PORTLAND, Maine — Astronaut and Caribou native Jessica Meir is set to go into space three weeks from Wednesday.
She's a psychologist who will be working primarily on experiments, dealing with the performance of the human body during long-term space exploration.
NEWS CENTER Maine's Bill Green asked Meir on Wednesday how she would control her excitement so she could perform her duties in space.
"I am extremely excited. As you know, this is something I've been dreaming about my entire life," Meir said. "I think one of the ways we keep it in check is just through the impeccable training that we've received over the past six years now, both in Houston, all over NASA, and here in Russia as well. We really go back to all that training and all of those procedures, and then I think that helps us maintain that professionalism and that understanding of how to get the job done."
Meir was born in Caribou and graduated from Caribou Public Schools before heading off to Brown University, eventually earning a doctorate in marine biology from the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
She was selected as an astronaut in 2013 and began training for this mission, Expedition 61, 18 months ago.
Meir is scheduled to blast off from Kazakhstan on Sept. 25 and return to Earth about six months later in March.
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