Abigail Harrison: A Future Astronaut Paving the Way for Young Space Enthusiasts
Abigail Harrison is on a mission to Mars. The recent graduate from Wellesley College and current researcher at Harvard Medical School has been preparing to become an astronaut since preschool. On this journey, she has received her pilot’s license, mastered scuba diving, conducted field research in Siberia, and, most recently, wrote a book titled Dream Big!: How to Reach for Your Stars. As co-founder of the non-profit The Mars Generation, Abigail hopes to inspire young students across the globe to learn about human space exploration and ignite a passion for STEM within the younger generation.
Abigail’s journey started at the age of three. One night, as she sat outside stargazing, she decided that she wanted to become an astronaut. “While looking up at the night sky in awe and having all these questions about the universe, I realized that we don't have answers to a lot of them. And it was right then and there that I decided that I wanted to be a part of finding those answers and that I wanted to be a space explorer,” Abigail says.
“I found over time that the more I talked about my dream, the more support that I got from other people… from people reaching out and saying, have you heard about this program? Have you met this scientist? Have you thought about this potential opportunity? Things like that, stuff that I never would have known existed, that I never would've thought to do or include as part of my smaller goals to reach my dream.”
Fast forward to age eleven and Abby had laid out a detailed plan to reach her goal. Part of that plan included submitting a project on the International Space Station (ISS) for National History Day. In an effort to find primary sources for her project, Abby set up a Twitter account with the help of her mom. With the handle “AstronautAbby,” she began to tweet about her dream to become an astronaut and issued a call out for other engineers, space enthusiasts, and astronauts to join her. Equipped with a simple statement—“I am a 13-year-old girl and my dream is to be the first astronaut to walk on Mars”—Abby stumbled upon a supportive online community with which she could share her passion for space. Through this community, she was able to find an engineer working on space life support systems along with other primary sources that she needed to complete her project.
Her Twitter presence didn’t end with the completion of her project pitch on the ISS. Over the years, Abby continuously shared her journey on the platform, interacting with peers interested in space exploration and receiving advice from experienced industry followers. Now, her “AstronautAbby” Twitter account has over 190K followers, giving her a platform to talk about STEM and space exploration with those with similar interests.
Perhaps the most unique facet of Abby’s path to space exploration is her sustained interest in the topic. Most of us had dreams of going to space when we were younger, but Abby never gave those up. From the age of three to now 23, Abby has maintained the same passion and drive towards her goal of walking on Mars. She attributes her continued interest to constant exposure to space exploration during her teen years, an age at which most girls often lose interest in STEM fields. Through Twitter, she discovered numerous opportunities, which led her to attend Space Camp and conduct research on space explorations. She also found mentors both in seasoned astronauts and space enthusiasts, who consistently helped her dreams feel valid, realistic, and achievable. Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut in the European Astronaut Corps for the European Space Agency, is one such mentor.
Abby and Luca’s first interaction was pure coincidence. Abby and her mom had been waiting in an airport’s security line when Abby spotted Luca a couple of people ahead of her. She tugged her mom’s sleeve, motioning towards Luca and saying that he was an astronaut she idolized. Her mom chuckled and shrugged her off: “Not every bald man is an astronaut, Abby.” But Abby, an avid fan of space explorers, was not one to settle. After getting through airport security, she introduced herself to Luca, shared her dream, and asked if she could learn about his experience. In response, Luca spent the next hour with Abby, answering her questions about space, his life, and his career. At the end of their meeting, Luca gave Abby his email address in case she had any further questions.
Years later, Abby found out that Luca had scheduled a lunch with his wife the same day Abby and Luca had met. Luca and his wife hadn’t seen each other in a while, and they had planned to meet up during this one-hour layover. However, after meeting Abby, Luca canceled lunch with his wife to spend time with the young space enthusiast. For Luca, sitting down to talk to a little girl was a relatively small, but kind, action. But for Abby, it made all the difference. Talking to Luca rooted Abby’s dreams of walking on Mars in reality. His continued support made it feel like she could achieve what she had set out to do. And this meeting, as well as Luca’s mentorship, shaped Abby’s perception of her success. “I think that it really showed me and taught me how important it is to make sure that you reach out a helping hand to others and how important it is to make sure that you're not the last person who accomplishes something amazing,” Abby says. “When I pass through a door, I want to leave it wide open for the next person behind me.”
