- Josef Schmid, MD, MPH
- Lead, Space Medicine Training
Johnson Space Center
I consider Charlotte, North Carolina as my hometown, but because my parents were in the military, I have moved around a bit. In fact, I have a small scar on my nose from when I fell into a suitcase as a child in Paris! I was born in Germany, and have lived in New Jersey, Missouri, Ohio, and South and North Carolina. I was an exchange student to Osaka, Japan in college and have lived in Okinawa, Japan and Frankfurt, Germany while I was a Family Practitioner in the Air Force. Home is wherever your family and friends are and I count myself really lucky to have a lot of places I’ve called home!
Ever since my first childhood memory of seeing Neil Armstrong landing on the moon or Gene Cernan driving the Rover on the lunar surface, I have known that I have wanted to work in the space program. My Dad was an Army combat medic and a translator, so I had an early exposure to Medicine and to foreign languages. My interest in aviation came from talking with my uncle who was a C-130 pilot. When I first started college, I thought I wanted to become a computer programmer. The problem was that I really enjoyed talking with people and was fascinated with how human physiology worked. In college I heard about the field of Aerospace Medicine: one that you become a physician, take care of pilots and also fly with them. I then heard that there were Aerospace Medicine physicians working at NASA, taking care of the Astronauts. It was then and there I knew what field linked all my passions together. I consider myself extremely lucky to be now doing exactly what I had dreamed to be doing so many years ago: a NASA Flight Surgeon taking care of, working with and flying with my patients, the Astronauts.
My daily job is a smorgasbord of everything that is involved in Aerospace Medicine. I treat Astronauts, NASA pilots and family members in the flight medicine clinic for the common medical and surgical issues that a physician sees in Family Practice. I have the honor of caring for some management and retired Astronauts including those from the Apollo program. I perform preventive medicine examinations and treatments including disease surveillance, immunizations for international travel and make duty and medical certifications for fliers. I prepare and present medical waivers for medical standards for fliers so that they can continue to fly after we diagnose any chronic conditions like high blood pressure or orthopedic injuries. I sit on the JSC Aerospace Medicine Board which reviews those waivers for fliers, mission control console operators and NASA divers. I direct the training of medical residents, students and fellow flight surgeons in space medicine and for support of medical operations. I also am in training for continued shuttle and international space station mission control console certification. As a crew surgeon, I provide the care for assigned crews and train Astronauts for medical procedures and equipment on the shuttle and ISS.
The most exciting thing about my job is anything that involves working as a team member with the mission and with the crew. The experiences are priceless here at NASA. I have the privilege of flying with NASA Astronauts and instructor pilots as the back seat crewmember in the T-38 supersonic jet trainer. The airplane is absolutely gorgeous, the maintenance flawless and the ride, well, unbelievable. The acceleration off the runway is awesome and the view breathtaking. Flying as a crewmember is something akin to trying to drink from a fire hose, in that there is so much going on and so very quickly: the aviation, communication and navigation are a fun challenge for a non-pilot. The flights in the KC-135 “vomit comet” are like nothing I had ever experienced before. Imagine someone taking a can of “levitation” and spraying it around in a room so that everything and everybody floats and doing that for periods of 30 seconds over 2 hours. The simulations in mission control are really exciting. At the surgeon console, we monitor 4 or 5 conversations at the same time, provide medical input to the crew and flight control team and practice for all the things that could possibly go wrong during a mission including fire, depressurization, toxicology leaks and medical emergencies. The absolute most exciting thing about my job is participating directly in missions: taking care of and training with the crew, flying down with them for launch, working in the firing room in Florida and in mission control for launch and landing, talking directly with the crew over private conferences during the mission and actually crawling into the orbiter immediately after landing to assist my crewmembers as they transition back to gravity.
I can honestly say that there is nothing boring in my job. There is always something new to learn or perform. The people here at JSC are wonderful, the challenges great and the mission absolutely awesome.
