Sophie is in space
Sophie Adenot launched to the ISS last week. I taught her Human Factors in 2023, along with her ESA astronaut classmates, nicknamed 'The Hoppers'.
When I saw she'd named her mission Epsilon "small but impactful" it made me think about the small but impactful role I had played in her Basic Training. The Human Factors course was one of many courses the astronauts need to complete in a year just to pass their Basic Training. Sophie would then have had mission specific training, and train alongside her crew mates, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev.
The Human Factors course came right at the start of the astronauts Basic Training. They had only been in training for a few months when I met them. Most of them had barely heard of Human Factors, so my job was to show them why it mattered for high-stakes decision-making in space.
Sophie was different. She already had a Masters in Human Factors Engineering from MIT! Her Master’s thesis was to investigate how the vestibular system adapts to artificial gravity in order to design a centrifuge training for astronauts. Sophie then went on to do military training and became a helicopter test pilot. I found her intimidating when I first met her, and joked during our introductions that first afternoon we had together, that she should be at the front of the classroom teaching us.
As the training progressed, I brought Sophie into the discussions, asking her to give examples from her time as a helicopter test pilot, bringing her experience and application of Human Factors to life.
I remember one lunch conversation where she joked that if the astronaut business didn't work out, she'd love to come and teach Human Factors with me. I laughed, but I was secretly pleased that she still saw so much value in the work we were doing together.
It's strange to think of her up there now, 400km above earth. I wonder what small but impactful ways that training might show up in her Epsilon mission.
