Meet Anil Menon, the Indian-origin doctor picked by NASA for future missions
NASA has picked Indian-origin physician Anil Menon, a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force, along with nine others, to be astronauts for future missions, according to the American space agency.
"We're going back to the Moon, and we're continuing on to Mars -- and so today we welcome 10 new explorers,"
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said at an event to welcome the recruits.
"Alone, each candidate has 'the right stuff,' but together they represent the creed of our country: E pluribus unum - out of many, one," he added.
The class of 2021 has been chosen from a pool of over 12,000 applications. They will get two years of training at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, after reporting for service in January.
The ten candidates, who vary in age from 32 to 45, will study how to run and maintain the International Space Station.
After graduation, they could be sent to missions on the International Orbit Station or further into space. Such as NASA's planned return to the Moon later this decade as part of the Artemis mission. Which will also include the first woman and person of color to walk on lunar soil.
Who is Anil Menon?
Anil Menon, 45, was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants.
- He is a Harvard University Neurobiology graduate (1995).
- He travelled to India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Fellow at JNU (1999-2001), despite having finished his study at numerous colleges in the United States.
- Anil Menon received his MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and his MD from Stanford Medical School.(2000-2006)
- He has degrees in Aerospace Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Public Health, and Wilderness Medicine, among others.
- He is an emergency medicine physician who has accomplished fellowships in wilderness and aerospace medicine.
- Menon was a first responder during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2015 Nepal earthquake, and the 2011 Reno Air Show disaster as a physician.
- He served in the Air Force as a flight surgeon with the 45th Space Wing and the 173rd Fighter Wing.
- There he flew over 100 sorties in the F-15 fighter jet and carried over 100 patients as a member of the critical care air transport team.
Mr. Menon served as SpaceX's first flight surgeon. He also assisted in the launch of the company's first humans into space on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission. He has also established a medical organisation to support the human system on future missions.
Menon has worked for NASA as a crew flight surgeon on a number of expeditions to the International Space Station.
