Unlikely Astronaut Makes Historic Spaceflight
▼ Summary
– Anil Menon was rejected from NASA’s astronaut program for the fourth time at age 39, leading him to feel defeated and give up on his lifelong dream.
– Menon had a career as an emergency physician, practicing medicine on Mount Everest, in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, and on search-and-rescue missions in Afghanistan.
– After his rejection, Menon journaled about his passions and purpose, deciding to focus on space medicine to help others reach space.
– Menon and his wife Anna made major life decisions that ultimately resulted in both of them going to space.
– Menon studied at Harvard and Stanford, earned a medical degree in 2006, and worked as an emergency physician and Air National Guard pilot.
Nine years ago, NASA flight surgeon Anil Menon felt the weight of his ambitions crashing down. For the fourth time, he had submitted a meticulous application to become an astronaut, only to watch his dream slip away. Though he reached the final selection round, the grueling process once again ended in rejection.
“I was so sad, and I admitted defeat,” Menon recalled. “I just did not see a pathway forward. So I pretty much, at that point in time, gave up on being an astronaut. I thought there was a zero percent chance.”
At 39 years old in 2017, Menon was already five years older than the average age of successful astronaut candidates. That door felt sealed. Forced to look elsewhere, he dedicated serious thought to what the rest of his life should look like.
His life had already been extraordinary. As an emergency physician, Menon had practiced medicine on Mount Everest, delivered relief in Port-au-Prince after the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, and flown search-and-rescue missions with the US military in Afghanistan.
While weighing his next move, Menon began daily journaling about his passions, purpose, and principles. That introspection eventually led him to space medicine. If he could not travel to space himself, he would help others get there. Humanity would advance either way. “I needed that to be crystal clear in my mind,” Menon said.
Clarity was essential, because Menon and his wife Anna were about to make life-altering decisions. Decisions that would ultimately lead not just one of them, but both, into space.
Growing up in the Midwest, Menon studied neurobiology at Harvard University, then earned a mechanical engineering degree and a medical degree from Stanford University in 2006. He worked as an emergency physician in Los Angeles, joined the Air National Guard, became a pilot, and served as a physician on search-and-rescue helicopters in Afghanistan.
(Source: Ars Technica)
