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Astronaut, M.D.

Season 1Episode 47Jun 1, 2018

Serena Auñón-Chancellor shares her story about becoming an astronaut from her education in engineering and medicine to her time at NASA as a flight surgeon. Auñón-Chancellor discusses her training and expectations before her first trip to space. HWHAP Episode 47.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor Astronaut M.D.

Astronaut M.D.

“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.

Episode 47 features Serena Aunon-Chancellor who shares her story about becoming an astronaut from her education in engineering and medicine to her time as a NASA flight surgeon. Aunon-Chancellor discusses her training and expectations before her first trip to space. This episode was recorded on March 9, 2018.

Houston, we have a podcast

Trancript

Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, We Have a Podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 47: Astronaut MD. I’m Gary Jordan, and I’ll be your host today. So if you’re new to the show, we bring in NASA experts to talk about all the different parts of our space agency. And sometimes we get lucky enough to bring in astronauts to tell their story. So today we’re chatting with Serena Aunon-Chancellor. She’s a US astronaut, and she’s about to launch to the International Space Station for her first space flight. She told us about her education going for engineering and medicine, her time at NASA as a flight surgeon, and her training and expectations before her first trip to space. So with no further delay, let’s go light speed and jump right ahead to our talk with Dr. Serena Aunon-Chancellor. Enjoy.

[ Music ]

Host:Serena, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah, absolutely.

Host:You were really busy beforehand. You actually had to run —

[ Laughter ]

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:That’s right.

Host:And we’re actually doing it while you’re here, too.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:That’s right, that’s right. Collecting science happens 24/7 prior to flight.

Host:Oh my gosh. Well, I really appreciate your time honestly. Because now that you’re about to go to the International Space Station, this is the perfect time to sit down and kind of go through your story. So let’s just start with that. Let’s just start from the beginning. You said you were born in Indiana, but you’re more of a Colorado girl, right?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah, absolutely. And so my father worked at Purdue University for many years. And then when I was in junior high school he went to go work for Colorado State University. And for me, high school was kind of my formative — I consider those a lot of my formative years. And it was just a beautiful place to live and grow up. And I made tons of great friend there. And you’re making that all-important transition from high school to college, which was a big leap. And I remember at the time thinking, “God, I want to leave home. I don’t want to be here.” And I look back on that now and I think, “Are you crazy? Colorado’s beautiful.” But I really wanted to be someplace new, and exciting, and different. And I love Washington, D.C. Funny enough, both my parents went to the same undergraduate institution, George Washington University —

Host:Oh, no way.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:— like I did. And I think initially they were all for it, but they said, “Look around some more.” I said, “No, I love it here. I love DC. I love the big city, and I love being where a lot of things happen.”

Host:Yeah [Laughs]. So that was your undergrad, right?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:That’s correct.

Host:So that was going there, and then you kind of moved around from there. But did your inspiration for pursuing — this was when you were at George Washington, you were pursuing an engineering degree, right?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:That’s correct. So I entered my undergraduate program as an electrical engineer. And my father was an electrical engineer.

Host:So where did that inspiration come from?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Where did that inspiration come from? And again, part of this is stemming from hey, I want to work for NASA someday.

Host:Oh, okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I knew when my parents sat down with me, my father, of course, was like, “You want to work for NASA? You be an engineer.” And so I was good at math and science. I really enjoyed the engineering curriculum. But interestingly enough, as I began that curriculum I had finished my sophomore year at GW. And most of my friends were pre-med engineers, which I didn’t even know that curriculum existed. I didn’t know that engineering and medicine had a combined track.

Host:Yeah.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And they all came to me and said, “Serena, we think you should be a doctor. You’re great around people. And we think you should look at this program.” So I have to credit my friends who — you know, a lot of folks think that college kids are just trying to find their way through life. They had a lot of insight. And those friends shared that insight with me. So I went home over the summer, talked about it with my mom and dad, and said, “I think I need to do this.” And they said, “Okay, we’ll support you.” Took a couple classes at home over the summer to catch back up with some of the prereq’s I hadn’t finished and then came back on board my junior year as a pre-med engineer. So it was — and from that point on, it was neat because I got to take some classes in biomedical engineering as well as a senior. And I really enjoyed the way you could combine the human body or medicine and engineering at that time.

Host:That’s actually my main question here, is I’m — I don’t think I see the connection between electrical engineering and pre-med. They seem to different.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:They seem so different. The interesting thing is — and especially when you work at NASA today, NASA is all about engineering. No question. And about the different systems. And so what — I still give lots of talks to engineering communities. And I say, you know, when you look at a space ship or you look at the station, you’ve got the electrical power system, you’ve got the system that provides cooling and life support. You’ve got the system that takes care of waste. Well, that human body is another system that you’re putting inside the larger system. The only thing that the human body is, it’s not a — it’s a system you have to be very careful with. And unlike other engineering components that you can test to failure, you can’t do that with a human body. And the human body is so variable. You have some folks that can tolerate really hot environments really well and some folks that can’t. And so having that human system integrated into the larger system of the Space Station is one of the biggest challenges that we deal with today.

