Meet Amanda Nguyen, set to be the first Vietnamese woman in space – Orange County Register

For Amanda Nguyen, even the sky is not the limit.

Nguyen, 32 and from Southern California, is expected to be the first Vietnamese woman in space.

It’s her life’s dream – to travel to space, to become an astronaut – but it’s a dream that was put on hold after she was sexually assaulted in 2013 while studying national security and astrophysics at Harvard University. She then discovered that seeking justice was an arduous and outdated process and, as she says, she had to choose between that justice and her dream.

Justice, which makes life on earth better, prevailed.

Nguyen passed legislation in Congress that preserves the rights of sexual assault survivors — primarily by maintaining preservation of and survivor access to rape kits — and in 2014 founded Rise, a nonprofit that works with state legislatures to implement similar rights for survivors. Two members of Congress, including former Rep. Mimi Walters of Orange County, nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, and she was selected as one of Time’s 2022 Women of the Year .

Now, nearly eight years after Congress passed the “Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights” — and unanimously — the nonprofit Space for Humanity said it would sponsor it during an upcoming trip to space aboard a Blue Origin New Shepard vehicle.

“As someone whose dreams have always been to go to space but have been postponed and delayed – like so many people, so many women, in particular, who face gender-based violence – to For me to learn that I could have this opportunity meant justice in a way,” Nguyen said.

It’s a trip that celebrates her heritage — she will be the first Vietnamese woman and the first Southeast Asian woman to fly in space — and honors her status as a survivor, she said.

“I chose to delay those dreams to fight for those rights, and I am still able to maintain the identity of the person I was before I was hurt,” said.

Space for Humanity is a group that “sends carefully selected, impact-motivated individuals, from all walks of life, into space to experience the ‘overall effect,’ a cognitive shift brought about by viewing Earth from space,” according to its website.

The idea of ​​its Citizen Astronaut program, according to the group, is to encourage those it sends on spaceflights to use this unique experience to improve the world when they return.

“Amanda’s new journey will represent a shining and long-awaited example for countless others,” Space for Humanity Executive Director Antonio Peronace said in a statement. “As an organization committed to democratizing space and making it accessible to all citizens of the world, we are proud that Amanda and her journey represent the strength, passion and genius that we want to continue to propel forward. new heights. »

Nguyen was born and raised in Corona, spending every weekend in Little Saigon in Orange County, a community she says is a microcosm of immigrant resilience and determination.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without it,” she said. “I am so grateful for the community I was able to grow up in in Southern California. There are clear skies in Southern California and looking at them helps me move toward them to touch the sky.

Both of his parents are refugees from Vietnam, his mother having fled by boat.

“As boat refugees, my family looked to the stars to guide them to freedom,” Nguyen says in a video announcing his journey.

“Mom, you swam so I could fly.” You crossed the ocean so I could touch the sky,” she adds in Vietnamese.

Some details — like who she’ll travel with and when — aren’t yet public, but Nguyen is preparing by talking to other female astronauts, nicknamed “space sisters,” and getting their advice. The preparation is also physical, with for example training for lunch in a microgravity environment.

And she discovered that her activism and space travel go hand in hand.

She taught herself box breathing techniques – hold four, inhale four, hold four, exhale four – when she found herself in situations that could be triggering or frightening, such as testifying before the U.S. Senate. And those techniques have carried over as she trains and tests in a hyperbaric chamber at the International Institute of Astronautical Sciences.