Space
Biologist Turned Astronaut Is Going On Her First Ever Space Mission
Johnson D
First Posted: Jun 04, 2016 08:22 AM EDT
In three weeks, 37-year-old microbiologist Kate Rubins from Kazakhstan is set to board a Soyuz spacecraft which will bring her to the International Space Station. This will be the microbiologist's first time in space.
Rubins is now is Moscow prepping for her very first space mission. The 37-year-old Rubins was raised in Napa and graduated from Vintage High School in 1996. She holds a PhD in cancer biology from Stanford and once worked as an HIV researcher.
During the interview with FoxNews.com, she talked about the opportunities of doing research on the ISS, the music she will listen to, her time at space camp when she was young, and of course, what she will miss most on Earth while she's in orbit for the next few months.
"I've heard a lot differences between shuttles and Soyuz and a lot of people say when the third stage engine cuts off and you're in microgravity for the first time you actually have this amazing feeling of maybe even being stuck to the ceiling because your brain doesn't know quite what to do in your very first seconds of microgravity," said Rubins according to ABC 7 News.
Rubins, who is a virus expert and former fellow at the Whitehead Institute in Massachusetts, had studied pathogens like HIV, ebola, smallpox and monkeypox. She also said that she is excited about the kind of platform the ISS provides in the study of cellular biology. It was revealed that Rubins will work on heart and bone cells in space.
"We're going to grow those heart cells on orbit, and we're going to see the differences between heart cells grown on Earth, where you always have a gravity vector pulling those cells down into the bottom of the plate, versus cells that are weightless and they're suspended on board," she told FoxNews.com. "We're going to do similar experiments with bone cells to try to understand bone loss and deterioration."
The microbiologist, who is allowed to bring music with her, will take a bunch of different tunes along with her to space. "I've got everything from classical music, to pop music, to music from the 60s, 70s, and on through today," she said.
And when asked what she will most on Earth, she said, "I have heard from a lot of other people, that funny enough, they miss weather," she said. "They miss things like rain, they miss the smell of earth, they miss wind... We'll be looking forward to getting back to that when we come home."
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First Posted: Jun 04, 2016 08:22 AM EDT
In three weeks, 37-year-old microbiologist Kate Rubins from Kazakhstan is set to board a Soyuz spacecraft which will bring her to the International Space Station. This will be the microbiologist's first time in space.
Rubins is now is Moscow prepping for her very first space mission. The 37-year-old Rubins was raised in Napa and graduated from Vintage High School in 1996. She holds a PhD in cancer biology from Stanford and once worked as an HIV researcher.
During the interview with FoxNews.com, she talked about the opportunities of doing research on the ISS, the music she will listen to, her time at space camp when she was young, and of course, what she will miss most on Earth while she's in orbit for the next few months.
"I've heard a lot differences between shuttles and Soyuz and a lot of people say when the third stage engine cuts off and you're in microgravity for the first time you actually have this amazing feeling of maybe even being stuck to the ceiling because your brain doesn't know quite what to do in your very first seconds of microgravity," said Rubins according to ABC 7 News.
Rubins, who is a virus expert and former fellow at the Whitehead Institute in Massachusetts, had studied pathogens like HIV, ebola, smallpox and monkeypox. She also said that she is excited about the kind of platform the ISS provides in the study of cellular biology. It was revealed that Rubins will work on heart and bone cells in space.
"We're going to grow those heart cells on orbit, and we're going to see the differences between heart cells grown on Earth, where you always have a gravity vector pulling those cells down into the bottom of the plate, versus cells that are weightless and they're suspended on board," she told FoxNews.com. "We're going to do similar experiments with bone cells to try to understand bone loss and deterioration."
The microbiologist, who is allowed to bring music with her, will take a bunch of different tunes along with her to space. "I've got everything from classical music, to pop music, to music from the 60s, 70s, and on through today," she said.
And when asked what she will most on Earth, she said, "I have heard from a lot of other people, that funny enough, they miss weather," she said. "They miss things like rain, they miss the smell of earth, they miss wind... We'll be looking forward to getting back to that when we come home."
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone