Words matter. These are the best Kathleen Rubins Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Sequencing DNA on the ISS will enable NASA to see what happens to genetic material in space in real time, rather than looking at a snapshot of DNA before launch and another snapshot of DNA after launch and filling in the blanks.
I think it’s reasonable: you can own your nerd credibility when you’re an astronaut.
I don’t think you ever really decide that you want to be an astronaut. I put in an application and hoped for the best.
I was the one with a subscription to ‘Sky and Telescope’ magazine as a kid while my friends were reading ‘Tiger Beat.’
I thought that NASA didn’t take biologists and so nothing would come of it. But I knew I would regret it if I did not apply.
When I was at Stanford, I was actually in the cancer biology program, but I mostly focused on infectious disease.
Most germs aren’t bad. You’re in a microbial environment all the time.
They say that in space, nobody can hear you scream. The first time I stepped out of the airlock, I was ready to scream – not because I was scared but because I was so excited to see the Earth below me.
Joining NASA was very exciting, but it was the hardest decision I have had to make in my life.
We have to engineer devices that are going to work in space stations. Those same things are going to work in the most remote regions on Earth.
My lab used to do gene expression and genomics, and we did a lot of sequencing samples from virus outbreaks.
From as young as I can remember, I wanted to be – in order – an astronaut, a geologist, and a biologist.
You need nerves of steel if climbing aboard a rocket is your career path.
I thought I was prepared for space, and it still absolutely defied every expectation and dream. It is an incredible thing to put yourself on a rocket and launch off the planet. It is an amazing thing to see the planet from space. This blue sphere is almost indescribably beautiful.
When I was 16, my dad took me to a DNA conference at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco, California, and I was captivated by this way of looking at biology and by the discussions of bits of nucleic acid that could make us sick.
Folks should find what really inspires them; they should always pursue what they want to do.
There’s a world of insights to be gained into human health and disease by understanding how gravity and space radiation influence biology.
If you find something that you’re excited about and you’re interested in, my advice to young women and young men would be do what you’re really interested in and what drives and motivates you.
I decided to do graduate studies in virology at Stanford University in California because it had a hospital, which made working on clinical applications easier.
When I was in grad school, I wanted to be in academia forever.
I’ve always been fascinated with science and exploring our world, from microbes to the solar system.
We’re pretty interested in microbial communities on-board space stations. It’s a closed-loop system. Our water is recycled; our air is recycled.
For long-duration exploration missions, NASA is looking for folks with a lot of operational, hands-on experience, people who have been in field-type situations such as military deployments. In my case, I worked in the Congo and in Biosafety Level 4 labs on smallpox.
I think young folks have a good sense of what they want to do.
I kind of watch anything on the Syfy channel.
I’m involved with health care/medical supply delivery to Africa and started a non-profit organization to bring supplies to Congo.
The planet is beautiful.
When you go to vacuum in the airlock and you take the hose off the front of your space suit, there’s a little bit of water in there, and you can see that sublimate and ice crystals form and fly away. My thought at that moment was, ‘Oh, we are not kidding at vacuum here; we are really in space.’
NASA trains you to assess emergency situations and react in a way to keep yourself and everyone else safe.
Young people can accomplish a lot.