‘This is a new age'

What I’m really looking forward to [about] being in space is looking back at Earth, because so many people say just seeing it, and seeing the vastness of space around it, you recognize how fragile it is and how special it is.”

Jasmin Moghbeli, Astronaut

Jasmin Moghbeli, 38, sat in a manila and pale blue quarantine room at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, preparing to support the upcoming SpaceX Crew 4 launch planned for April 23. She was also most likely contemplating her own launch to the International Space Station, most likely late next year.

“It’s more excitement than nervousness,” Moghbeli, a native of Germany who was born into an Iranian family that immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Baldwin when she was 8 months old, told the Herald last Friday. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for an extremely long time.”

Alongside her will be Pilot Andreas Mogensen, two other mission specialists, yet to be announced, and a Crew 7 Dragan vehicle, all going into space to “maintain the ISS and head back.” Assisting back on Earth will be Mission Control, where Moghbeli has worked in the past.

Her experience there gives her a sense of tranquility in the face of uncertainty, knowing just “how many people are looking out for our well-being out there and making sure, if a problem arises, that they help us solve it … that gives me a lot of comfort, knowing the people working behind the scenes to get us safely up there and get us safely back.”

“It’s kind of surreal to think about,” Moghbeli a Baldwin High School and MIT graduate, added of making her lifelong dream a reality. “There’s a part of you that’s like, oh, that’s never really going to happen, and to be so close to actually going into space, it’s kind of hard to even process.”

Astronauts’ work is essential, she said. “Anytime we explore and push the boundaries further,” she said, “we learn things we didn’t know we were going to learn.”

Focused on medical breakthroughs on Earth and the future colonization of Mars, her work now and in the coming years will give humankind the cornerstone for many firsts. A member of the Artemis Project, which will utilize the next generation of lunar landers, Moghbeli is slated to explore the moon’s untouched south polar region.

It is possible that she will be the first woman on the moon, there to set up a “sustained presence” by utilizing the hydrogen and oxygen in the water — in the form of ice, which NASA scientists believe exists in that region — to produce breathable air, fuel and more.

The development there will be a test before mankind attempts to settle on Mars. The importance of the moon operation, Moghbeli said, is to “practice operationally how we do things on another planetary body when it’s only a couple days of transit, a few seconds of com delay … Talking about Mars, it’s orders of magnitude further … delays are minutes, at times more than that. Getting those practices down before that is really important.”

Nonetheless, she said, “We need to push out further and further into the solar system, I think that is a must … that’s really important to us as humanity.”

Moghbeli explained the space agency’s plans: “Later this year we’ll be sending [an] Artemis 1 rocket unmanned to test it around the moon, then a crude mission Artemis 2 around the moon with humans in it, and then the one after that will be putting humans on the surface of the moon again.” 

So far, the only experiments she knows she will be doing on the ISS are the ones on herself, as her body acclimates to space: the effects of weightlessness and radiation, as well as the psychological impact on her.

One of the remarkable things about the space station, Moghbeli said, is the diversity of the crews and the mutual cooperation. “It seems to be one of the few areas where we can let go of our differences, set those aside, and say we’re doing this together for the betterment of humanity,” she said.

She also can’t wait to see Earth from a different perspective, “What I’m really looking forward to [about] being in space is looking back at Earth, because so many people say just seeing it, and seeing the vastness of space around it, you recognize how fragile it is and how special it is.”

Leaving behind her husband and twin daughters in California, where she lives now, Moghbeli’s first space flight will feel different than her three deployments in the Marine Corps. Each week she and her family will be allowed a 20- to 30-minute video conference.

Moghbeli has become a role model in the lives of young women around the world, but especially in Baldwin, where she visits and speaks at the Lenox Elementary School when she can. It didn’t quite sink in how powerful her story was until the Artemis program graduation ceremony, when a classmate’s daughter, who was 2 or 3 at the time, saw both women graduating and shouted, “Mommies can be astronauts, too!”

“I’ve traveled a lot, being in the Marine Corps,” Moghbeli said. “I’ve lived in different parts of the U.S., and it’s made me appreciate Baldwin for so many reasons.” Primary among them is the hamlet’s school system. “Those teachers were so invested in us …,” she said. “I felt I was set up so well for success … I hope to come back there and visit again pretty soon.”

She said she remembers when her Advanced Placement physics teacher, Barbara Reese, took time out of her day to help prepare Jasmin and a few other students who “wanted even more after we took the honors physics class” for the AP exam. Listing name after name, there were too many to count, “there were so many people” in the schools helped her along the way.

She added, “It’s really nice to see the support coming from Baldwin, my hometown … Baldwin was the start of everything for me.”