Dr Meganne Christian

My name is Meganne Christian. I live near Oxford in the UK and I am a member of the European Space Agency Astronaut Reserve and Senior Exploration Manager Commercial at the UK Space Agency.

My work is really varied, so I don't have something that I spend most of my time doing.

Part of my time I spend at the European Astronaut Centre doing astronaut training. Part of my time I spend doing outreach, so speaking to students, speaking at public events to try and inspire people into enjoying doing subjects like science and engineering and maybe get into the space sector one day.

And part of my job I also spend developing the future of human exploration in space. So what comes after the International Space Station? How do we continue to do the kind of research that we're doing now in orbit when the International Space Station is no longer around, but there are other kinds of space stations.

A typical day depends on where I am at the time. If I'm at the European Astronaut Centre during training, I might be in the classroom for a couple of hours learning about aerospace engineering. Then I might go and go to the gym, spend some time training, have lunch. Then after lunch, there might be another hour in the classroom, space law, for example.

And then I might be in the neutral buoyancy facility. So swimming in this, well, diving in this very large pool that we have, it's 10 metres deep, because it's the best way that we have to simulate what you'd be doing on an extravehicular activity or a spacewalk, because you use the buoyancy of water to imagine that you're in weightlessness.

When I'm in training, I work with the other astronaut reserves. There are 17 astronauts in my class from around Europe and eight of us are doing this training at the moment. So we work really closely together, learning new things. We work with the training team that are helping us out.

We also work with external teachers that come in and teach us. When I'm back here in the UK, I'm working with my colleagues at the UK Space Agency. So people like policy advisors, technical advisors, and we're all working together to kind of work out what's happening now, work out the direction that we should go in and we spend a lot of time doing meetings and working together on that.

The best thing about my job is that maybe I'll get to go to space one day. I think that's pretty cool. It's also a little bit tough because there are no guarantees for me as a member of the reserve. But there are lots of things that lead into that.

So yes, okay, so there are no guarantees, but in the meantime, I get to train and training is really exciting and varied as I mentioned before. So I love that huge range of activities that I get to do as part of my work.

The hardest part about my job is the uncertainty. I don't know if and when I'm going to be assigned a mission. So in the meantime, I have to work really hard on the training, but also develop my own career at the same time.

Because, you know, astronauts don't spend very much time in space. It's just a very small amount of time. And outside of that, especially as a member of the reserve, we have our own careers. So we have to work out how to develop that career and balance it with the training that we're doing as well.

I was definitely fascinated by space when I was in primary school and we first started learning about the stars and planets and things like that, but I didn't actually think of astronaut as a possible job for me.

I knew I loved science and maths and problem solving, so I ended up doing a degree in engineering in industrial chemistry. And from there I went on and did a PhD. I was working on nanomaterials for alternative energy applications. So still nothing to do with space.

But then I went to Italy, I moved to Italy to do a postdoc, continue my research career. And I was there for nine years, actually, working on a material called graphene for lots of different applications. And one of them had something to do with space.

So I was using this material that I was making for cooling devices and satellites. So I got to go on a parabolic flight. I got to experience weightlessness while I was testing my materials. So that was part of it.

And the other part was that I spent a year in Antarctica doing climate change research. And this was completely outside of my comfort zone. It was completely outside of any work that I had done before.

It was an amazing, extreme environment, really inspiring, and I loved it. I loved that steep learning curve that I had to develop the kind of skills that I needed to work there. And so I learned a lot about myself. I was inspired by the environment.

And actually the work that you do in Antarctica is quite similar to the work that astronauts do on the International Space Station. So it seems like the next logical step.

So a couple of years later, when for the first time in 13 years, the European Space Agency opened applications for astronauts, I applied and somehow made it through to the end.

My education was, I really enjoyed school. So at high school, I did quite a range of subjects and I was one of those people that kind of changed my mind every day about what I wanted to do with my life.

So I did subjects ranging between languages, maths and science and English. So, you know, right up to the end of my schooling, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But I knew that I loved science and I wanted to know more about the world.

And I was involved in some extracurricular activities as part of my school, in particular one called Future Problem Solving. And so that really helped me to learn how to, in a structured way, solve problems. And that was perfect for engineering.

