Christina Hammock Koch
is an American engineer and NASA astronaut of the class of 2013. She received
Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics, and a Master
of Science in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina School of Science and
Mathematics, North Carolina State University. She was born on 29 January
1979 (age 41 years), at Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States. She is
married to Robert Koch.
She participated in
Space missions: Expedition 61, Soyuz MS-13, Soyuz MS-12, Expedition 60,
Expedition 59.
Christina Koch is back on earth after 328 days,
having set a record for the longest single space flight by a woman. Her journey
and long stay will help us understand how the human body, especially a woman
reacts to prolonged stay in space. After coming home, Christina Koch had to get
used to watching just one sunrise and sunset a day instead of the 16 she
experienced daily while zipping around the Earth every 90 minutes at 17,500
miles per hour!
Christina Hammock Koch left Earth on March 14 last
year and returned on February 6 this year, having spent 328 days on the
International Space Station, the longest ever by a woman. She surpassed the
289-day record set by American astronaut Peggy Whitson. Koch was selected by
NASA in 2013. She was assigned to her first flight in 2018.
She grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina State
University with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and physics and
a Master of Science in electrical engineering. Koch enjoys backpacking, rock
climbing, paddling, surfing, running, yoga, community service, photography and
travel. Before becoming an astronaut, her career spanned space science
instrument development and remote scientific field engineering.
Koch is an electrical engineer and started her
career in NASA’s lab for high energy astrophysics, where she contributed to
scientific instruments for several of the US space agency’s missions. She has
also worked in several remote scientific bases, including in research stations
at South Pole, Greenland, Alaska and Samoa. She was selected to train as an
astronaut in 2013.
In space she faced various challenges, some routine
and regular things we do, and take for granted on Earth. In space, she missed a
fork and knife; eating steak or pasta out of the packet with a spoon, and
sometimes injecting coconut oil into her coffee just to mix things up. Taking a
hot shower with the water running off her finger tips, she had forgotten. For
eleven months, she had been using a rehydrated towel containing soap, a
no-rinse shampoo, and a towel to dry off with. Despite these challenges, when
NASA extended Koch’s mission shortly after she was launched to space on March
14, 2019, she said – it was awesome.
While on ISS, she conducted micro-gravity
experiments. She did botany studies to understand the role of gravity on plant
biology and grew Mizuna mustard greens. She worked on a set of experiments to
study the behavior of fire in space. She also worked on kidney cells,
investigating innovative treatments for kidney stones, osteoporosis and toxic
chemical exposure. But the biggest science experiment was perhaps herself. With
NASA planning to take another go at lunar landing and deep-space exploration
missions to Mars, it becomes crucial to understand how the human body reacts to
a prolonged stay in space.
Koch and her other colleagues who have stayed in
ISS for extended periods, will help broaden NASA’s understanding of the effect
gravitation fields, space radiation, and distance from Earth on humans. Their
stay will also help answer questions about the effects of isolation and
consuming a diet high in freeze-dried food. Koch will particularly provide an
understanding of whether the effects on women are any different from those on
men.
Once on Earth, she had to relearn how to walk. ‘On
Earth, we rely on our eyes and inner ear to maintain stability. In orbit,
without gravity pulling down, the mind quickly stops listening to the inner
ear. The eyes take over. They rely on visual solely on visual cues’ she told
NASA. Koch was the part of the first all-woman spacewalk in October last year.
MyPost
Spread the culture of Happiness everywhere!
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Spread the culture of Happiness everywhere!
Proud moment, Rita Rao, Chief Happiness Officer of AlMansoori
Specialized Engineering, Abu Dhabi, UAE, receiving the prestigious
Award among 51 Global Happiness Leaders at the
World Happiness
Congress 2020 on Feb at Taj Lands End, Mumbai.
Can all the
nuclear bombs wipe out humanity?
It’s always said a nuclear war will wipe out
humanity and will bring about the end of this world. Nothing that humans do
will wipe out humanity off the face of
Earth, writes American astronomer Seth Shostak in Quartz. Even if all the
nuclear powers used all their bombs together, billions of us would survive.
10,000 is the approximate number of nuclear weapons
in the world at present and 7.5 billion is the current human population. The
worst-case scenario will be 1.6 billion deaths. 6 billion will survive, roughly
equal to the world population in 1999.
Cigarette deaths – 1 billion
All know cigarettes are harmful to health. But many are not aware about
the serious harmful effects and death brought about due to smoking. Medical
historian Allan Brandt predicts that by the end of this century, cigarettes
would have killed 100 crore people.
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| Mangalore, popular tourist spot with Goa to the North & Kerala to the South |
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