Anil Menon may need the world’s spaciest resume. After a number of years as a NASA flight surgeon, he turned SpaceX’s medical director in 2018, the place he authored analysis on the results of house on the human physique. In 2021, he was chosen as a NASA astronaut and has spent the previous a number of years coaching for his personal journey to house. Alongside the best way, he additionally supported his spouse, Anna Menon, who traveled to house on a non-public mission in 2024 and was herself chosen as a NASA astronaut final yr.
Someplace within the margins, Menon has additionally served as an Air Power Reserve member and emergency room physician.
Now, he’s lastly heading to house himself. This July, Menon will journey to Kazakhstan, the place Russia’s house program conducts launches, and be a part of two cosmonauts on the subsequent mission to the Worldwide House Station. He’ll fly aboard the storied Russian Soyuz crew car, which has been used efficiently for many years, and is anticipated to spend eight months aboard the station.
For years, NASA and Roscosmos, Russia’s house company, have maintained the follow of putting astronauts and cosmonauts on each other’s missions. One facet impact of that association, and of the fashionable house age extra broadly, is that Menon brings an unusually expansive perspective on life in house, with expertise spanning NASA, Russia’s house program, and SpaceX, in addition to a firsthand view of NASA’s distinct institutional position.
“NASA sort of bridges the hole between a few of these completely different cultures and synthesizes it,” he says. “As we take a look at the moon, everybody goes to pursue that as effectively. I feel that NASA is that this nice synergy for all of that.”
Quick Firm spoke with Menon about his upcoming mission, the way forward for business house stations, and the most important unanswered questions surrounding microgravity’s results on the human physique. This interview has been edited for readability and size.
Are you able to discuss just a little bit in regards to the variations between the Soyuz and the Crew Dragon?
The Soyuz was developed for a number of the first house flights and it’s acquired this lengthy heritage tracing again to what we take into account the house race. They’ve tried to maintain issues that work and simply maintain them working for high-reliability causes. Among the computer systems and display layouts are issues which might be push-button… They work.
The identical goes for engines and a number of the seats and luxury stage. Many of the astronauts throughout the early Russian house program have been shorter in stature, so somebody who’s 6’1’’ like me doesn’t match as effectively, however I match… It really works, and that’s the fascinating factor. The spacesuit has a rubber stress seal, and also you twist it … and you then put a band round it to seal it—two bands—and that’s the way you create your seal. It isn’t a zipper. It isn’t some locking mechanism, but it surely works. And it’s all the time labored.
SpaceX, born on this period, is actually pushing the frontiers of engineering and creating issues. You’ll see extra contact shows. It’s automated process sequences….you hit a button, and also you get that process popping up for you with a whole lot of information flowing in, as you’d see in a sci-fi film. It additionally works, and it’s a unique approach to sort out the issue, and it’s acquired some benefits.
The fits: you zip them round and put them on… They appear actually cool, they usually work rather well. There are different types of engines —[where] the rocket itself lands—which provides usability. I’d say it’s pushing the frontiers of the place we wish to go together with issues, which is uniquely cultural to us when it comes to the best way we take a look at issues.
As a doctor, what do you see as the most important open questions on, like, the impression of house on the human physique? We’ve finished a whole lot of research on by way of the Worldwide House Station, however what open questions intrigue you as we take into consideration going to the moon, and possibly Mars?
I’ll reply that in a nebulous method and a really particular method. The extra basic reply is that there’s simply a lot new stuff. We’ve been flying wholesome astronauts to house for a very long time. We’re going to be flying—and we’re beginning to fly—the entire unfold of people to house. You already know, on Inspiration 4, Hayley Arceneaux had an osteosarcoma [bone cancer]. How does that change issues? So there’s simply a whole lot of unknown.
At this cut-off date, in medication, it’s not typically you see completely new illnesses, however we’re seeing new issues in house. I feel sooner or later, we’ll proceed to see new issues, and that’s most likely like the most important factor.
If I have been to simply choose a selected factor for a concrete instance, we’re seeing clotting occur in house in sudden methods. You’re taking a extremely wholesome particular person, put them in house, there’s three issues that enhance your probability of a clot: One is harm, and that’s when your physique, like closes the wound—[and] that’s regular. The opposite is stasis, which implies for those who simply maintain blood in a static spot, it’s going to clot. The opposite is like some aspect of hypercoagulability. In case you take oral contraceptives for ladies, it makes you just a little extra liable to clotting. In house, what you’re getting is stasis on some stage, so blood isn’t transferring the identical. You’re getting one cornerstone of that clotting triangle, and it simply takes just a little bit extra to see one thing else.
As you ship extra folks up there, a whole lot of these illnesses which might be associated to that [and] you’re simply going to see extra of them. That may very well be deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, strokes, issues like that. We’ll have to determine, like, what will we do about it?
On the flip facet, is there any promise or hope that there are well being metrics that appear to enhance in house in comparison with on Earth?
You all the time see this in sci-fi, however in case you have disabilities on Earth, possibly that goes away in house, proper? You don’t want your legs in house, and so you are able to do a whole lot of issues that you simply couldn’t do on Earth, which opens up the doorways for lots of people for whom that’s a problem. And I watch sufficient sci-fi films that I’m hoping that I get a mutant gene whereas I’m up there and have some new superpower. I’m simply kidding!
We’re getting ready for the subsequent era of business house stations that can ultimately exchange the ISS. What do you keep in mind for what we might do otherwise or change?
ISS is a superb stepping stone to leverage to find out about our subsequent step. I feel the subsequent step, a business house station, can even be a stepping stone to the longer term. So what are the issues we do on ISS that we might do higher on these can be actually vital science. Improve the throughput and make it simpler for folks to do science. On the ISS, that’s nice, however you’ll be able to all the time do issues higher.
Letting folks do real-time suggestions on a number of the science that they’re doing there. Experimenting with issues that might open up the door to going to Mars and staying on the Moon.
these issues that kick off the orbital economic system, like printing and creating these manufacturing processes. They wish to make new chips up there, and that stimulates extra jobs in house and doing stuff. Specializing in the high-yield issues after which kicking them off are going to be transformative…Take into consideration all of the issues that want to enter an information heart that’s in house. A few of these future stations can lean into that and assist perform or repair that know-how till it’s like one thing you can simply ship and launch.
