The day of my rejection from the astronaut candidate class of 2017

The First Call at the Red Door Cafe

Friday September 25, 2015 was the day my life would change forever. The life of someone about to spend a year at the South Pole was surely different than the life of a research scientist in Pasadena and until September 25 I could imagine either but never both. I was in a sort of limbo.

I was in the top final six short-listed to become a South Pole Telescope winterover. I had been through months of interviews, flying down to the University of Chicago to meet with the collaboration. Any day now I expected to receive the call.

I was trying to have normal work days in my home of Pasadena California, however things went I would be happy to continue normalcy as the course. If I put my life on pause for every fork in the road I would never get anything done. Some colleagues and I went for lunch and stopped for coffee afterwards at the Red Door Cafe on Caltech’s campus. Just as we were waiting in line for coffee I got a call and answered. It was Jason Gallicchio from the South Pole Telescope collaboration. Before I could say anything he said “You’ve got the job.”

I started preparing to spend most of 2016 at the geographic South Pole in Antarctica. I proposed to my boyfriend, sold my stuff, and moved to the end of the world.

The Second Call at the Red Door Cafe

May 25, 2017 was the day my life would change forever. The life of a future astronaut was surely different than the life of a research scientist in Pasadena, and until May 25 I could imagine either but never both. I was in a sort of limbo.

I was in the top final 50 short-listed to become a NASA Astronaut Candidate out of over 18,300 applications for the position. I had been through more than a year and half of applications, cuts and interviews, and had flown down to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas. That day, May 25, I expected to receive the call.

I decided to try to have a normal day, in my home of Pasadena, California. However things went, I would be happy to continue normalcy as the course. I kissed my husband goodbye and went into Caltech, where I serve as a NSF Postdoctoral Scholar in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Despite my goal to treat that day just like any other day it was hard to focus on my work, on the future of it, on the point of doing it, when this phone call would decide which fork in the road my life would take.

I ran into a colleague Jason Gallicchio and we decided to go for coffee. I hadn’t told anyone besides my husband about the expected call. It was still morning. The rumor among the finalists was that the “yes” phone calls would be early in CST, Houston’s timezone, the “nos” naturally later. In addition, it was rumored that the head of the astronaut selection process, a woman, would give out the “nos”, whereas the head of the astronaut selection board, a man, would give the “yesses.”

As Jason and I reached the Red Door Cafe, my phone rang showing a Houston area code. It was before lunch, CST. When I answered the phone, it was to a man’s voice. I had a moment of hope and said “Hello” it what must have sounded like the world’s most excited voice. All the signs were there! This was going to be a “yes” against all odds. The caller was astronaut G. Reid Wiseman and he had the grace to tell me “I’ll cut to the chase, it’s a no.” Although I had neither expected nor felt entitled to be selected, in that brief second after I said “Hello” I almost believed that I had been. It wasn’t to be.

The third call at the Red Door Cafe: TBD

It took me years to get down to the South Pole and it was a dream of mine since I realized that people like me could go there. It seemed as close as I could get to space. There I began to seriously dream of going to space itself. Exploration and science gave my life meaning. When I heard no from NASA I went home in a daze.

Strangely, in the aftermath I was almost happy about the outcome, at least in part because I could think of the future again. My husband and I could plan our future effectively and moreover, I could plan to continue my hobbies: kung fu, personal aviation, writing, and learning Chinese, making progress on them that I would otherwise not be able to. I could finish the research project I was working on at Caltech, investigating the formation of the supermassive black holes that populate the universe.

I threw myself into organizing a summer school teaching high schoolers how to program and began to try to dream bigger than space. I had felt in a state of self-censorship leading up to the selection process, a winnowing of options, personal and political, in preparation for the years of non-partisan focused training. In a certain light, my world was expanded in the absence of space.

As I think about next steps in my career I want to find something with the same meaning that being an astronaut might have given me: interacting with the public about science and exploration, daily learning and team challenges. We’ll see what’s next for me, but first I have to decide what the next phone call I hope to receive on some 25th of the month at the Red Door Cafe is, and from whom and for what purpose. Or, perhaps, it will come on some unexpected day, from some unexpected direction.

Ad Astra!