Looking at Earth from aboard the spacecraft New Shepard, Emily Calandrelli realized the dream she had since her days studying mechanical and aerospace engineering at West Virginia University.
“It’s something that I’ve dreamt about and hoped for decades, and it’s something I feel like I’ve worked quite hard to achieve, to get there,” said Calandrelli, a Morgantown native. “And so when I was finally up there, the feeling that I had was like, like, ‘I did it. I got here. This is it. I finally got here. I did it.’”
Calandrelli was one of six crew members who took the 11-minute journey through the private flight company Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos. The flight started and ended from a launch site in West Texas.
The journey made Calandrelli the 100th woman in space and the second from West Virginia. Besides Calandrelli, the New Shepard crew on Friday also included West Virginia native Sharon Hagle, the founder of SpaceKids Global. Hagle has traveled to space before.
Blue Origin’s NS-28 Crew (back row, left to right): Sharon Hagle, Austin Litteral, J.D. Russell, (front row, left to right) Marc Hagle, Emily Calandrelli and Hank Wolfond. (Blue Origin photo)
A video from the trip shared to social media shows Calandrelli staring out the window at the planet in awe.
“That’s our planet,” she says. “Oh my goodness — space.”
She described the feeling on Monday as “surreal.”
“I was upside down at the window, so my feet were on the ceiling, and my head was at the bottom of the window,” she told West Virginia Watch. “So my feet were in space, and above me was the Earth, which was a really fun perspective to show that I was off planet. Because, my feet were far away from the Earth, and above me was the planet.
“I felt truly away from home in that moment,” she said. “It was just a completely out-of-body, surreal experience.”
Calandrelli is an MIT engineer, science TV show host and the author of nine children’s science books. She’s known as @thespacegal to her many followers on social media.
Calandrelli said her dreams of space travel started while earning her degree at WVU.
“I didn’t really see myself in the world of science and space when I was a kid, so I didn’t dream too much about this when I was a kid,” she said. “But when I was in engineering at West Virginia University, I started learning more about the space industry.
“I was also a Disney fanatic. I worked at Disney, I wanted to become an Imagineer,” she said. “I think that I’m the type of person that believes in fairy tales and loves big, bold dreams. I’m a dreamer, I think is the way that I would describe myself. So the Disney movies worked on me.”
Calandrelli’s flight to space was sponsored, in part, due to a partnership between Alys and Brad D. Smith’s Wing 2 Wing Foundation, which promotes accessible education and entrepreneurism. She raised funds for the flight.
Brad Smith is president of Marshall University, and as part of their partnership, Calandrelli promoted the Marshall for All, Marshall Forever Program. The program allows students to graduate Marshall with a bachelor’s degree and relevant work experiences without student debt.
“I’ve been really proud to learn more about Marshall, especially their aviation program,” she said. “They’re just pumping out the next generation of aviators, pilots and potentially future astronauts at Marshall. It’s a really incredible program that I’ve seen up close and been able to fly with myself.”
Calandrelli has also used the media spotlight from the space flight to shine a light on West Virginia. She did that by partnering with local businesses, from the West Virginian who designed the dress she wore to New York Fashion Week to the jewelry she wore to space.
She also used the spotlight to help raise nearly $40,000 for the Children’s Home Society of West Virginia, an organization that helps children find homes through foster care and adoption.
Of that amount, she raised $33,000 with a GoFundMe and another $5,000 with cameos she made during the duration of the space flight.
“I know [West Virginia Watch reporter] Amelia [Knisely] has covered this issue very extensively. She’s illustrated quite well how important this crisis is in West Virginia,” Calandrelli said. “And that reporting is really the reason I chose this issue to highlight. And the GoFundMe exceeded my expectations.”
Calandrelli said she looks forward to talking about her experience in space to students across West Virginia. While Calandrelli lives in California now, she gets back to the Mountain State several times a year to speak with schools and meet with people here, she said.
“I’m excited to just find a way to reach as many West Virginia kids as possible,” she said. “So definitely, the rest of the year is pretty busy, but next year I’ll get to work on expanding the number of talks, the number of Zoom calls, the number of virtual calls that I can do with West Virginia kids, especially.”
When she talks to kids, Calandrelli said she tells her story honestly because it’s relatable, especially to kids growing up in West Virginia.
“I didn’t see myself in these fields either,” Calandrelli said. “I didn’t know any scientists or engineers. I didn’t have anyone special in my life who helped show me the way. I sort of scraped and crawled my way through it without a lot of support or guidance.”
She said she got into engineering so she could find a job that allows her to be financially stable. Engineering and STEM jobs do that, she said.
“I was sort of expecting that those jobs would also just be really boring, but like that was the trade off,” she said. “You have a good job, but you hate your life. But when I got there, I was like, ‘Wait, this is — I’m having a lot of fun. This is adventurous. And yes, it’s hard, but it’s also joyful and rewarding.’”
