Standing in the Shadow of the Milky Way

An interview with Dr. Meganne Christian

by Mike Murphy

-Extreme Expeditioning-

Published in SES Exploration Revealed (forthcoming issue 4)

Photo: Researchers looking up at the Milky Way. Credit: Nadja Alberts.

Standing in on a vast and barren landscape, the stars are so bright that there’s no need for a head torch. “You really feel like you’re in them.”

Where is this barren place? The Sahara? The Great Steppe? Mars? (Nearly!)

Years after this photo was taken, Dr. Meganne Christian tells me about her time at the Concordia Research Station in Antarctica, and how that experience led her becoming an astronaut. Called ‘White Mars’, inland Antarctica is the closest environment to Mars that we can experience on Earth. “You’re isolated, you're in extreme conditions, and one aspect about Concordia is that it’s at high altitude, so you have studies into what hypoxia does to the body and mind as well.”

Photo credit: Meganne Christian.

Before Meganne was a Reserve Astronaut and Exploration Commercialization Lead for ESA, she was already stepping out of her comfort zone. With a background in material science, she was looking after atmospheric physics and meteorological equipment “It was a huge learning curve! My background is not in atmospheric physics and meteorology–nothing like it, really.” However, that’s part of what made Meganne stand out as a candidate. “They were quite happy to take somebody who knew how to be a scientist, trouble shoot, how to work with a range of different scientific instruments, and who was willing to learn.” This is because Concordia might host eighty to ninety researchers during the three months of summer, but during the winter, the crew is cut dramatically. “You have a skeleton crew, so each of the members have to be able to look after a range of projects that had been implemented during the summer.”

Meganne says that the experience of having to learn so many diverse tasks helped her to break down her own barriers. “You find that a lot of the limitations that you think you had, they dont necessarily exist… You learn that you can do things that you didn’t necessarily think you could.” This process also helped her to grown and learn about herself in very extreme ways. “When you’re in 100 days of darkness, you’re isolated, it obviously has an effect on your psychology. Any emotion you feel would be quite amplified. If you felt a little lonely, you’d feel quite alone. If you felt happy, you’d feel over the moon (forshadowing!)... it was important to learn to recognize when that was happening.”

So what led her to space, from one very extreme environment to almost certainly the most extreme? “The romantic view is when you’re there and you’re looking up at the stars, and you’re seeing your shadow in the light of the Milky Way, you want to explore that. The other part is that I was enjoying what i was doing–running other people’s experiments in this extreme and isolated environment, working in a multicultural team, and I could see the analogues with what astronauts do on the International Space Station… and I was hearing the rumors that ESA was recruiting astronauts for the first time in many years.”

Many months and several rounds of mental, social, psychological, and physical testing later, Meganne was admitted to the ESA Reserve Astronaut Corps of 2022. As a reserve astronaut, she is maintaining her training and eagerly waiting for her chance to fly. Thinking of the enormity of this accomplishment, I had one pressing question: does she ever experience imposter syndrome?

“For sure. When you have ‘astronaut’ in your job title, people expect you to know everything about space, and that’s just not true.” She laughed at this. “I just have to remind myself that what I’ve done has it’s own merits, I’ve had an amazing experience, and I can inspire people with what I’ve done so far. At the same time, I’m not afraid to say ‘I dont know the answer to that question’.

Photo credit: Earthrise. Willaim Anders (1968)

“I would love to be able to look back on the Earth the way that we see the Moon here. I would love to look back on the Earth.”

A core tenet of space research is how vital it is for life on Earth. Advancements made in space have a direct impact on terrestrial lives. Separately, many young people who meet astronauts then go on to dream of exploring space. The UK Space Agency even has a strong focus on inspiring future generations of space and STEAM innovators. As an explorer, I was curious about how space exploration might inspire young people to explore the Earth.

“Space does capture the imagination, absolutely. I think that exploration is exploration, and there is still so much that we have to learn here on Earth. The point is to continue being curious. That’s what makes a scientist, and that’s what makes us human, really–being curious. We want to know more about our Earth and we want to know more about our Universe. There is so much to discover in both ways… The key is following that curiosity and that need for discovery.”

Photo Credit: Parabolic Penguin. Christoph Minetti.

“Something I would take with me into space would be my penguin that I knitted many years ago. She’s been around the world with my husband and around the world with me.

“My favourite piece of kit is my Via Ferrata kit. Via Ferratas are cables that go up along cliffs, halfway between rock climbing and hiking. The kit is what you use to attach yourself to them. One of my jobs that I had to do in Antarctica was climb the American Tower, which was a 45 meter tower, and you have the same kind of kit to climb the tower. If you’re going to the ISS, you have the saem kit when you’re doing an EVA, a spacewalk. I’d call that the world’s highest Via Ferrata.”