Host:So was it mainly this idea that you were good with people that your friends really pushed you to pursue medicine, or was it maybe some other connection?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I think it was just the fact that I related well to people. And I still —

Host:Oh, okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Because I still practice medicine actively today. Medicine is one of those fields where you have to approach a person wherever they’re at. And folks — I treat folks from all walks of life at all points in their life. And it can be a challenge to walk into a room and within five to ten seconds try and judge where this person’s coming from, what are their concerns, how do you approach them when you talk to them? And so, you know, I think — at least I like to think my friends saw that I was easily able to approach people and tried to approach them with kind of a down-to-earth sort of attitude and make them feel comfortable.

Host:Okay. So was it — did you know what kind of medicine you wanted to go into when you started this?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:No idea.

Host:Okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:None — none, none, none.

[ Laughter ]

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:No idea [Laughs].

Host:So the pre was truly, like, “All right, let me just get introduced to this field and see what I want to do.”

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Exactly.

Host:Okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Exactly. And medical school does a really nice job at introducing you to several different fields so that hopefully the field that you go into you click with at some point. And that did occur, that did occur with me.

Host:Okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Because I’m an internist.

Host:Okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And an internist is someone who treats anybody from age 18 to 118. But internists are very detailed with every organ system of the body. And so when I was going through those rotations as a medical student, for me, I was in heaven. Because I’m a very detailed person. I like to know every time point, and I like to kind of be like a Sherlock Holmes. Someone comes in the hospital and I’ve got to figure out why they are sick, how they got sick, and what do they have? And so it’s one big detective story from start to finish. So I enjoy doing that. And internists also are kind of like a gatekeeper. You know, they are in charge of the primary care for a lot of their patients, whether it’s high blood pressure, diabetes, they’re very personal with their patients. They spend a lot of time with them, and that’s what I enjoy.

Host:Because it’s so broad, right?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Very broad.

Host:You need to understand, like you said, everything inside the body.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Absolutely. Absolutely.

Host:So we did a podcast episode earlier — I can’t remember the episode title, but it was with Natacha Chough, another flight surgeon.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I know her well.

Host:Yeah. And she was talking about how different specialties in medicine, you kind of — it’s almost like they have certain personalities.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:They do.

Host:And she’s emergency medicine. So she has certain — so internists have this more detailed approach, I guess.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Detailed approach. Some people say anal, but, you know, I take it as a compliment because what I tell — I teach a lot of students, interns, and residents. And what I tell them is as an internist you know the most about your patient in the hospital better than anyone — better than the surgeon you consult, better than the cardiologist you asked to come see, better than anybody else. You have to know everything about your patient. Because you are their primary, their primary care physician. And you tie all those pieces together for them. So when they make all their visits to the different specialists and come back to you, you say, “Okay, let’s look at the integrated story.” And you’re able to explain it to them and spend time with them.

Host:See, that’s I think one of the main differences, especially with Natasha. Coming from emergency med it’s more like what’s the problem, identify the problem — you’ve got this short-term relationship. Whereas an internist, you’re talking about a long-term, lasting relationship.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:So Natasha sees them, says, “You need to be in the hospital, Serena, here you go.”

[ Laughter ] And I take over from there.

Host:I see.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:So yeah, absolutely.

Host:Okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:She’s fantastic, I love Natacha.

Host:Oh, yeah. It was a great interview, honestly. So this pre-medicine, where did you identify — so you identified that you need — you’re like, “Okay, internist, that’s what I want to be.” So what was the next step for you?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:So the next step was applying to medical school, which was not as easy as you think. I did not get many interviews.

Host:Oh.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:It was very — and so I would — for anybody who’s out there in undergraduate applying for med school, it’s not that my grades weren’t good. They were good. It’s just you’re applying and the competition’s very stiff. So I think I got — and I was living in the state of Texas. I had residency in the state of Texas, thank goodness, at that time because we have a lot of the great medical schools. And so I had a lot of the places I got to interview — or got to apply to. Got interviews at two, got waitlisted at both institutions. So I actually got in very late to medical school. And it’s because someone took a chance on me. And I remember the interview. And it was at UT Houston, which is now McGovern Medical School. And I remember interviewing. And they said — they looked at my application and said, “NASA? What do you want to do with NASA?” I said, “I have no idea, but I want to work for NASA after I finish going to medical school.” And I remember he said, “Huh, that’s interesting.” And at the time also, coming into medical school very few engineers were premed. Majority of folks were biology majors or chemistry majors.

But engineering was rare. So, again, he looked at my application and said, “Engineering? How are you going to tie that in?” And I said, “Well, I want to work for NASA. And I think these two fields blend beautifully.” And so someone took a chance on me. And it worked out beautifully. But I got in very late, probably April prior to starting that fall. So you know? And rest is kind of history. But I tell folks it’s okay if you don’t get in the first time or maybe you’re not their first choice. I wasn’t somebody’s first choice obviously, but it works out.

