[imagesource: NASA]

Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor Jessica Meir (above) was named to NASA’s astronaut class in 2013.

A researcher in anaesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital, Meir, a scuba diver, a pilot, and an investigator into the effects of extreme environments on animal physiology, went through two years of extreme training before she got in line for her turn to head into space.

She’s only 43 by the way. Try not to think too hard about it.

Finally, in September 2019, she took her spot on a spacecraft and made her way to the International Space Station (ISS).

A few weeks later she and fellow astronaut Christina Koch exited the ISS to restore a controller regulating the batteries that store the station’s solar power. They also completed the first all-female spacewalk, landing them a spot on TIME’s list of the top 100 most influential people.

Meir stayed on the ISS for 205 days, during which time COVID-19 morphed from a few cases in China to a swiftly growing global pandemic.

Per The Guardian, she watched from space as it unfolded on Earth, before literally parachuting into the middle of the chaos.

Here’s her experience in her own words:

[source:guardian]