After realizing that many students were unfamiliar with the possibilities of space exploration, Abby wanted to share her passion for space travel with young people that had similar goals. Understanding the impact that her various mentors had on her, especially as a young girl interested in STEM, Abby wanted to create accessible space education opportunities for students across the world. With this goal in mind, she co-founded The Mars Generation with her mom. The nonprofit hopes to “inspire and empower young people to achieve their big dreams while also educating and exciting the general public about the importance of space exploration and STEM education to the future of humankind.” The Mars Generation hosts various programs to expand students’, especially young girls’, interest in space. Inspired by her close mentor relationship with Luca, Abby created the Student Space Ambassador Program, a free peer mentorship program for individuals aged 13-24 to bring space education to their communities. Through this program, students across the nation have presented at community halls, brought space education to younger children at public libraries, and much more. Recalling the time she was able to attend Space Camp with the help of a scholarship, Abby founded the Space Camp Scholarship Program, which funds students who “have an aptitude for STEM but do not have financial resources” to attend Space Camp. Today, The Mars Generation has funded over 45 full scholarships to Space Camp to eager students, who along with Abby, are paving the way for future space exploration.
“I think [meeting Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano] really showed me and taught me how important it is to make sure that you reach out a helping hand to others and how important it is to make sure that you're not the last person who accomplishes something amazing. When I pass through a door, I want to leave it wide open for the next person behind me.”
In another effort to provide mentorship to students, Abby wrote a book called Dream Big!: How to Reach for Your Stars. In this debut book, she documents her interests in space exploration and future goals. She also lists helpful advice, practical tips, and interactive activities to help readers start their journey of achieving their goals. Abby hopes that the book will be a great resource “for any young person, whether they have a dream yet, or don't. It has a lot of really incredible skills and tools that will help young people reach their dreams and be successful in their future.”
Still committed to creating accessible resources, Abby is fundraising through The Mars Generation to get Dream Big! in the hands of students from lower socioeconomic classes and backgrounds. She hopes that through the book, she can act as a mentor to many students whose socioeconomic background may limit their access to traditional resources.
While writing her book, Abby settled upon two pieces of advice for individuals looking to dream big: self-promotion and preparation for failure. For the first piece of advice, Abby truly believes that “you have to be loud and be proud about what it is that you're going out there to do.” As a child, she was naturally shy, but learning how to advocate for herself turned out to be one of her biggest assets. “I found over time that the more I talked about my dream, the more support that I got from other people… from people reaching out and saying, have you heard about this program? Have you met this scientist? Have you thought about this potential opportunity? Things like that, stuff that I never would have known existed, that I never would've thought to do or include as part of my smaller goals to reach my dream.”
Despite having many successes under her belt, Abby is not exempt from failure. Rather than negatively characterizing failure, Abby views it as a natural part of achieving a dream or a goal. Learning how to reframe failure has helped Abby through her toughest moments. One such moment was her decision to switch her majors in college. As a freshman, Abby was dead set on double majoring in Astrophysics and Mandarin Chinese. All too soon, she realized that her initial choices of study were too overwhelming for her personally. Subsequently, she decided to switch her major to biology with a concentration in Russian, fields that would still help her build important skills for space travel. Though this decision didn’t completely align with her original plan, Abby found numerous opportunities to pursue research in astrobiology and explore physics on her own time. And as it turns out, this “failure” of her original plans helped her obtain a research position at Harvard Medical School. Abby says, “You're going to fail along the way and the difference between being successful at your goal and not is oftentimes down to how you react to those failures. If you can pick yourself back up afterward and then look at it and say, ‘How can I learn from this?’ I think that really makes the difference.”
“You're going to fail along the way and the difference between being successful at your goal and not is oftentimes down to how you react to those failures. If you can pick yourself back up afterward and then look at it and say, ‘How can I learn from this?’ I think that really makes the difference.”
From a girl interested in stargazing to now a researcher and nonprofit cofounder with over a million social media followers, Abby is well on her way to becoming the first astronaut to walk on Mars. Beyond crediting her mother, mentors, and community for her success, when I asked Astronaut Abby how she thinks she has gotten this far, she smiles and says, “I guess everyone loves an alliteration.”
STORY MALLIKA CHENNUPATY
PHOTOS ABIGAIL HARRISON
COVER GRAPHIC JANICE KIM