Human Health in Space: One Small Step for Mannikin-kind

Watch Dr Melissa Walton-Shirley's interview with physician-astronaut Frank Rubio aboard the International Space Station.

While at our vacation home in Cocoa Beach, Florida, a sudden low rumble began to rattle the dishes and shake the glass doors. I ran the gamut of sinister etiologies and then realized with a laugh, "It's a rocket launch!"

My husband and I arrived at the beach just in time to see a soaring fiery projectile, the Falcon 9, its cottony white plume twisting and elongating like a vertiginous brush stroke. Within minutes, the sky cleared. As the crowd dispersed, we found ourselves walking alongside our neighbor, who shared the news that he is working on the Artemis project at nearby Kennedy Space Center.

I've been fascinated with space travel since my mom gave me a secondhand Wonder Book, Tom Corbett: A Trip to the Moon.

I knew that an Orion rocket had spent 3 weeks in an unmanned, but not unoccupied, lunar orbit late last year as part of Artemis I, the first in a series of missions that will allow human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

Commander Moonikin Campos, a sensored stand-in for humans on NASA's Artemis I mission.

Phase 3planned for 2025, will carry Christina Koch and Victor Glover, who would be the first woman and Black astronaut on the Moon, respectively, along with Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen.