{"id":15076,"date":"2021-06-07T10:27:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T14:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?page_id=15076"},"modified":"2024-08-20T11:25:09","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T15:25:09","slug":"from-sea-to-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/from-sea-to-space\/","title":{"rendered":"From Sea to Space: Astronaut Zena Cardman\u2019s Love for Science is Out of this World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

This marine scientist turned astronaut now serves in a NASA program designed to land the first woman on the moon — and she\u2019s eligible for missions to mars.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASA astronaut Zena Cardman may not yet know when or where she will fly her first space mission, but research experiences she had as an undergraduate were the first steps on her career path. Although Cardman has shifted her goals skyward, her educational interests began in marine and aquatic environments \u2014 in North Carolina and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI sort of made a habit of studying the slimy, the underground, the most bizarre life on earth, whether that\u2019s in a deep-sea hydrothermal vent or underground in caves,\u201d she said in her keynote address at the 2021 NC Space Symposium. About a dozen former and current NC Space Grant scholars presented at the event on topics ranging from engineering and computer science to astronomy and life sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an undergraduate, Cardman benefited from a research mission on Axel Heiberg Island, which is in the Canadian High Arctic, at about 80 degrees latitude north. \u201cI was there not so much to soak in the landscape, but really there to study this environment as an analog for what other planets might be like, what kinds of life might be hosted on a planet like Mars,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Credit: Zena Cardman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cardman earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in biology in 2010 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also earned honors in poetry and minors in marine science, creative writing, and chemistry. She then earned a master\u2019s degree in marine science at UNC-Chapel Hill, including pursuing her research interests at the UNC-CH Institute for Marine Sciences in Morehead City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no right way to become an astronaut,\u201d Cardman said in a recent interview. \u201cThere is no single path. I realized during that time that I love the operational side of research and the teamwork aspect as much as the science itself. The chance to work for NASA and astronaut corps \u2014 and be a researcher, be a scientist, but as a part of something much larger than anything I could do on my own \u2014 was really appealing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jobi Cook, NC Space Grant\u2019s associate director, has known Cardman since those early days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cZena was the recipient of five NC Space Grant awards that supported her NASA-affiliated research efforts in some of the most extreme environments on Earth, from the Arctic to the Antarctic,\u201d Cook said. \u201cWe\u2019re proud to have helped set her career journey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the polar regions, NASA supported research has taken Cardman to Hawaii, Idaho, and British Columbia. She even has sailed with the Sea Education Association as assistant engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was supported so often by the Space Grant \u2014 and I feel like it has affected the course of my life in a really profound way,\u201d Cardman noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardman was selected for NASA\u2019s 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class. At that time, she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at Penn State University, investigating microbial metabolism and biogeochemical cycling in cave systems. There, she also received Pennsylvania Space Grant Graduate Research Fellowships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Credit: Zena Cardman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In early 2020, she graduated with the first class of astronauts under the Artemis program, which aims to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024. She is now eligible for spaceflight, including assignments to the International Space Station, Artemis missions to the moon and, potentially, missions to Mars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can watch a couple of my classmates launch hopefully as early as this fall, and then next year in 2022,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens for the rest of us. But there\u2019s so much going on at NASA right now \u2014 it\u2019s a great problem to have not knowing which vehicle you\u2019ll be flying on, or when.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NC Space Grant hosts the annual NC Space Symposium, which celebrates students, alumni, and partners who offer insights about career pathways. The 2021 virtual event featured current and former NC Space Grant-funded students, including alumni with positions now at NASA, Elevate Farms, United Launch Alliance, and GVT LLC. The event closed with a career panel for students and early-career professionals.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch videos from the NC Space Symposium, view student posters, and learn more about this year\u2019s event.<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead photo credit: David DeHoyos\/ASCAN Training Photo. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Related<\/h2>
\n Summer 2021<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/svg><\/span>\n <\/a>\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marine scientist turned astronaut now serves in a NASA program designed to land the first woman on the moon — and she\u2019s eligible for missions to mars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":15208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ncst_custom_author":"Katie Mosher","ncst_show_custom_author":true,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"backgroundColor\":\"custombg_one\",\"displayCategoryID\":638,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[637,601,638],"tags":[],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[639],"class_list":["post-15076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-637","category-education","category-summer-2021"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":638,"name":"Summer 2021","slug":"summer-2021","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":639,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":637,"count":10,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Sea to Space: Astronaut Zena Cardman\u2019s Love for Science is Out of this World - 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