by SpaceX engineer Anna Menon is set to travel deeper into the cosmos than any astronaut has in decades as part of the amazing Polaris Dawn mission this summer
Polaris program / John Kraus
Anna Menon (right) and the Polaris Dawn crew on a zero-gravity research flight in 2022.
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A crew of four is set to blast off on a SpaceX rocket where they will attempt the first all-civilian spacewalk outside the ship and perform more than 40 experiments
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On the stars, engineer Anna Menon will also read her book Kisses from Space to raise money for St. Mary’s Children’s Research Hospital. Jude
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“We hope to inspire future generations to dream bigger and reach for the stars,” says crew member Sarah Gillis
On any given night in Anna Menon’s home in Houston, the 38-year-old mother and her son, James, 6, enact a ritual that combines Menon’s passion for space with her parent’s need to put their oldest child to sleep.
“James came up with it,” she says.
“He asks me to rocket him into his bed, so I basically grab his legs, and we do this countdown: 10, nine, eight. good night to him.”
In the coming weeks, James – along with his 3-year-old sister Grace and their father, Anil, 47 – will watch Menon, a SpaceX mission specialist and medical officer, do a grown-up version of their nighttime hobby.
She will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with three other crew members – Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet and Sarah Gillis – on the Polaris Dawn, an unprecedented private space mission set to fly deeper into the cosmos (870 miles , ie to be exact) than any other since Gemini 11 launched in 1966.
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Courtesy of Polaris Dawn
Anna Menon with her husband Anil and her children James and Grace.
“This is a step forward,” says Menon. “It helps build technologies that will bring humans closer to Mars and beyond.”
That is not the only goal. When Menon swims among the stars, “I’m going to read a children’s book I wrote, Kisses from Spacefor my own children as well as some of the brave children at St. Mary’s Children’s Research Hospital. Jude,” she says of a live feed to raise money for the Tennessee-based healthcare facility that focuses on childhood cancer and other pediatric diseases.
SpaceX’s previous flight, the Inspiration4, brought in more than $250 million, and Menon says they want to build on that: “We can make huge strides for our collective future but also tackle the problems here on Earth today.”
Penguin Random House
Cover of Menon’s children’s book—”Kisses from Space”—which she will be reading to children back on Earth during her mission.
During Polaris Dawn’s five-day journey, funded and led by Isaacman, a billionaire technology entrepreneur, the crew will attempt the first all-civilian spacewalk outside the ship and conduct more than 40 experiments to help understand the effects of space flight and radiation on humans.
“The missions of the Polaris program are now very small steps in opening this last great frontier,” says Isaacman, 41 years old. We just have to get out there and explore. Who knows what we can find.”
SpaceX crew member and engineer Gillis, 30, is looking forward to swimming outside his Dragon capsule in the pitch-black expanse of space.
“Completing this spacewalk will test our training and teamwork, but we are ready,” she says.
Menon and Poteet, a 50-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant colonel-turned-SpaceX pilot, will remain inside the cavity during the spacewalk but all four will be exposed to the void.
“We hope to inspire future generations to dream bigger and reach for the stars,” says Gillis.
The Polaris Dawn has not finalized its launch date but is planned for no earlier than this summer. The journey was set back several years as the team worked to fine-tune the dizzying array of technology they needed, including a suit for the crew to wear outside their capsule while traveling at 17,500 mph at temperatures from 250 degrees below zero to 250 degrees above. . (They will not sense the velocity in the same way as on Earth.)
Past astronauts have reported strange details from their journeys, claiming that space sometimes smells like gunpowder or burnt food. “I’ll let you know,” says Menon, “when we get back.”
Polaris Program / JOHN KRAUS
Anna Menon in the cockpit.
The trip is the culmination of what she calls a “child’s dream” that began on a fourth-grade field trip to NASA Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
Menon spent the next seven years at the famous agency, serving as a biomedical engineer in mission control before heading to SpaceX, where he was tapped to become an astronaut in 2022.
“I’m really proud,” says her husband, Anil, a former NASA and SpaceX flight surgeon and astronaut. “It was incredible to be around her, watching this journey.”
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