“I’m ready,” said Alyssa Carson, a now-17-year-old astronaut-in-training from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We were in Universal’s Islands of Adventure, a theme park in Orlando, Florida, standing in the entrance of The Incredible Hulk. It’s a rollercoaster that accelerates up to 67 miles per hour in 2 seconds and travels upside down seven times. I hadn’t eaten for hours in anticipation, but Alyssa was inhaling an ice cream sundae. “Do you want to wait until you’ve digested that?” I asked. “Nah,” she responded in her southern drawl. “Let’s go.”
For her, after all, riding the most aggressive rollercoaster in the park is not a big deal. If all goes according to her plans, NASA will send her to Mars in 2033, making her the first human to step foot on the planet. She will spend two to three years colonizing it, growing food, performing science experiments, searching for signs of life. “The Martian is actually very accurate,” she said. “A lot of the things that happened in the movie are similar to what is going to happen.” She’s dedicated her entire life to preparing for this journey.
Her obsession with space started when she was 3 years old and watched a cartoon called The Backyardigans. Five animal pals go on imaginary adventures in their backyard including in one episode, a mission to Mars. “I thought, ‘This red planet is so cool’” she said. “I started watching videos of rovers landing on Mars. I had a gigantic map of Mars in my room I would look at. We started getting telescopes so we could look at space.”
At 7 her father took her to space camp in Huntsville, Alabama. “That was the weekend of my life,” she said. “I got to learn everything I had been wanting to know and more… I got to see a life-size rocket.” She cherished it so much, she returned 18 times. At the age of 12 she became the first person in history to attend all three NASA space camps in Huntsville, Alabama; Quebec, Canada; and Izmir, Turksey.
At first she mastered the basics of space and how humans have explored it throughout time. As she got older she simulated missions, tumbling out of control or trying to reach a destination in gravity-free, weightless zones. She took over mission control, telling her peers what to do. She mastered robotics and built her own rockets. She was even given an official call sign, a nickname used by mission control when talking to their talent. “Mine was Blueberry,” she said. “I didn’t have much say in the name. It just stuck.”
When she was 9 she met NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus. The veteran explorer told her she was her age when she decided to go to space. At that moment Alyssa knew her love of space was not a passing hobby. “I did the same thing as other kids, like switching my mind about careers, wanting to be a teacher or the president one day,” she said. “But the way I always thought about it was I would become an astronaut, go to Mars, come back, and then be a teacher or the president.”
NASA won’t officially let anyone apply to become an astronaut until they turn 18. But the organization is working with her to make sure she has a strong chance of succeeding when the time comes. They know they have the perfect candidate on their hands to land in Mars; she will be 32, an ideal age for an astronaut, when the technology and machines are ready in 2033.
She says other groups from SpaceX to MarsOne are considering sending her into space, although not to Mars, much earlier. “If we can find a mission for her in the next two years, she will be the first kid in the world to go to space,” said her father Bert Carson, who travels with her everywhere, beaming as she tells her story. “If we can get it together before she’s 20, she’ll be the first teenager.”
Alyssa takes weeks off from school — she attends an IB program and learns subjects in four languages — to do trainings around the world. She recently completed one that taught her about microgravity; another helped her understand how her body reacts to losing oxygen. In April she’s undergoing an underwater course. “I’m building my resume,” she said. “Sometimes coming back to high school can be boring compared to this.”
Alyssa knows she isn’t a regular teenager anyway. While other kids her age are looking at colleges for their beautiful campuses or social lives, she’s determined to go to one with an astrobiology undergraduate program so she can move forward with her learning.
She also can’t really have relationships, or at least serious ones, until she’s back from her mission at the age of 36. “The idea of having a family, that is something NASA would want you to consider once you come back from Mars,” she said. “It’s a place we’ve never been to, and it’s a dangerous mission. Having someone you love on earth, thats a distraction.” If she meets someone now, she said, “He will have to wait.”
She travels around the world to places like Madrid and Seoul, Korea, speaking to kids her age. She gets them excited about space exploration and encourages them to follow their own dreams. When I met her she was speaking to 3,500 teenagers from around the world at the International Convention of BBYO, a Jewish youth group that focuses on leadership and social action. “We are the Mars Generation,” she said to a hushed room. “Together, we will do anything.” Other speakers included Scott Rogowsky, host of HQ trivia; actor Josh Peck; and Olympic gold-medal gymnast Aly Raisman.
Still, sometimes she wants to be a normal 17-year-old. BBYO rented out Universal’s Islands of Adventure the Saturday night of the conference. When we rode The Incredible Hulk together there were teenagers in every other seat. And just like them, the astronaut-in-training screamed the entire 2-minute ride.
“Were you actually scared?” I asked her when we were getting off. “No,” she said, giggling while fixing her long brown hair that stood straight up on the ride. “Sometimes I just like to fit in.”
