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With almost 90% of astronauts being men, Alyssa Carson is on a mission to encourage more women to get into the space industry. The 20-year-old is an aspiring astronaut herself, with an end goal of exploring Mars, putting her (currently in-progress) astrobiology degree to good use studying the biological makeup of the planet. She believes that Mars is the next place that it makes sense to go and that sending people there will give scientists a sense of how realistic their colonizing and terraforming goals really are.
Her love of space exploration stemmed from an episode of the kid's show, The Backyardigans called "Mission to Mars." This got her asking questions about space, and especially Mars, from a very young age. At 7 years old she was able to take her questioning further by participating in her first space camp, going on to attend 6 more. These included the international ones in Turkey and Canada, which gained her the title of the first (and only) person to attend every space camp offered by NASA. This is also where she received her callsign, Blueberry, which you will see on her social media accounts. Thanks to her short stature and lack of suits in her size, she was unable to wear the cool blue flight suits that the others at camp wore. So, her dad purchased a knock-off one for her to wear, which made her look like a blueberry. What she thought was a one time name stuck year after year until she adopted it herself.
By the time she was 18 she had also attended a Sally Ride (the first woman in space back in 1983) summer camp, earned her pilot's license, received her SCUBA certificate and completed training in water survival, g-force, micro gravity flight, and decompression. This is all thanks to the PoSSUM (Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere) program which offers training and research in all of these areas and more. Carson is also the first person to have completed the NASA Passport Program- having visited all 14 NASA visitor's center locations in 9 different states. As to be expected with someone as passionate as Carson, her achievements don't stop there. She also holds the title of youngest person to graduate from the Advanced Space Academy, which certifies her to be an astronaut trainee and to go into space, and has self-published a book called "So You Want to be an Astronaut." In 2013, at the ripe old age of 12, NASA invited her to Washington DC to participate in the MER10 panel discussing future missions to Mars. Later on she was became one of only seven ambassadors selected to represent Mars One, a mission that is perfectly aligned with Carson's passion- establishing a human colony on Mars by 2030.
But, you might be wondering, what exactly does it take to be an astronaut? Carson explains in an episode of a Youtube series, Unscripted, that "an astronaut is not a job...more of a destination...you have to be something before you can be an astronaut." She expanded on this idea in an interview with Hack, saying that to qualify just for the astronaut application, you first have to have a master's degree and some work experience. The field is competitive with maybe 12-20 people being selected out of the roughly 18,000 applicants. That's where those camps and programs come in handy- it exposes participants to a myriad of career options and a multitude of different aspects of space and space exploration to peak their interest and discover what calls to them the most. Because of this, Carson decided to get into astrobiology.
Not interested in being and astronaut, but have an equally ambitious goal? Carson encourages children, especially girls (and probably adults too), in her TedX talks about pursuing STEM careers. She's all about talking about your goals and passions loudly and often, because you never know who might be listening. Opportunities can be brought up, connections can be made, and progress can be gained simply by telling people what it is you want to do. Go after the things that drive you!
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