Host:Wow. So you said you put NASA on your resume. And do you think that was kind of a chance, like, a bold move, or was it — I guess it sounded like it was a curious thing for that person to look at that?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I think so. I think in a way I wanted to be truthful with what I wanted to do and not — but I also knew it would help my application stick out a little bit in that yeah, I am different than most folks coming in. Because where I see my future path, where I see myself employed maybe isn’t in a normal private practice or in a hospital. It’s in the space program. And so it’s — you know, but he could tell that that’s what I was excited about, that’s what I was passionate about. You know, at that point I’d begun to learn what a flight surgeon was, and I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. And I didn’t know much about how they trained or how they got there, but for some reason that clicked for me.

Host:And I’m guessing they offered something — the school offered something where it’s just like, “Yes, that’s going to help me get into NASA.”

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah. And so what happened was I was a fourth-year medical student. And people were beginning to sign up for all of these electives on the outside because they do give you that opportunity to go do one-month rotations outside of the school. And I said, “Okay, well, how do I do this? What does NASA have?” So I literally just Googled NASA, medicine, couple other search terms, and up popped a flight surgeon’s phone number. And a flight surgeon that still works for NASA, Phil Stepaniak. He’s fantastic. And I remember dialing his phone number. And the first time he picked up the phone and said hello, I hung up right away. I was like, “I don’t want to talk to this guy [Laughs].” And then the people who know Phil know he’s just fantastic. But I dialed back again and I said, “Hey, my name is Serena. I read about these programs. I don’t know how to get there. Can I come work with you? Can I see what your work is all about, what you do on a daily basis?” And he goes, “I tell you what. There’s a program we have down here, it’s offered twice a year. It’s an aerospace medicine clerkship built for medical students.”

And he gave me all the contact information, and that’s how I found out about it. So it wasn’t because it was advertised or widely known. In general, aerospace medicine is not a field that’s widely advertised. It’s usually found by folks who want to find it. And so that’s how I got involved. So I did that rotation. It was an in October. Interviews for residency were about to start. And I learned about a special program that UTMB in Galveston had and changed all my applications around at the last second.

Host:Wow.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And applied for a very special aerospace medicine, internal medicine residency.

Host:That’s kind of bold.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:It was very bold [Laughs]. And I remember — I actually remember where I was driving down the highway, sweating a little bit thinking, “Oh my gosh, should I do this? Should I change all my applications around, ask my advisors for new letters of recommendation to go in a program that takes one person a year?” Sure [Laughs]. You know?

Host:But it has to do with the fact that NASA was always part of the plan.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Absolutely.

Host:And this goes back to — does it go back to your childhood when the inspiration for NASA first came and kind of pushed you?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah, I just remember watching shuttles launch third, fourth, fifth grade.

Host:Oh, wow.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Very distinctly remember Challenger in the fifth grade. I remember where I was sitting in the classroom. I remember being a little miffed because our fifth-grade science teacher would not let us watch the launch. We actually had to sit in class and listen to lecture. And then I distinctly remember another teacher running in and saying that the shuttle had exploded. And so it was very — I just remember that the next few months I just watched as much as I could over and again on the television about the disaster and the investigation. And it just — it very much humanized the space program for me because it showed the faces of the crew and their families. And you realized how personal the space program is to America and how much America loves, trusts, and depends on the space program. It’s part of our existence, it’s part of who we are to explore. And then thinking even at that young age, you know, how does NASA move on from this? How do we launch another Shuttle again? And we did. So it was really amazing and profound even for a ten-year-old at that time.

Host:Oh, ten. So it was around this time where you kind of had the sense that this is — this is something — maybe it’s this community, this humanization that really sort of said, “Maybe that’s a family that I want to be a part of.”

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I just saw myself being a part of that family. And call it your gut, call it your instinct, you know, for me that’s what resonated. And I still use that with a lot of folks I teach today, and I say follow your instinct. Because if something tells you something’s not right or doesn’t feel right, you’re right. You know? If something tells you, you should be a part of this or a part of something, you’re right. So I’ve tried to use that as kind of a guiding force as well.

Host:Now, fast forward and you’re on the fast track to this — this flight surgeon program, the one that only takes a few people, one person. And now you’re on your way to start getting to NASA. So where was that transition, from where did you start? Where did you get there?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:So I trained for two years in the special — so I completed, you know, an internal medicine residency and then aerospace medicine after that and then immediately went to work as a flight surgeon for NASA. And, again, a flight surgeon is somebody, who, when they’re working for NASA, looks after the astronauts and their families. And one of my first assignments was to go to Star City, Russia and be the flight surgeon or physician kind of on call for out astronauts in training. So for me, it was number one I’d never been to Russia before, totally brand new world. Never worked with so many astronauts before in close proximity and been the only physician out there, which was a little bit daunting because you’re kind of on your own out there in Star City as the sole American physician. You are in charge. And so it was tremendous responsibility for a very young flight surgeon, but I loved it. I got to spend a lot of time with astronauts in the program who are still in the program today and I consider to be very close friends, to learn what their life was like, to learn what their training was like and say, “Is this something I can see myself doing?

Is this where I think I’d like to go? Is this — can I see myself in their shoes?” So.

Host:So was astronaut a part of the plan or was just being at NASA a part of the plan?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Astronaut was definitely part of the plan, even from an early on age. So I knew, you know, hey, I’d love to be an astronaut. But it was kind of like one step at a time.

