Jayhawk astronaut stays grounded while orbiting Earth

By ZAC SUMMERS

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    KANSAS CITY, MIssouri (KCTV) — Hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface, a University of Kansas graduate is making history.

In September 2023, Loral O’Hara became the fourth Jayhawk to fly in space. She’s currently onboard the International Space Station (ISS) with six other astronauts, circling the Earth at nearly 18,000 miles per hour.

“It’s amazing up here,” O’Hara told KCTV5 anchor Zac Summers during an interview from space. “I was always interested in exploration, exploring new places.”

O’Hara dreamed of becoming an astronaut at a young age. She grew up in Houston where NASA’s Johnson Space Center is located. The 40-year-old vividly remembers the moment she first saw Earth from orbit.

“I looked out and suddenly it was like Earth in my face, as far as I could see,” O’Hara recalled. “Just these brilliant blues, browns and greens and whites. It was just one of the most beautiful things I had seen.”

O’Hara’s prime mission, alongside the rest of the ISS crew, is science and technology. They’re responsible for dozens of research experiments, sustaining communications and space station maintenance — skills O’Hara partly honed while working on a research vessel at sea prior to NASA.

“In both cases, you’re in a relatively remote environment,” O’Hara said. “So, you only have the tools and equipment you have onboard your ship to solve problems.”

O’Hara’s time in space is special for many reasons including sharing the experience with fellow astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli. The two women started training with NASA in 2017.

“Flying with any of my classmates would have been awesome, but it’s been super fun being up here with Loral,” Moghbeli said.

In November, O’Hara and Moghbeli conducted their first spacewalk together, spending nearly seven hours outside the spacecraft. It’s the 4th all-female spacewalk in history.

“Getting to go outside and do something like a spacewalk, which is one of the riskiest and most demanding things we do — physically and mentally – getting to do it with someone who’s a close friend and has been there through all the ups and downs of the last seven years was really special,” O’Hara said.

Dr. Rick Hale is chair of the aerospace engineering department at KU. It makes him proud to see a former student reach their dreams. He remembers O’Hara, who graduated in 2006, as a focused and goal-oriented student.

“She told me she was going to be an astronaut when she started as a freshman, very engaged, good student, particularly in team activities,” Hale said.

At Learned Hall, where O’Hara spent many late nights in the lab, a banner reads “Ad astra…” – to the stars — with an image of her onboard the ISS.

“That’s the value she adds for inspiration to our students because students can see you can achieve great goals if you stay focused,” Hale added.

O’Hara said her time at KU is what ultimately launched her into orbit nearly twenty years later.

“I went up there the summer before starting college, visited Lawrence and the aerospace engineering department, and just fell in love with the department and town,” O’Hara said. “I had an amazing time, lots of good memories, late nights in the aerospace design lab with my class as a junior and senior.”

O’Hara said the most fascinating thing about being in space is how quickly the brain adapts to the environment. One of her favorite parts is experiencing microgravity or weightlessness.

“We thought it would get old quick and it definitely hasn’t,” O’Hara said. “It’s still a lot of fun to float through a module kind of doing flips.”

To aspiring astronauts, O’Hara said to “keep going, even when faced with failure.”

“Figure out what you’re passionate about and do that,” she added. “Do things that challenge you. That’s when you have the most growth.”

In other words, shoot for the stars!

O’Hara is expected to return to Earth in late March or early April. She said she’s looking forward to “real showers,” running water, being in nature and cold weather.

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