The Latin Astronaut: Space Exploration

The Latin astronaut: Space exploration

Introduction

Dra. Serena Auñón-Chancellor is out of this world, literally. This doctor became astronaut and spent more than 197 days in space aboard the International Space Station last year, conducting research on several scientific experiments. The ISS is and has been home to a wide variety of experiments carried out in its unique microgravity environment. But these experiments do not just try to move away the explorers of the Earth. Much of the research focuses on improving life on our planet of origin.

Developing

As she described at the International Conference on Research and Development of the Space Station in Georgia. The contribution made from space is to help, regarding this, he said: ‘Most of the life and health sciences we do in ISS help on earth’. At the same time it has announced the world that the space station studies are about finding cancer medications.

 In microgravity, difficult cells can grow in a three -dimensional way that resembles how they form in the body, instead of growing flat on a crop plate. As a result, cells that grow in space live longer, which gives researchers more time to study and try them. The results provide incremental advances in the field of medicine.

Back on Earth

Serena Auñón-Chancellor continues to exercise medicine in disadvantaged areas. Together with his experience, his interactions with patients have given the health -related experiments that made a special place in his heart.

Once back on land, however, he discovered that his space trip aroused the curiosity of many patients he attended before becoming an astronaut. After landing in his Soyuz spacecraft, he learned that many of his patients followed their spatial explorations online and followed her and the ISS on Twitter.

Pure vocation

The interest of Auñón-Chancellor in space began when I was young. With three sisters in the house, he was often in command of a smaller television in his parents’ bedroom to tune in the spatial ferry launches. His father noticed his interest and told him that if he wanted to work for NASA, he had to follow an engineering route. He received a degree in Electrical Engineering and then obtained his doctor’s degree. On the way, he learned about the field of aerospace medicine and began to carry out internships.

conclusion

In 2006, Auñón-Chancellor arrived at the Johnson Space Center as a flight surgeon. He spent almost a year in Russia supporting medical operations for the members of the ISS crew, then served as an attached surgeon of the crew for the mission of the STS-127 space ferry mission. In 2009, she was selected as a candidate for astronaut, and graduated from the formation of astronauts two years later. 

It flew to space as part of expeditions 56 and 57, from June 6 to December 19, 2018. As a flight surgeon, I was very aware of the changes that occur in the body, including eye and back effects;and the loss of bone and fabric that entails spending time in space. But the most surprising effect for her occurred in the middle of the cut of the third stage of the rocket.