Aspiring Martians

Carlota Keimer originally applied to spend time at a Mars analog in the Utah desert.
Then the mission moved considerably farther north.
This week on Aspiring Martians, I’m joined by Carlota Keimer, a mechanical and aerospace engineer, pilot trainee, science communicator, and backup engineer for Hypatia III, the next mission from the Hypatia Mars Association.
Hypatia III is now preparing to conduct its mission at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, or FMARS, on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic, one of the most remote Mars analog environments on Earth.
Carlota’s path to the Arctic has already taken her through an unusually wide range of space experiences. She studied mechanical engineering in Spain before pursuing aerospace engineering at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, worked on satellite projects, completed ESA’s Clean Space Training, and has worked testing ESA’s ALTIUS satellite mission.
Her fascination with building things for space started even earlier, when she helped construct a homemade probe as a teenager and sent it roughly 35 kilometers into the stratosphere.
Now that curiosity has expanded into satellite operations, sustainable spacecraft design, parabolic flight, human spaceflight research, and Mars analog exploration.
We talk about Hypatia III’s move from Utah to the Arctic, what it means to prepare for FMARS, the importance of crew relationships and mentorship, the challenge of making spaceflight more sustainable, and Carlota’s growing role in helping younger students see themselves in STEM.
Because exploration is not always about knowing exactly where you are going.
Sometimes it is about being willing to take the next step anyway.
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A huge thank you to Carlota for taking the time to join me today and for sharing her journey, perspective, and curiosity. And of course, thank you to Nick Thorburn for the stellar theme music, Ceci Giglio for the incredible graphics, Jero Squartini for the amazing animations, to RDan, Leila, Inka, and Carl for admining the Facebook group, and to my family for supporting this project.
Follow Hypatia: https://hypatiamars.com/en/

This week on Aspiring Martians, I’m joined by Dr. Eiman Jahangir, a cardiologist, author, speaker, and astronaut whose new book, A Heart for Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible, traces the winding path between two lifelong ambitions.
Eiman was born in Iran and came to the United States as a young child. After visiting the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville at age six, the idea of going to space took hold.
Medicine eventually became the path he could see clearly. He built a career as a physician and cardiologist, working with patients through some of the most difficult moments of their lives.
But the astronaut dream never disappeared.
After years of applications, rejections, near misses, and persistence, Eiman flew aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard in August 2024 and became the 704th person to travel to space.
In this conversation, we talk about childhood dreams, medicine, mortality, rejection, resilience, family, what it feels like to finally reach space, and the surprisingly complicated question of what comes next once the thing you have spent decades chasing is no longer a dream.
We also talk about the story behind A Heart for Space, and why Eiman’s journey is ultimately less about one rocket flight and more about knowing when to pivot, when to persist, and how to keep building a meaningful life while pursuing something that may never happen.
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Go buy his new book and read it until you become an astronaut yourself!
https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Space-Astronauts-Achieving-Impossible/dp/1637635966
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A huge thank you to Eiman for taking the time to join me today and for sharing his journey, perspective, and dreams for space. And of course, thank you to Nick Thorburn for the stellar theme music, Ceci Giglio for the incredible graphics, Jero Squartini for the amazing animations, to RDan, Leila, Inka, and Carl for admining the Facebook group, and to my family for supporting this project.

This week on Aspiring Martians, I’m joined by Dr. Alexandra Kemp, aka The Singing Space Traveler, an aerospace human-factors engineer, bioastronautics researcher, educator, opera singer, NASA Solar System Ambassador and aspiring commercial astronaut.
Alex currently works as an Advanced Human Factors Systems Engineer at Honeywell Aerospace Technologies, where she helps tackle a deceptively complicated problem: how do we design aircraft and aerospace systems around the actual humans who have to use them?
Because a system can work perfectly according to the mathematics, physics and engineering and still fail if it does not work for the person sitting in front of it.
Alex’s path into aerospace has been anything but conventional. She began in communications and classical vocal performance, spent eight summers attending Space Camp, later earned a master’s in aeronautics and space studies, and eventually completed a PhD at Purdue University focused on aerospace human factors.
We talk about the surprising similarities between opera and engineering, what human-factors engineers actually do, why mentorship and representation matter in aerospace, and how Alex’s lifelong interest in human spaceflight has evolved into research conducted in microgravity.
That includes a deeply personal project examining ways to potentially reduce blood-clot risk during spaceflight, an area of research Alex pursued after losing her mother to pulmonary embolism. Her work now uses parabolic flight, ultrasound and wearable technology to investigate how humans might be protected during future missions.
It is a conversation about engineering, performance, curiosity, loss, mentorship and what happens when seemingly unrelated parts of a life eventually begin fitting together.
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A huge thank you to Alex for taking the time to join me today and for sharing her journey, curiosity, and perspective. And of course, thank you to Nick Thorburn for the stellar theme music, Ceci Giglio for the incredible graphics, Jero Squartini for the amazing animations, to RDan, Leila, Inka, and Carl for admining the Facebook group, and to my family for supporting this project, even when I start wondering whether our future Mars settlements are going to need an opera house before they need a second grocery store.

