Astronaut Cady Coleman On ‘Sharing Space’

Cady Coleman discusses her reaction to seeing Earth from orbit, the challenges of her path into space, and her new book.

There’s a phenomenon known as the “overview effect,” a changed perspective some people experience after seeing the Earth from space. Retired astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman says that for her, it was a sense of home and connection.

“First of all, I just don’t feel that far away,” she said. “I feel like home is bigger than we thought and I just happened to be the one of the furthest out people. But the overwhelming sort of sentiment that I have is if only everyone knew how connected they could be, there’s literally nothing we couldn’t solve.”

Coleman flew on two space shuttle missions, spent 159 days on board the International Space Station, and operated the robotic arm during the deployment of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Her new book is Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change.

She joins Ira to talk about her experiences in space and some of the challenges she faced in getting to orbit, from selection to training to the problem of obtaining a properly-fitting space suit.

Read an excerpt of Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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