Host:Yep.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:You know, hey, let’s get to NASA. Let’s see — and it’s very interesting. When you take the path that I have and I was able to realize my dream and become an astronaut, I also realized that all the stuff I did leading up to that I absolutely love. I absolutely love being a physician. It is something that I feel like I should have been all along, no matter what. I love seeing patients. I love treating patients. I love the field of medicine. So to me it was surprising, you know, kind of what you learn along the way — learn what you love and what you’re good at.

Host:Another piece of advice that I consistently hear from astronauts is, you know, there’s a lot of different paths you can take to become an astronaut, right? Yours was more of the medical route. I’ve talk to test pilots and geologists and everything, but what it comes down to is along the way are you happy at each step? If you were — for whatever reason, this was where you were going to end up forever, would you be happy? And a lot of them said, “Yes, if I were to stop here, absolutely I’d be happy. If I just stopped at being a physician, yes, absolutely. I would enjoy that for the rest of my life.” And I think that’s pretty important, finding something you’re passionate about and just sort of sticking with it.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Absolutely. And I get that question a lot from very young students who, when they first ask the question, they say, “What field do you think NASA would want me to go in?” And I say, “Nuh-uh. Stop right there. What field do you want to go into? What do you love? Don’t pick a field because you think NASA will like it.” What NASA, I think, loves about the people that they bring in is the fact that they’re so good at what they do and they absolutely love it. And you can’t be really, really good at something unless you absolutely love it. And so I tell folks I’ve had even, you know, young medical students say, “What medicine should I go into?” I’m like, “Whatever you want to do. If you love dermatology, do dermatology. If you don’t want to be a doctor at all, don’t be a doctor.” You know? It’s one of these things where I think you’re right, all the folks in my office, if for whatever reason we had to leave NASA today and go back to what we were doing, we loved what we were doing. So not a problem.

Host:You’d be so happy.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Absolutely.

Host:Now, there’s a lot of changes for you along the way, right? You have this — first you’re going for engineering. You’re like, “Well, actually internal medicine.” And then you’re like, “Actually I’d like to do some aerospace medicine.” So there’s all these changes. Now you’re in Star City, Russia. Did you have someone you were shadowing or maybe was this, like, a first-time experience?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:No, it was [Laughs] — you kind of figure it out. So that when you go out there for your first trip, you have a two-week handover with an experienced flight surgeon, and that was Gene Dow, someone who’s been in the military for a long time. And Gene still does rotations out there in Star City. But Gene trained me to say, “These are your roles and responsibilities out there. These are the unique things, unique aspects of living and working in Star City, certainly in Russia itself, going into Moscow, the different training events.” So you get a very quick two-week handover, and then it’s you. And it’s really you learn on the job. And folks who have worked in Russia before know that Russians really value longevity. So, for example, a lot of the their jobs, you’ll find the same person in the same job over all the years to come — five years, ten years, fifteen years. Whereas in America we tend to — there’s a lot of turnover in multiple positions. So someone will work three years here, then four years here. And so the Russians really value personal relationships and getting to know you.

And I had a lot of trips out there my very first two or three years. And so in a sense you build up a little bit of street credit with Russians because they say, “Okay, she’s been out here, she understands us, she knows us.” So I really enjoyed getting to learn about the Russians, learn about their culture, and make some really good friendships, which I still have today — certainly with some of the Russian flight docs. That part was a lot of fun.

Host:That’s right. Now being an astronaut, do you find yourself among the same circles and you, you know, I guess bump into someone in Star City and say hey.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:You know, the neat part was when I got assigned to my expedition and I went for my first training trip out in Russia, the very first day you are there they do a presentation to the Russian commission where you are introduced formally. Your biography is read. So all the instructors understand where you come from. And then you say a few words in Russian. And it was really nice to see kind of the management stand up and give my background and say, “Serena, we all know you. Our medical colleagues are here, they remember you. Welcome back.” And so that part was really nice. Because you feel like, “Yeah, these folks do know me. I’ve been here a long time.”

Host:Wow.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:So it does buy you some credibility early on.

Host:Very cool. So what else were you doing when you first got to NASA — before being selected as an astronaut, what else were you doing?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Well, so I worked, of course, in space medicine. And so when I wasn’t in Russia looking out over astronauts, I was assigned — I did get the chance to work on STS-127 as a flight surgeon for the Shuttle crew, which I didn’t think I’d get a chance to do, but I thought that was really cool. Because, you know, working Shuttle Ops as compared to Space Station is a very different style. We still had the two mission controls at that point.

Host:Okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:So we had a mission control for Space Station and one for Shuttle.

Host:Okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And I had done most of my training in the Space Station realm, and then they said, “Hey, you are going to be the deputy flight surgeon for this Shuttle mission. Get to know the crew, you’re flying out to Florida. You’re taking part of TCDT,” and all these different preparation periods for a Shuttle crew. So it was a totally different world. But those friends that I made on the crew are still my really good friends today. And the really neat part about that was STS-127 had a launch delay of about a month. So they actually attempted to launch a few times, and then they were scrubbed for a month, and then attempted to launch again. And in between that month timeframe was when we found out that we were in the astronaut corps. And so when I came back for the second launch attempt as the flight surgeon, I had already been accepted into the corps. And so it was neat because those guys and ladies also celebrated that. And one of the neatest things that happened to me was when that Shuttle crew landed — so we took up Tim Kopra on the Shuttle crew for his long-duration stay on Space Station and brought down Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.

