Last week, the young astronaut Karsen Kitchen 21, made headlines by becoming the youngest woman to go into space after crossing the Kármán line — which is 100 km above sea level and is recognized as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space.
Karsen Kitchen was among the six people who were part of the eighth manned flight of the company Blue Originfounded by Jeff Bezos, last Thursday (29). The flight was launched in Texas, United States, around 10 am and the crew returned around 10:18 am.
Karsen Kitchen is a student at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, United States. She is in her final year of undergraduate studies and is majoring in communications with a minor in astronomy.
Karsen was an intern at Blue Origin and worked at UNC’s Morehead Planetarium. In 2024, Karsen founded a new initiative called Orbitelle to encourage more women to pursue careers in the space industry. She has also worked as a radio astronomy researcher at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
In an interview with ABC News, Karsen said she had always dreamed of going to space. “I have so many memories of being younger, going out and looking at the sky. I would go in and say, ‘Guys, I want to be an astronaut.’ I feel so grateful and it feels unreal. I still feel like I haven’t really processed it all. I’m doing this for all the young girls out there who think they can’t do it. Who think they can’t have a job in space. I want to inspire as many people as I can.”
Karsen posts more of her routine on social media. On her Instagram profile, the young woman shows her life working in the field, as well as her routine with friends.
Although the Karman line is a scientifically accepted boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space, NASA (the US space agency) considers anyone who goes above 50 miles (about 80 km) to be an astronaut. Using this definition, the youngest woman to go into space is Anastatia Mayers, who took part in a Virgin Galactic flight in August 2023. Mayers was 18 when she made the trip.
This content was originally published in Meet Karsen Kitchen, the youngest woman to go to space on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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