“Like a bullet to the celebs.” That’s how astronaut Kellie Gerardi describes the expertise of taking off from Earth on her first house flight on the Virgin Galactic 05 mission in November 2023.
“First you hear it: the rocket motor behind you within the spacecraft. You then see it: the flames out [the] window and the sparks. And you then really feel it, and it’s the full-body vibration at practically 5g,” she remembers of the launch. As soon as the craft was in house, “you would hear a pin drop.”
What occurred subsequent was a second that Gerardi—regardless of years of coaching and taking part in over 150 parabolas (an airplane maneuver nicknamed the “vomit comet” that’s designed to simulate microgravity situations)—couldn’t have ready for emotionally. “I noticed Earth mild…” she recollects with awe. “The blackness of house contrasted with the neon-blue, shiny band of Earth’s ambiance, the fragility of that skinny band, the great thing about our planet after which the cognitive dissonance of feeling each part of it whereas being barely exterior of it.”
It was a pinnacle of Gerardi’s career that she says will probably be “completely imprinted” on her ceaselessly. Now, Gerardi is getting ready for a second space mission in 2026 and displays candidly in regards to the nontraditional path that’s despatched her profession into the stratosphere—and past.
Charting a brand new course
Rising up in Jupiter, Florida, (whose title she jokes is “very on-brand” along with her story), Gerardi spent a whole lot of time alone, turning into an imaginative daydreamer and voracious reader who liked science fiction. The actions on the Kennedy Area Middle, simply up the coast, meant the concept of space exploration was by no means removed from her periphery. She dove into house research all through her youth and into faculty, and after realizing the rising potentialities in industrial spaceflight following her commencement from New York College, Gerardi was impressed to pursue graduate research in bioastronautics on the Worldwide Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS).
It was a brand new, considerably unsure avenue for an aspiring astronaut. The standard route, till lately, was to safe a place with a government-funded company like NASA. “Now once I give it some thought,” she says, “I notice that what I used to be actually doing was paving a path out of a brick wall… not understanding how it might occur, however… believing that was, directionally, the place our future was headed.”
Her confidence turned out to be nicely positioned. In 2023, Gerardi’s space flight on the Galactic 05, sponsored by IIAS, made her the primary industry-funded researcher despatched up on a industrial spacecraft. As a payload specialist on that flight, she performed checks inspecting how fluid behaves in low-gravity situations to assist enhance the designs of life-support programs, syringes and humidifiers utilized in house. She additionally wore a specifically designed “good” undergarment that collected biometric knowledge and a steady glucose monitor to review house flight’s impact on insulin resistance.
The 36-year-old confesses that the groundbreaking flight assuaged a nagging impatience she’d felt all through her 20s, as she watched different younger professionals being awarded achievements just like the Forbes 30 Below 30 listing. Now, she needs she may return and inform her youthful self “there will probably be many years the place it appears like nothing occurs, after which there will probably be days and weeks the place it appears like many years occur.”
The tenacity she leaned on throughout that point is a trait she believes her dad and mom helped instill, alongside the assumption that “bizarre persons are able to extraordinary issues.” She factors to considered one of her first jobs, as a coat test attendant for The Explorers Membership, as proof, remembering that she felt pushed even then to “give 110%” and developed a system for cataloging members’ belongings and memorizing their names. Quickly, these round her took notice of her dedication. She says that have taught her that “you possibly can design your individual fame in life. It’s in your energy… choose the phrases you wish to be true and also you need individuals to consider you, after which put within the work to make them true.”
Mother on a mission
Because the ninetieth lady to enter house, Gerardi is keenly conscious of how few ladies have had the chance to see Earth from a spacecraft. For her, gazing at her residence planet from afar got here with the “existential realization, as a mom, that in that second, I’m not on the identical planet as my child…. ” she says. “It was a momentarily arresting feeling.”
Her daughter, Delta V (named after the physics time period delta-V, which represents the change in velocity wanted for spacecraft maneuvers), was 6 on the time. Gerardi says, “Age 6 was a very enjoyable age to look at Mommy fly to house as a result of she was sufficiently old to grasp it, to have actually considerate, curious questions and to have the ability to rejoice it.” After that, “she walked somewhat taller again into kindergarten,” Gerardi smiles.
Whereas Gerardi had full confidence within the security of her Galactic 05 flight, she felt compelled to arrange herself and her household for the inherent dangers related to house journey. She wrote 100 letters to be given to Delta within the tragic occasion that the mission didn’t go as deliberate. But, Gerardi stays unwavering in her pursuit of a profession that others would possibly deem too perilous. She firmly believes that when a mom lives as much as her full potential and aspirations, it might probably solely profit their household. Simply as importantly, she strives to set a constructive instance for her daughter. “If she needs to get married and have a baby, I don’t need her to really feel like her life will get capped at being pregnant,” she says. “That’s not when your potential ends. That’s not when your identification ends…. It must be filled with company and selection.”
Gerardi says whereas pangs of guilt are a actuality as a mom who misses the occasional milestone second at residence, remorse just isn’t. When she is away for prolonged intervals on account of skilled commitments, she is bound to spend some further time with Delta and her husband upon her return, saying, “There’s no given day or week the place my private {and professional} lives have been completely balanced on the size, however the years are—and I ensure that they’re.”
Extra large leaps forward
Followers of Gerardi’s, in contrast to these of many scientists and house explorers, have the distinctive benefit of getting a digital entrance seat to her adventures. She occurs to be a extremely prolific social media content material creator and influencer, with over 1.4 million followers on Instagram and approaching 1 million on TikTok. You’ll discover her singing alongside to the TikTok sound bites of the week, asking followers to assist her select an outfit for a particular occasion or strolling a runway at New York Style Week. She’s even documented her private, typically heartbreaking, struggles with secondary infertility and in vitro fertilization. It’s all a part of her mission to take away boundaries round science and open the sector of house to bizarre individuals. She says of her willingness to be authentically herself on-line, “I wished to simply guarantee I wasn’t by accident making an attempt to suit society’s picture of what somebody flying to house ought to seem like and as an alternative be part of forcing that picture to develop to incorporate me.”
And develop it’ll. In 2026, Gerardi will lead the primary all-female research-focused astronaut crew in historical past. Beside her will probably be Dr. Shawna Pandya, a Canadian astronaut and doctor, and Norah Patten, Ph.D., Eire’s first astronaut. The mission, as soon as once more aboard a Virgin Galactic craft, will construct upon the analysis performed throughout Gerardi’s final flight and can add a number of experiments referring to ladies’s well being.
In preparation, Gerardi continues to work along with her crew, refining their scientific aims and coaching for the bodily calls for of microgravity. She notes that the high-stakes environments in house coaching have helped form a lot of her values as a leader, together with constructing rock-solid belief among the many crew. “You actually should preserve eyes and ears and hearts on one another,” she says. She leans on a mix of “humility and confidence” to assist construct that belief, saying, “Folks wish to work with somebody that they know has their again, however may also maintain them accountable.”
Above all, Gerardi is steadfast in her dedication to opening house science to wider audiences. “I feel that our subsequent large leap as a species goes to require the skills of so many alternative talent units and so many alternative slices of innovation in society.” she says. “Area is our shared previous and our shared future.”
This text initially appeared within the Could 2025 issue of SUCCESS+ digital magazine.
Picture courtesy of ©Emily Farthington