And so when we pick up a Shuttle crew, we have the special van that kind of hooks into the orbiter, and then we pull out the crew. And then we do all of our medical checks and everything. And I remember standing there and Koichi Wakata was the second or third person to come out of the orbiter. And he comes through the hatch and he see me and he goes, “Congratulations, you’re going to love it.” And I think this guy just landed, you know, on Endeavor and he looked at me and said — and he congratulated me. I just thoughts that was one of the most selfless things that anybody could ever do.

Host:That’s right.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And it was just neat. And I don’t know if he remembers that, but I remember that.

Host:Wow. That’s right. Because you can absolutely take that as your moment if you’re landing, but he took the time to congratulate you.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yep.

Host:That’s amazing.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And most of them did when they walked off the orbiter. It was just a neat thing. I think Chris Cassidy was eating M&M’s as he walked off and said congratulations.

Host:So they made the announcement. So it was public at this time, right?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:It was public.

Host:So everybody knew. What about when you got the call and had to keep it a secret for a little bit?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:When I got the call, you know, initially they said, “Hey, you can tell your close family members.” So I did, and they were very excited. And I just remember I was sitting outside of a restaurant, waiting to go to lunch with a friend in my car when I got that call.

Host:Oh.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And so, you know, the rumor was depending on who called you, you could tell whether or not you were in or not. So if you got a call from the chief of the office, generally it meant you were in. If you did not get a call from the chief of the office, then that meant you did not get in. So I remember receiving the phone call and I picked it up and said hello. And they said, “Hello, is this Serena?” And I said, “Yes it is. Who is this?” so I knew. And it was Peggy Whitson and Steve Lindsey. And so I knew at that point, you know, that I had gotten in. Yeah, yeah. So it was neat.

Host:So you had to kind of maintain during lunch.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yep, yep. And then call my family. So.

Host:Oh, of course. Of course. So all of this is happening all at the same time. You’re deputy crew surgeon, you understand that you’re an astronaut. So I want to go back to the deputy crew surgeon, though, because you said you got to work really closely and develop a relationship with the crew members. What does a deputy crew surgeon do for the Shuttle? It sounds like you’re with them or a while.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:You’re with them for a while through a lot of their training events. Generally what the lead and the deputy crew surgeon do is we kind of split up the crews as far as individual medical exams. So, for example, like, I was in charge of Doug Hurley, I was in charge of Chris Cassidy. And so, you know, you get to know those guys really well. And I had known Doug Hurley for some time because he worked out in Russia with me for a while in Star City. And so it was really kind of neat to work with him out there and then to become his deputy crew surgeon on his Shuttle mission. It was really exciting. And so you go to a lot of their training events. As they prep for launch and fly out to the Cape — Cape Canaveral in Florida — you often go out there with them. You get to know their families really well because you’re with their families quite a bit during the pre-launch timeframe, during launch, and certainly after landing. So it’s a very personal job. The flight surgeon, you know, it’s a lot of preparation up front to make sure everybody’s ready to go. And then you are there to provide whatever support is needed. And a lot of times that support’s not medical, it may just be emotional.

It may be, “Hey, let me help you get lunch today. Let me help you fix lunch for your kids,” you know? It’s a lot of that sort of stuff.

Host:That’s where the skills that you were talking about earlier come into play. When your friends were saying, “Hey, you should go into medicine. You’re really good with people.” So not only do you know medicine, but the whole job kind of I guess you could say demands that you have a relationship with the crew. Because you’re with them for so much, you can’t hate each other.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:You are, you are. And what I used to tell folks coming out to work as a flight surgeon in Star City is less than 10% to 15% of what you do is medical; the rest is just more emotional support, just supporting in whatever, meaning you’re making dinner tonight. Or if someone is trying to fix a TV in one of the cottages, you help them fix the TV. Or it’s little things, it’s absolute little things. I mean, you’re there, your calm presence is there, you know, in case — knock on wood — anything does happen. But a lot of it’s just being there as a friend, really.

Host:So was this job, helping out the crew of STS-127, was that the last thing you did as a non-astronaut? Did the transition happen pretty quickly after that? Or were there a couple things?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:It was. In fact, I was afraid if we scrubbed any longer, I wouldn’t be able to take part in the mission. And I can’t remember what the start date was. I want to say it was August 20th or so. And, you know, STS-127 launched in July, if I remember correctly.

Host:They landed at the end of July.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Landed at the end of July. So I didn’t have — I had essentially two or three weeks post-landing before I entered the corps. And so there’s a lot of work that goes on post landing, too — reaction, debriefs, everything. And I basically took part in two weeks in that and I said, “I need a week off before I start my new job, I’m out.” And so [Laughs].

Host:Well, yeah, you’re about to go on a —

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah, and they all understood. So I was just really thankful that we did launch that second, you know, attempt, that second period and I was able to take part.

