From high school band to the moon: A cosmic perspective on history.

I'm an engineer and astronaut, and part of the reason why Earthlight is called Earthlight. I live here in Gig Harbor, Washington, outside Seattle, where my growing family keeps me grounded. I have a background in smart buildings and in aerospace avionics testing, and I tend to speak publicly about Inspiration 4 and my trip to space and the future of human spaceflight.

It's still kind of crazy to me that we just saw the Artemis II mission go around the moon — and the first woman to have traveled to the moon was in my high school band class with me. Christina Cook and I graduated from the same high school.

It's inspiring now to see so many people getting the chance to see the Earth in a whole new way. It makes this mission more deeply personal and a constant reminder of why space inspiration matters.