HWHAP Ep410 Crew-12
JSC · 2026-02-06
Leah Cheshier Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of NASA's Johnson Space Center. Episode 410, Crew 12. I'm Leah Cheshire, and I'll be one of your hosts today. On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers and astronauts, all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more. A new crew is about to make its way to the International Space Station. Four crew members are set to launch on NASA's SpaceX Crew 12 mission headed to the station, ready to join expedition 74 and 75 and bring the total number of crew members up to seven ahead of their mission. Fellow hosts, Joseph Zakrzewski, Dane Turner, Kenna Pell and myself sat down with the crew to discuss their flight. With a mix of seasoned veterans and first time flyers, this well rounded crew is ready for lift off. First up is crew 12 commander Jessica Meir. Meir grew up in Caribou Maine and has a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Brown University, a Master of Science in Space Studies from International Space University and a doctorate in marine biology from Scripps, Institution of Oceanography. Prior to being an astronaut, she studied the physiology of animals in extreme environments, including the diving behavior of Emperor penguins in Antarctica and the high altitude flight of Bar Headed Geese over the Himalayas, Meir joined the astronaut corps in 2013 and first flew to the space station on Soyuz MS 15 in 2019 she spent 204 days in space during expeditions 61 and 62 and completed three space walks, including the first all woman space walk with Christina Koch. I was very excited to speak with her ahead of this mission. So here's my conversation with Jessica Meir. <Intro Music> Leah Cheshier Jessica Meir, welcome to Houston, We Have a Podcast. Jessica Meir Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. Leah Cheshier I'm excited to dive into your upcoming mission, but also a little bit about what you've done before, how it's different this time. But let's get started at the very, very beginning. So tell me a little bit about your story. Where did you grow up? What really made you want to become an astronaut? Jessica Meir I grew up in a small town in northern Maine called Caribou. It's the north eastern most city in the United States. So all the way up there in the northeastern corner of Maine, Canada actually wraps around there on the other side. So about 15 miles from the Canadian border, there are a lot of trees in Maine, of course, and especially up there. So I think that might have something to do with why I really fell in love with biology and nature and science and had this curiosity and desire to explore. My mom is Swedish, and I think that helped drive it too, because Swedes have a very strong connection to nature, and I think she really fostered that. My father was from Israel, and we grew up again in Caribou with I had four siblings. So I'm the youngest of three sisters and one brother. So I had a lot to strive toward and a lot to look up to, a lot of things. I wanted to do everything that they did. So I involved myself in everything, maybe starting everything a little bit earlier than they did, because I was the younger one and I and I wanted to catch up. So really an idyllic childhood, you know, growing up in a time and in a place where we could run around, play outside, ride bikes to our friend's house, and I had a really happy childhood. Leah Cheshier That's so sweet. And I feel like, in northern Maine, you probably had pretty dark skies too. Jessica Meir Yeah, absolutely and of course, I didn't appreciate it at the time because it was just how it was. I didn't realize. And now going back to places like that, when you look up, wow, like you can really see such density of the stars and of the Milky Way. And so perhaps that was something too. You know, we there was a park called Thomas Park, which had really great stargazing. And maybe that was one of the things that sort of sparked my imagination and desire to be an astronaut. My mom tells me, I started saying it when I was five years old, and I pretty much never stopped since then, even in college, people called me Space Girl. Everybody knew I had this dream to become an astronaut, and my first distinct memory of it was drawing a picture in the first grade, we were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I drew a picture of an astronaut standing on the surface of the moon in a space suit next to the American flag, that kind of iconic Apollo image. And yeah, just kept saying it ever since then. Leah Cheshier That's an incredible dream, and to see the fulfillment of it on the other side is pretty sweet. So we fast forward a little bit to 2013 that's when you were selected, correct? Yeah, that's right, all right. So 2013 comes along. You become an astronaut, and then you come in to NASA, here in Houston, definitely a lot different than Maine, but you start training, so you have your approximately two years of astronaut candidate trainin