So then when I got to uni and I started doing engineering, I think that problem solving background really helped and it was developed even further when I was at uni.

And I think one of the special things about my education was that I did get to do all these extracurricular activities as well. So when I was at university, not only was I doing my coursework, I was doing some industrial training placements and I was also doing a whole lot of clubs activities.

So I would spend time in the theatre on stage and backstage. I would do a lot of singing and also some volunteer programs helping to welcome new people onto campus. And so I think it was that really, again, that really varied sort of well-rounded experience that I got that then helped me when I eventually applied to become an astronaut.

My job is very forward-looking. We're looking into the future of what the human race is going to do. I mean, exploration is fundamental to the curiosity of humans. We want to know more about the world. And I think it's inevitable that we will keep exploring as far as we can go. And I get to shape that a little bit.

I get to help decide where we're going next and how we do that exploration. And something that's really important to me is that we do that sustainably.

So the fact that what we have in space is so important to help us monitor the status of Earth. So climate change, for example, it's most of the monitoring that we do for climate change is done from space, but also the fact that we have to use space sustainably.

So for example, there are a lot of, there's a lot of space junk or space debris in our orbits. And so we have to make sure that we're not going to make that worse. And I'm lucky enough to be able to be a part of improving that for the future.

When I was in Antarctica, there were so many memorable moments, but there is one that really stands out. So I was right in the middle of Antarctica. We were at high altitude at 3,200 metres, but the air is thinner at the poles. So it's like being at 4,000 metres at our latitudes. And so it's hard work just breathing and, you know, climbing stairs, doing a bit of activity.

And there was this one particular tower that I had to go out to once per week. It was about two thirds of a mile away from the base, so you had to walk out to it. And it's 45 metres high. I had to climb it and clean all the meteorological instruments that were on board and then come back down again and come back to the base.

So being at high altitude, that was quite hard work and it was probably the toughest part of the week. I had to do this on a weekly basis and we had 100 days of darkness. So 100 days where the sun didn't rise. So I was doing this in the dark. So like I said, it was tough.

But it was also the best part of the week because my colleague and I did this together as we were walking to and from this instrument tower. We would take our headlamps off and just let our eyes adjust to the darkness. And then we would look up at the stars and it was absolutely incredible.

It was like being inside a blanket of stars and we saw so many shooting stars. And if it was a moonless day, we could then look down and see our shadow in the light of the Milky Way. That's how bright the stars were. So that was incredibly inspiring and I will never forget it.

It's not easy to balance work with the rest of my life. And I think that's true of everybody. It's not unique to a career and being an astronaut or being a policy advisor in the UK Space Agency. It's really something that everybody encounters.

And I balance it by really enjoying a whole range of hobbies as well as my work life. And those hobbies can be completely different from what I'm doing with my work.

So for example, I love to create things. I love to knit and sew and crochet. And that's what I do to wind down. And that really helps me balance it out.

I also do a lot of singing. So I sing with a choir. And again, this is completely different from my normal life. So it really allows me to balance anything that might be happening with work.

And then I have kind of adventure sport hobbies as well, which I just really enjoy doing, but they're also in a way helping me in a potential astronaut career.

For example, one of my favourite activities is scuba diving. And as I mentioned before, we scuba dive in the neutral buoyancy facility to practice for spacewalks. And so my scuba diving hobby actually helps me in my work.

So I have a combination of hobbies that some of them really balance perfectly what I'm doing with work because they're completely different. And some of them actually help me with my work too.

When I was in my last couple of years of school, I was quite worried about what subjects I should choose and then what degree I should choose going into university because I thought it would trap me into doing that for the rest of my life. And what if I made the wrong decision?

So I wish somebody had told me that it really didn't matter. You just have to choose what you love at the time, follow that and then things happen, things change. I never thought that I was going to get to go to Antarctica or become an astronaut.

But the key was that I followed what I really enjoyed doing. I got to a good level at that, but at the same time I was listening out for interesting opportunities. And when interesting opportunities came up, like the Antarctica one, for example, I had to be brave enough to take them. And I think that is key. You're not trapped into a particular career path.

In fact, I think it's very rare that you'll end up doing exactly what you decide to do when you're really young, you know, when you're 16, 17, 18 years old. And so don't be afraid of that. And I wish somebody had told me.