NASA-turned-SpaceX flight surgeon Anil Menon is among the 10 latest trainee astronauts who will join the 2021 class for NASA, as it plans the first human missions to the moon in more than 50 years.
Menon was chosen from among the more than 12,000 applicants for the mission.
Dr. Menon will now undergo two years of training starting January at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where they will be readied for spaceflight.
Born to Indian and Ukrainian parents and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Menon is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force and the first flight surgeon for Elon Musk’s SpaceX programme.
Menon has previously served as the crew flight surgeon for various expeditions to the International Space Station (ISS).
Menon is an actively practising emergency medicine physician as well, with fellowship training in wilderness and aerospace medicine. He was the first responder during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2015 earthquake in Nepal and the 2011 Reno Air Show accident, according to his profile on the Nasa website.
He graduated in neurobiology from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1999 and got his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from California’s Stanford University in 2004. He has a doctor of medicine as well from Stanford Medical School.
At Harvard, Menon studied neurobiology and conducted research on Huntington’s disease. He later spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to study and support Polio vaccination.
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