Host:Right. Because I guess it was pretty — as soon as you walked in the door as an astronaut day one, you hit road.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah, you almost immediately hit the road trying to — yeah.

Host:Wow. So what were some of the things you were doing? You did a couple really unique things. You lived under water, you went to Antarctica, right?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah, I had a lot of really cool experiences the first — I mean, the whole time has been a cool experience — but certainly the first three or four years that I was in the corps. In 2010, you know, so I had really been in the corps a little over a year when Peggy Whitson — I remember I was on an elliptical machine in the gym and she comes up to me and goes, “Hey, do you want to go to Antarctica?” [Laughs] And I remember saying sure. And so soon, very quickly I was on my way, prepping to go on this meteorite-hunting expedition for two months by the South Pole. I mean, it was one of the most remote locations on the planet. And just trying to prep for an experience like that and learn how to live in an extreme environment in an tent on the ice for two months, I mean, it’s amazing.

Host:So that was kind of the purpose of it, right, is to understand about living in an extreme environment but also the added benefit of maybe hunting for meteorites?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Well, the purpose of the mission — so the mission was run out of Case Western University. And their purpose is finding meteorites. The purpose is the science; the astronaut office says, “Hey, we can provide a great worker to find meteorites because we think this is good as a good analog to Space Station. We think that living here itself benefits us more. And so we’re perfectly willing to send you an astronaut to help take part in this expedition to find meteorites at the South Pole. These are our side benefits that we see.” Because if you asked other people, a lot of the other scientists that were out there, their main goal was not — I mean, it was neat that they were living in an extreme environment, but they didn’t see how that would relate to Station. We do, though. And you do learn about a lot about yourself living in an environment like that — very isolated, away from family, barely connect. I mean, you can connect through a sat phone, but you certainly didn’t have any Internet or anything like that. I mean, you’re much better connected on the Space Station than you are in Antarctica. So and it was just learning what we call good self-care and good team-care.

And those are two very important expeditionary skills. And what I mean by that is self-care meaning recognizing signs of fatigue in yourself, recognizing when maybe you’re not 100% for whatever reason — you’re hungry, your cold, you’re tired, you’re irritable. Why? You know? Can you pick up on those things early and talk with your team and say, “Look, I am not 100% today. Maybe these are the reasons.” And then team care, that’s recognizing those signs in your teammates and saying, “Wow, so and so looks really cold today.” And we would use that. One of us would look really cold after a day of searching for meteorites. And so when we’d get back to our campsite, we’d say, “Hey, so and so, go in the tent and start the fire. We’ll take of fueling up the snowmobiles. We’ll stay outside a little longer.” You know? And so it’s recognizing that stuff not only in yourself but in your team to make sure you pick up on things early.

Host:So you walked away with the benefit of maybe a more introspective look at —

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Absolutely.

Host:— at saying this is me. And interpersonal, understanding your crew mates. But most importantly in the isolated environment, in this —

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Exactly.

Host:— in this unique environment.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And that’s the same thing we learn about with Nemo. Nemo is just — it’s not at the South Pole, but it is under the sea. You are isolated. You don’t just swim up to the surface anytime you want because you’re fully saturated. You know, your food selection is very limited because you’re eating mostly freeze-dried things. Very similar to Station, although Station’s menu is much larger than what we had on Nemo. But it’s, again, learning what’s important to you in those environments and what things you have to protect against — fatigue, stress level. How important is talking to family? Is it every day what you need, is it every other day, you know? And Station provides all that for you, but it’s learning how you work and how to make sure you pace yourself at a good tempo so you don’t get too tired so that you maintain over the long haul.

Host:Ah, so you’re literally learning how to have these skills and basically just kind of transfer it to Space Station?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Absolutely, yeah.

Host:Wow. So I kind of want it — I mean, I’m sure you have a lot of training, and we’ve talked about training with a lot of the astronauts so far. But what’s unique about you as a physician is you have a sort of unique perspective of doing research on the human body on the station. So I’m sure that’s kind of — you have a different perspective than maybe most. You know, you have — as an astronaut you’re sort of a subject for a lot of these experiments. But you are the subject, but also here I guess you’re curious from the physician point of view, too.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah. I mean, so used to being the physician that treats the patient. And when you get up to Space Station, you are the patient. You are the science experiment. You are the one that everybody is observing, and looking at, and asking questions, and poking and prodding, and asking for samples [Laughs]. And I’m happy to give those. But, you know, I think just from a physician’s mind because I’ve studied these phenomena for so long, you still think, “Well, how would I be? Would be that — would my face be that puffy when I get up there? Will I feel sick to my stomach? If I do, how long will that last? Will I have a headache? How will I tolerate CO2?” You know, you think about all these things and you just learn. Because the human body is so widely variable amongst people, everybody’s different. The neater part about the body and what I — the term I like to use when I talk with folks is I don’t think we give the body enough credit. The body is remarkably adaptable, remarkably dynamic. Pretty much you can put us in any situation — low-level insult meaning low-levels of radiation, increased levels of carbon dioxide as compared to where we live here, microgravity — and the body learns to live there.

