Anna Menon: Rocket Woman
The TCU alumna went farther into space than any female in history.

Anna Menon was a key member of the Polaris Dawn team, a SpaceX group that achieved the first commercial spacewalk.
Anna Menon: Rocket Woman
The TCU alumna went farther into space than any female in history.
ANNA MENON served as mission specialist and medical officer on SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn voyage in September. The five-day journey achieved a number of historical feats, including the first commercial spacewalk. Menon studied mathematics and Spanish at TCU before earning a master’s in biomedical engineering from Duke University. The Houston native then worked as a biomedical flight controller for NASA for several years before joining SpaceX in 2018. We talked to Menon just before her record-breaking mission.
What makes Polaris Dawn a milestone for the private space industry?
The Polaris Dawn mission is one in a series of missions that are part of a greater Polaris program that is seeking to be a test bed for new technologies that will ultimately help bring SpaceX and the human space flight industry toward a return to the moon and one day to Mars, to help make life multi-planetary.
On this mission specifically, we’ve tackled a handful of technologies. These include going to the highest Earth orbit ever flown, the farthest any human has been since the Apollo era. It’ll be the farthest any female has ever gone in space.
Then, we’ll be doing the first commercial spacewalk ever. Previously, only government superpowers have ever done a spacewalk.

SpaceX astronaut Anna Menon holds a Polaris Dawn challenge coin.
Thirdly, we are testing new communications technology, specifically laser communication from a human spacecraft. It will be interacting with the Starlink satellite shell around our Earth and using that to try to establish communications, which can be a really great platform for future space communication technology.
And fourth, we are executing a huge gamut of research studies while we’re up there, about 40 research experiments over five days.
Which research objectives do you find most interesting?
“I studied math at TCU. I was so grateful when I eventually found a way to apply those mathematics skills back to the space industry and be a part of that bigger human endeavor.”
Anna Menon
A number of our research experiments tackle something called SANS, or Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome. It is an issue that happens when astronauts are exposed to microgravity for extended periods. It essentially impacts their vision, and they find that with extended duration in space, their vision deteriorates.
One [experiment], for example, is this contact lens that we wear that basically measures the intraocular pressure in our eyes. It has this neat gold rim; it gives us continuous measures.
As we’re adapting to microgravity and things are changing, they’re able to see that change in intraocular pressure over time, which will be really enlightening, I think.
Another category of research experiments that we are doing is space motion sickness. So, 60 to 80 percent of people who fly to space end up getting space motion sickness in the first few days of adjustment to microgravity. If you imagine 100 people flying to space at the same time, and 60 of them are all vomiting around you, you’re going to have some problems that are going to make you pretty nonfunctional as a crew, at least at first.
And so some of the research experiments we are doing are looking into some of the mechanisms behind that, trying to understand it better so that in the future, we can really target and hopefully reduce the impacts of that.
You completed a vacuum spacesuit test — one of the last pre-mission milestones — in mid-July. What did that entail?
Leading up to this flight, one of the big developments has been the development of a spacewalk-capable spacesuit. Basically, these spacesuits function as human-sized spaceships around our bodies.
The last step along that development cycle was to put it to the test in a vacuum chamber. We donned our spacesuits and went in pairs to a vacuum chamber at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
And there we did a pre-breathe, which gets the nitrogen out of your body so that you reduce the risk of decompression sickness. And then at that point you reduce the cabin environment from a nominal Earth pressure all the way down to vacuum. We did different motions similar to those we will do on our spacewalk. And then we repressurized the vacuum chamber and made sure that the suit performed as expected; we got adjusted to what the sensations are when you’re in that lower-pressure environment.
Another major step in preparing for spaceflight was simulating with the Polaris Program crew and team of engineers in mission control. What was that like?
The simulation training with the joint team is hands-down one of my favorite pieces of mission development. To do these simulations, we put crews in our three-dimensional capsule simulator. And then there’s a team in SpaceX’s mission control. And these two teams, like we can in space, can talk to each other. And then, we fly the mission profile together.
And so there are trainers who sit behind the scenes and make the entire thing run. And periodically, they will throw different anomalies at us, often layering them on top of one another. Over time, we really went through the whole gamut of systems issues that could arise, everything from power failures to environmental anomalies that might occur.
For example, if there was low suit pressure, what is your immediate abort strategy? The team responds to get out of the spacewalk in the right steps and ensures that everyone responds safely and recovers well.

Anna Menon said a fourth-grade field trip was the launching point for her career. “From that moment on, I dreamed of getting to fly to space but even just of being a part of this industry at all.”
Your dream of flying to space was developed in the fourth grade on an immersive field trip to NASA. What do you remember about that experience?
I think that was the first time I remember being exposed to the space industry, and I just fell in love with the space industry in that experience. We got to experience a day in the life of an astronaut and a day in the life of a flight controller in mission control.
And so we basically got a job, and then we played out a mission and then we swapped roles. And so you got to be a part of this team as a kid, problem-solving, working together, trying to see how you can all work together to get to this larger goal and seeing how people come together to achieve outrageously incredible things.
That was one of the things that just clicked for me at that moment. From that moment on, I dreamed of getting to fly to space but even just of being a part of this industry at all.
I studied math at TCU. I was so grateful when I eventually found a way to apply those mathematics skills back to the space industry and be a part of that bigger human endeavor.
How did your experience at TCU benefit your career?
One of the things that I remember about how TCU set me up for my career is that it had very small class sizes. I remember my classes often had just four or five people in them. We developed these wonderful relationships with our professors.
One of our professors, Dr. (George) Gilbert, dedicated his own time during lunch to start up a kind of an extracurricular club for us that loved math. He would give us a problem, and then the few of us that were interested in doing this, we’d work together to try to solve it. These were more challenging problems. And then, he would come in and advise us and help share some of his wisdom and help guide us as we were learning to become better at math.
It was such an example of how much the professors at TCU care, how much they’re willing to give selflessly to help us learn. And I think that’s just one of the many examples I have of the wonderful learning environment I had that helped be a springboard to my career.
You worked for seven years at NASA, most of that tenure as a biomedical flight controller. How have the skills you developed there helped you throughout your career?
I am so grateful for my time at NASA. Being in mission control was a dream come true for me. I love the fast-paced nature of it.
I love the team aspect of it. I love the problem-solving that is required when you’re in that room and getting to work together and see a well-oiled machine such as mission control supporting the International Space Station. It was just such a great learning experience for me.
I learned a tremendous amount about human spaceflight while I was there. I learned a ton about operations. I came in with this background in biomedical engineering, engineering, technical education and math, thanks to TCU. I had this great opportunity to learn how to apply those math skills and engineering skills in operations to spaceflight.
What inspired your picture book, Kisses From Space?
Kisses From Space I co-authored with Keri Vasek, and it is beautifully illustrated by Andy Harkness.

While in orbit, Anna Menon read her picture book, “Kisses From Space,” to St. Jude patients and their families.
I have two young kids, a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old, and I wanted to connect with them. It made me think back to one of the forms of connection that my husband [Anil Menon, a NASA astronaut] and I have had with our kids throughout our lives, and that was storytelling.
On a lot of our commutes to SpaceX a number of years ago, we would start telling stories in the car to keep our kids interested. And one of the storylines we told was the story of a family of dragons.
Sitting here about to embark on this mission thinking about ways to connect with my kids, it became obvious to me that a story was the answer, and nothing better than a story about a dragon when you’re flying on a Dragon spacecraft.
I’ll be reading it to my kids as well as some of the brave patients of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital from space.
Editor’s Note: The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
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