I count myself really blessed to have many role models and numerous teachers. My parents taught me their principles, the importance of education and got me hooked on foreign languages and working with people from foreign countries. My professors in college taught me how to study. My teachers in medical school taught me the importance of communication, medical problem solving and what I can do to help people regain their health. Countless nurses showed me how to best care for patients. The patients themselves taught me countless lessons on human nature and of life. The non-commissioned officers in the Air Force taught me how work should be done and the officers taught me how to lead and to follow. Numerous flight surgeons and pilots have taught me about aviation and space medicine. Most of all I have had the chance to meet and work with many explorers, whether it be surgeons, musicians and even those that last traveled to the Moon.
I can always remember being interested in the ocean. As a child I remembered it as a place where you can go places: I actually came to the U.S. on a ship, the USS United States, and can think back on the huge waves that we saw in the Northern Atlantic. I later sailed on a topsail schooner, the Shenandoah, and saw some of the awesome beauty that is the sea. In college, I studied marine biology and got an appreciation for the diversity of life, the importance of the ocean for all life on earth and the beauty and resources that we must protect. I again discovered the beauty of the ocean as I snorkeled on Okinawa, Japan, an island with awesome coral and multitudes of tropical fish.
The funniest things I have seen have been the children that were diving in the ocean there. Their laughter and the faces that they made in the water were absolutely hilarious.
The NEEMO project is a direct extension of the space program as it explores the inner space of the ocean, trains Astronaut crews for long duration missions and serves as a platform for scientific discovery and equipment evaluation for long duration space flight. We will be testing technology and procedures that we will use when we travel back to the Moon and on to Mars. It will be an honor to work on the team of Aquanauts as we continue the exploration and successes that have been accomplished by previous NEEMO teams. It will be absolutely fascinating to live in the sea for twelve days, performing “seawalks” and other excursions that are a direct analog to life on the Moon. I am really looking forward to seeing the changing light and activities of the sea life through the day and nights that we will be at the Habitat and what we will learn about our team, ourselves and the Sea.
My role in the mission will to be an aquanaut crewmember, working on navigation training, performing undersea construction analogous to spaceflight and making sea observations of the life and environment immediately around the undersea habitat. I will be conducting medical and physiologic experiments in preparation for lunar exploration missions. I will have the chance to assist another physician in further experiments in robotic surgery. I will have to learn the different systems of the habitat and the equipment that will be used for the exploration dives, including navigation, communication and undersea robotics. Most importantly, I will be a member of the team of physicians and scientists that help set the stage for further missions to Aquarius as the test bed for further medical operations in preparation for the return to the Moon and missions to Mars.
I am the newest SCUBA diver on the team, so I will be participating in many open water dives between now and the mission in May. I am beginning training on the different systems of the habitat and the specialized communication and navigation equipment that we will use for this saturation diving. I will be training on all the different scientific and medical experiments that we will be conducting. I’ll also have the chance to train on the robotic equipment that will be doing the remote surgery with the University of Cincinnati. Most importantly, I will be training on the duties as assigned by the mission commander and enjoying learning the team duties as we embark on this twelve day mission.
I enjoy studying Japanese language and culture, which is a good thing I think because my wife is from Japan! I play bass guitar and enjoy playing rock and roll and blues in a couple of bands. I really enjoy traveling to foreign countries, working with computers and racing go-karts against other flight surgeons. I love to swim and if I am not at work you will likely catch me riding my mountain bike.
I would offer three points of advice to students: 1) talk to, correspond with and attempt to work with as many scientists and other folks as possible that are doing what you would like to do, asking them how they got into the business, what you can do to possibly with them and how you can get into the career field. You’ll learn that there are a number of ways to get into a career and you’ll also learn some good communication and interpersonal skills as a bonus. 2) get a good book from the library on how to study (I didn’t learn how to approach studying, writing term papers or doing research well until I was in college. I used a couple of these books and what a positive difference it made!) Learning how to study, educate yourself and giving yourself a fighting chance at doing well on tests will open up many new opportunities for you. 3) Get exposed to as many healthy experiences and learning environments as possible, exploring all the career fields that might interest you and always remain open to what new passions you might develop for your education, your career and your life.