It learns how to adapt and eventually everything settles out and you feel somewhat normal for that environment. So I’m curious to see how long it will take me to get to that point, you know, and how I’ll live and function up there. Those are my biggest questions. I’m really looking forward to that.

Host:Wow, it’s unique. Because it’s not just — I guess obviously if you’re an astronaut, you would be curious to say, “Oh man, when am I going to feel better?”

[ Laughter ]

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I hope I don’t feel this bad for long. But it’s inevitable. I mean, space adaptation syndrome — 80% to 90% of folks get it, especially first-time fliers.

Host:What’s that, space adaptation syndrome?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:So space adaptation syndrome is a syndrome that folks get within the first few days, usually almost immediately upon going into orbit. And the symptoms can be anything from low-level nausea, maybe even vomiting, headache, again, feeling very puffy in the face because of that massive fluid shift that occurs. And so it’s just a combination of a lot of things that — I think it’s that sudden shift into low-earth orbit where you body goes, “Oh my goodness, what did you just do? You are not going to feel good until we figure this out [Laughs], you know? I don’t care what you think is going on here, but you’re going to feel a little nauseas for a little bit of time.” So it’s — you know, but everybody gets it to varying degrees. And folks who have flown before don’t get it as severe. Why is that? I think the body remembers. The body adapts. It’s just — we say the brain is plastic. And people say what does that mean, plastic? Plasticity means the brain adapts and reforms neurons and reshapes neural connections and networks based on the input.

So when you lose your gravitational cues, when gravity’s no longer there and your middle ear doesn’t know if you’re pitching your head forward or turning to the right, it adapts. And it figures out a new reality. And when you lay back on the ground, it goes, “Oh my goodness, what did you just do? Okay, I think I remember — I think this is gravity. Let me reshape those networks again and go back to where we used to be.” So, again, we don’t give the body enough credit. It is amazing how it can adapt.

Host:See, when you say it like that, almost personifying the body as, like, “Whoa, what are you doing to me?” But then, like you said, it figures it out.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:It figures it out.

Host:It finds a way.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:That’s right.

Host:And I think, and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s the inner ear part.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah.

Host:Up, down — I mean, where is up and down? What the ear does is it shuts off, right?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Well, basically the semicircular canals, everything that — that measures tilt and acceleration, a lot of those are gravitational cues. Your hear cells in the ear, all that is gravitational. When you don’t have gravity, suddenly it goes, “Huh, how do I — which way is up, which way is down?” Well, there is no up, there is no down. And so it just reshapes and you train it to live without gravity. And you train it so that if you are standing straight up or if you suddenly flip, still the same. You can’t do that down here. And so, again, it’s just remarkably adaptable.

Host:That’s right. I’ll never forget a video when Tim Kopra was up for his — for the most recent long-duration, he was there with Tim Peake, and they did this weird experiment where Kopra pretty much just spun Tim Peake as fast as he could doing rapid front flips. But Tim Peake didn’t really get nauseous or anything. When he stopped suddenly, he felt something real quick. But other than that, his body was completely fine.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yep.

Host:It was so weird.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah.

Host:And then to your point of the body remembers, I’ll never forget when Jeff Williams came up for the most recent time and I saw him get out of the hatch. And I saw another camera, one of the six pack cameras in mission control and he just was flying around the corner, just —

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Like normal.

Host:— like normal. Like, “All right, I’m back. Time to go.” Didn’t get sick at all. Just ready to go. It was just amazing to see because you know that they’re going to be sick or feel weird. Sometimes they come in upside down and don’t know which way is —

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Very disoriented, yeah.

Host:But Jeff Williams had no problem.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Nope, his body remembered. His brain remembered. I fully expect Alex to be the same way. You know, Alex has flown before. And my Russian commander in the Soyuz, Serge [inaudible], you know, we’re both rookies. And so I think, you know, now our journey to Space Station is two days long. We have a 34-orbit rendezvous. So we’ll be in the capsule for a while. And that will give us a little bit of time to adjust.

Host:Okay.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:But once we open that hatch into the larger volume of station, people say you get a little disoriented again because now what’s up, what’s down, left, right? You know, everything’s different, So.

Host:Do they tell you whenever you go to the hatch of the Soyuz just, like, “By the way, this is going to be the ceiling.”

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:No.

Host:So you don’t know?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:No. You figure it out. Because the thing is when you see people when you first come into station, they could be oriented — one person could be upside down and one person —

Host:Oh, so they purposely throw you off?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:No, I think it’s just natural for them.

Host:Oh, I see.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:They don’t think about it.

Host:That’s right.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:It’s whatever’s comfortable. Because you can work in 3D.

Host:Yeah. It will be interesting to see — I’m curious to see how you’re going to look at it from a flight surgeon’s perspective.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Absolutely. Me, too.

Host:Have you talked with other flight surgeons who have flown like Chel [assumed spelling] or —

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I have, I have. And you get different experience from both. And Mike Barrett especially is really good at explaining sort of these adaptation periods where you first get there and when you first get on Space Station, I mean, you will hold onto a handrail for dear life. Because you don’t know how else to control yourself.

