular um so I've read on the Polaris Thorn website you have a few Hobbies when you're not uh training to be an astronaut um um why don't you tell me about a few of them and uh are you doing them still or they on hold until you get back oh goodness so I do a number of things in my spare time probably my number one hobby is is hanging out with my family and my kids and and pursuing things that my kids love and making sure that they are getting to explore our world and and and the different things it has to offer to see what sparks their imagination um so that's probably the number number one number one dedicator of my time but um other things I love and continue to do are are hiking and uh exploring the outdoors and and traveling with my my family I think we love to go on what we call Family Adventures where we get together and we it doesn't it's not always comfortable but uh we we go and explore different national parks state parks we actually just recently took our kids to India uh to and my husband's grandma is 100 years old and so and she lives over there and so we went and um spent time with her and helped our kids see a different part of this world and um just exploring like that I think is is a great love of mine and then another love of mine that um isn't ex isn't tapped into quite as much these days but is still a strong love as salsa dancing it's something that I learned when I studied abroad in Spain in college and continue to do throughout school and after school and I I love it I love the culture of it I I love the expression involved in it and so it's it's will continue to be a passion of mine probably my whole life that's amazing that was the one I was getting to um but it seems great it seems like the uh you know the Polaris dor crew that you're all such lovely normal people I know I know lovely that's definely a British term we say that all the all the time here um you've all got creative interests you know and uh very much not the traditional astronaut that you'd expect from the Apollo era which is great um but thank you so much for coming on it's been great to chat to you um I wish you all the luck in the world with the mission and uh I'll be there cheering you on and um hopefully we can chat to you at some point in the future and we can hear about the the overview effect or maybe the uh as Chris Chris bosen um said on his episodes the out ofview effect you know looking out into the universe and and feeling the desire to explore even more um absolutely thank you very much I would look forward to that so much thank you so much for your time it's been such a pleasure to talk to you