National Aeronautics and Space Administration recently shared a picture of US astronaut Jessica Meir playing saxophone at the International Space Station (ISS). In the picture, that was taken before Meir returned to Earth in April, she can be seen floating in zero gravity while playing the instrument in space.
On Twitter, NASA posted Meir's photo asking netizens what they would carry on a trip to the Moon.
The post has already garnered a lot of comments from Twitter users who have also shared what other instruments they wanted to bring to the space station. Many also asked for a space jam session or if they can bring their piano.
Who is Jessica Meir?
Marine biologist Meir is a native of Caribou, Maine. She made history on October 18, 2019, when she and her colleague Christina Koch made the first all-female spacewalk while on the International Space Station. It was Meir's first journey into space and she had spent six months on this mission aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. The 42-year-old NASA astronaut explained her experience as “surreal” as she had been dreaming about going into space since she was five years old.
Before Koch and Meir, only 15 women had participated in a spacewalk ever and all of them had a male companion.
Meir has a doctorate from the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She was selected by NASA in 2013, prior to which she was working as a scientist. Talking about her return from space in April and landing on earth amidst COVID-19 pandemic, Meir said in a recent interview, "It was certainly jarring. It was just such a sudden change — I think there was a little bit more buildup for people down there on Earth."
Meir said it wasn't easy for her to adjust upon her return, given the current circumstances. "For me, like a lot of people are experiencing, there’s this underlying stress to everything that we’re doing. And I experienced that too: not only in having to leave a place, the space station, where I was happier than I’d ever been, and then coming back here and not being able to see my mom given all the restrictions. It has been difficult to adjust to, and I found what helped me was returning to nature. I was able to travel a little bit — at least access to nature is one of the things we can still enjoy with COVID," she added.
The first woman to perform a spacewalk was Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, 35 years ago. More than 500 people have been to space as of yet, but only 11 percent of them have been women, Reuters reported.
Feature Image Credit: NASA/Twitter
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