Host:Oh, yeah.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:And you just — and he shows pictures of himself very first couple days on station just holding onto everything with all this strength. Because he felt he needed to do that. And then after a period of time you realize just a slight toe tap, a slight touch and you can shift position and you can stabilize yourself. And you can go around a corner gracefully and not look like, you know, an acrobat that’s fallen down. So he talks about these periods of adaptation until you reach this deep adaptation where your body just feels like it belongs there to a degree and you don’t have to think twice about performing actions, or turning a corner, or where your head is positioned relative to your feet. It’s not even something that even crosses your mind.

Host:So are you absorbing all of these trips?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I try, yes [Laughs]. But I think the other one that I remember, too, is Mike Hopkins. Because I asked him, I said, “Hey, once you guys made it into orbit on the Soyuz, what do you feel like?” And he goes, “I felt like I was hanging from the ceiling.” And it’s called an inversion illusion. And he says, “I literally felt like my feet were on the ceiling and I was hanging upside down.” And I’ve had a couple people say that. And they’re not physically, but their brain is perceiving that. And my only guess is that because the fluid has started to shift upwards. And Kate Rubins also said it feels like you’re hanging off the edge of your bed with your head down. And so is that where that’s coming from? I don’t know. So it’s going to be fascinating.

Host:Yeah. I mean, I’m trying to think — I’m trying to imagine myself. I mean, I’ll never go to the Space Station. But I’m trying to imagine myself in this situation. And I can see, like you’re saying, your body just trying to figure out what’s up and down. I mean, if you’re hanging upside down and you’re looking, you understand, “Okay, I’m upside down.” Maybe it’s a little bit because of the gravity, but your sight, you know, you know that — so if you have no way of telling if you’re upside down or not, I imagine your vision just doing this [inaudible].

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Yeah, I think you just have to get used to it and just very quick the body adapts, it learns.

Host:I’m getting dizzy just trying to think about it. [Laughs] Well, going up on your increment, anything that you’re sort of look forward to, maybe a particular experiment or maybe some operations that are coming up on yours?

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:I think, again, human science is one of the biggest things I’m looking forward to going up on station. And, again, we’re hitting all parts of the body. There’s experiments called fluid shifts, there are experiments called neuromapping. You know, we’re looking at how the brain reacts being in low-earth orbit, being in microgravity. And then, again, with fluid shifts, looking at how the vessels change, your blood vessels change in microgravity. How does that impact the eyes? Because we do tend to see changes in the eyes of astronauts as they live on board a Space Station. And for some astronauts, that means that they can’t read as well as they did before when they were on earth’s surface. It’s harder for them to read procedures. They become what we call a little more presbyopic, which means their close vision is not as good as it was. And so we think that there are a number of factors as to why this happens, but a good portion of it is the way fluid is shifting and moving in the body and maybe impacting the eyeball itself. So I’m most interested in looking at the changes and all the experiments that are done on us, on people.

That bad said, there’s a lot of engineering stuff that’s going to be going on as well. We’re going to be testing some new carbon dioxide removal systems onboard station. We’re going to be changing out this really big panel inside our airlock. It’s called the UIA. And the UIA panel is the panel that our two space walkers interact with prior to going outside on a space walk. That’s a big deal when we change out something that big for space walks. So we’ll be working on that. Hopefully we’re going to see a lot of visiting vehicles, SpaceX Dragon capsules and Japanese HTV vehicles. So it’s — I’d love to see probably an unmanned commercial crew vehicle. Don’t know if that will happen, but I will keep my fingers crossed.

Host:Wow. A lot of great stuff coming up for you. And a lot of training until you get to there. So I guess, Serena, thank you so much for coming on. The best of luck on the rest of your training.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Thank you very much.

Host:The best of luck on your mission. Thank you so much.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor:Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

[ Music ]

Host:Hey, thanks for sticking around. So today we talked with Dr. Serena Aunon-Chancellor. She’s going to be going to the International Space Station here in a few weeks. So you can follow her on her social media account. She’s on Twitter at @AstroSerena. And she’ll be sharing some pictures and some stories from her time aboard the International Space Station. You can also go to NASA.gov/ISS to get the latest and greatest on things going on aboard the International Space Station but also how you can watch her launch live. We’ll also be streaming it on social media, especially Facebook, but I think it will be on Twitter. No, not Instagram. But anyway, you can follow us on any one of those platforms — Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the International Space Station accounts there. Otherwise you can listen to our stories going on across the center — or actually across the agency — and other NASA podcasts. So there’s Gravity Assist hosted by Dr. Jim Green up at NASA headquarters and then NASA in Silicon Valley tells stories of different scientists and engineers and some of the cool stuff they’re doing over at the Ames Research Center in California. But if you go to social media on our accounts, on the International Space Station accounts, you can use the hashtag #AskNASA on your favorite platform, whichever one you want, to submit an idea or maybe you have a question for the show.

And just make sure to mention it’s for Houston, We Have a Podcast, and we’ll see if we can answer it or maybe dedicate an entire episode to it. So this episode was recorded on March 9th, 2018. Thanks to Alex Perryman, John Stoll, Pat Ryan, John Streeter, Brandi Dean, and Kelly Humphries. And thanks again to Dr. Serena Aunon-Chancellor for coming on the show. We’ll be back next week.