This week on Inside the Habitat, Aspiring Martians takes a closer look at SOLIS100, a European Space Agency isolation study conducted by the German Aerospace Center at its :envihab aerospace medicine research facility in Cologne.
SOLIS100, short for Study of Long-term Isolation, placed six carefully selected participants from six European countries into a closed, controlled environment for 100 days. The goal was not to recreate one specific Mars mission, but to better understand how prolonged isolation, confinement, limited resources and restricted social contact affect human health, behavior, performance and team dynamics during future deep-space missions.
The study builds directly on SOLIS8, an eight-day pilot conducted in 2025 that tested the facility, equipment, procedures and protocols that would later be used for the full 100-day campaign.
During SOLIS100, the crew followed tightly controlled schedules, conducted scientific research, exercised daily, maintained their living environment and worked with limited resources while researchers gathered data on areas including sleep, cognition, mood, physiology, microbiology and crew cohesion.
Joining the episode is Dr. Angelique Van Ombergen, ESA’s Chief Exploration Scientist. With a background in medical sciences and neuroscience, Angelique previously studied how astronauts’ brains adapt to spaceflight and now oversees scientific activities supporting human and robotic exploration from low Earth orbit to the Moon and eventually Mars.
Together, we explore why 100 days is scientifically useful, how isolation studies complement other spaceflight analogs, what ESA hopes to learn from crew dynamics and how this research may help shape the way future astronauts are selected, trained and supported.
Because the spacecraft may be complicated.
The humans inside it may be even more so.
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Check out our Inside the Habitat episode from last month which was recorded in person at NASA Johnson Space Center and covers CHAPEA, HERA, and the brand new upcoming combined mission MMEA: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-the-habitat-s-nasa-analogs/id1777937758?i=1000779833363
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A huge thank you to Angelique for taking the time to join me today and for sharing her knowledge, perspective, and insight into what it actually takes to prepare humans for life beyond Earth. And of course, thank you to Nick Thorburn for the stellar theme music, Ceci Giglio for the incredible graphics, Jero Squartini for the amazing animations, to RDan, Leila, Inka, and Carl for admining the Facebook group, and to my family for supporting this project, even when I start calculating how many days we might someday be able to knock off the family road trip to Mars.

Who owns your house on Mars?
What happens if somebody steals your solar panels?
Which laws apply if astronauts from several different countries are living together? And what happens when the first child is actually born there?
This month on our special Everyday Mars episode, space lawyer Michelle Hanlon joins Aspiring Martians to explore one of the strangest and most important questions surrounding humanity's future beyond Earth: how will law actually work on Mars?
Michelle is Executive Director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi, co-founder and president of For All Moonkind, founder of the Institute on Space Law and Ethics, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Space Law. She has addressed the United Nations, testified before Congress, and become known throughout the space community as the “Godmother of Space Law.”
Together, we begin with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the surprisingly short international agreement that still provides the foundation for what nations can and cannot do beyond Earth.
But the really interesting questions begin where the treaty becomes less clear.
Can an individual own property on Mars even if a nation cannot claim Martian territory? Can settlers exclude other people from their habitats? Who prosecutes theft? Which country is responsible when someone breaks the law? How do you regulate oxygen, water, privacy, safety, and working conditions when violating a rule could literally kill your neighbors?
Michelle also explains why Martian law may gradually develop from the bottom up. The earliest settlers will likely remain tethered to Earth and terrestrial legal systems, but their daily experiences could eventually create customs, norms, expectations, and ultimately laws unique to life on another planet.
We also discuss children born on Mars, human rights in space, SpaceX's declaration that Mars should be a “free planet,” whether the first Martian settlements will need constitutions, and Michelle's hope that space exploration could ultimately help humanity move beyond some of the national divisions that define life on Earth.
Because reaching Mars is only the beginning.
Once we arrive, we still have to figure out how to live together.
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All about Michelle: https://olemiss.edu/profiles/mlhanlon.php
For All Moonkind: https://www.forallmoonkind.org/
"Is the Speed of Law Faster than the Speed of Light: Considerations of the Impact of Special Relativity on the Operation of Law in the Context of Deep Space Missions": https://egrove.olemiss.edu/j_space_l/vol47/iss2/4/
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A huge thank you to Michelle for taking the time to join me today and for sharing her incredible journey, curiosity, and perspective. And of course, thank you to Nick Thorburn for the stellar theme music, Ceci Giglio for the incredible graphics, Jero Squartini for the amazing animations, to RDan, Leila, Inka, and Carl for admining the Facebook group, and to my family for supporting this project, even when I start wondering whether someday we’re going to need to remember to request our absentee ballots before leaving for Mars.