016 - Jasleen Kaur, India

This week on Aspiring Martians, I talk with Jasleen Kaur, an aerospace engineer and PhD candidate at Texas A&M University. Originally from Kurukshetra, India—the hometown of the Kalpana Chawla Planetarium and just a stone's throw away from where she grew up to later become India’s first woman in space—Jasleen was drawn to the stars early on. After placing second in NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge in 2015, she went on to found the Society for Aspiring Astronauts to mentor and guide the next generation of space explorers. And if there's a word we absolutely love, it's aspiring!

In this episode, we talk about space debris landing in her backyard, being inspired by birds and big flying machines, what it means to find comfort in yourself, how a well-rounded Martian might need to know a thing or two about gardening, maintenance, and plumbing, and how she’s using mixed reality to train future space explorers for the unknowns ahead.

A huge thank you to Jasleen Kaur for sharing her story today, to Nick Thorburn for our stellar theme music, to Ceci Giglio for the incredible graphics, to RDan, Leila, Inka, and Carl for admining the Facebook group, and to my family for always supporting this wild Martian journey.