- Dr. Sam Strauss
- NASA Flight Surgeon
Johnson Space Center
My name is Dr. Sam Strauss. I am a physician working for the Kelsey Seybold Clinic, a NASA contractor at the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas. I work in the Human Test Support Group, which provides medical support for many aspects of astronaut training and space medicine research. I grew up in Philadelphia PA, where I went to college and medical school. I have served in the Navy as a Submarine Medical Officer, and in the Air Force where I received my specialty training in Aerospace Medicine. I have worked throughout the nation and the world in both diving medicine and aerospace medicine.
I support NASA astronaut training at Johnson Space Center. I work at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) where astronauts are trained to do their spacewalks from the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. Astronaut training is conducted in a forty-foot deep, 6.5 million gallon immersion pool at the Sonny Carter Training Facility. It is the largest indoor pool in the world, designed to hold full size mockups of the Space Shuttle cargo bay and International Space Station. My primary job is to medically supervise diving operations, and astronaut training at the lab. I am the NASA Medical Monitor for the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit, and also support altitude physiology training for NASA astronauts and flight crewmembers.
At other times I’m the Medical Officer for Space Shuttle and Space Station vacuum chamber astronaut training, I fly as a Flight Surgeon for the Reduced Gravity Program weightless training and research flights, and dive on special projects like the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) project.
I Dive and Fly for NASA
In order to be familiar with the training the astronauts receive at my facility I was certified as NASA Nitrox SCUBA diver in the NBL. I frequently make “house calls” under water so I can directly observe training. I also got to qualify and dove three times in the EMU spacesuit. Working in the spacesuit is a totally different experience. It's a lot like being locked inside a pressurized shell, and looking out through a fishbowl lens and “translate” around from one work site to another. When you're neutrally buoyant there's no up or down, left or right so sometimes it’s challenging to stay oriented. It's really demanding work and very tiring, especially in the hands. It feels like squeezing a tennis ball in each hand for the entire 6 hours. Tasks that may seem simple take a tremendous amount of effort, concentration and skill. These include moving from place to place using the gloves to grasp handrails and manipulating hooks on tethers. It’s also a challenge grasping and operating a variety of tools and equipment, and figuring out how to anchor your body in “space” so you remain stable. It takes concentration to avoid drifting away with every movement or torque, and slipping into places where “no one has gone before.” To learn more about the NBL, log on to the NASA NBL web site.
I get to “float and fly” with the astronauts and researchers as a Flight Surgeon crewmember on the “Weightless Wonder" NASA aircraft. We fly “zero G” to learn more about the effects of microgravity on human physiology, devices such as robots, and do a variety of basic science and applied engineering, physics and chemistry experiments. Floating around the cabin and "flying" from place to place is an amazing experience. Every little movement displaces your momentum, so if you're not used to it you can go heading off into any of the three dimensions. It’s like very brief visit on orbit, and quite a thrill for me every time I get to do it. To learn more about microgravity flights log on to the NASA Reduced Gravity Program web site.
As one of the NASA qualified Diving Medical Officers I have also been assigned to the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations project. The purpose of the project is to develop opportunities for using the “Aquarius” habitat as an analog for spaceflight and long-duration space habitation. Aquarius is an undersea research laboratory resting more than 60 feet on the bottom in the Atlantic Ocean. On Aquarius scientists live, work and dive in a pressurized environment that is called “saturation diving.” Multiple organizations at Johnson Space Center work together with the National Undersea Research Center (NURC) in Key Largo Florida to complete missions of the NEEMO project. The idea for us at NASA is to facilitate opportunities for astronauts, scientists, physicians, Mission Control Center personnel and engineers to use missions to develop operations concepts, conduct experiments, perform space-analog tasks and sharpen team and interpersonal skills. To learn more about the NASA NEEMO Project log on to the NEEMO missions web site.
I love getting up every morning and coming to work at JSC! For me working in space medicine is a blast. There are always new and fascinating challenges and always so much to learn about the human factors and medical aspects of space exploration. Something that makes it so much more meaningful for me is the privilege of knowing and working directly with our astronauts. Being their doctor and friend makes everything we do to support them that much more personal for me. The work I do in the manned space program has been an enormous source of joy and pride both personally and professionally. In so many ways it is more like a dream come true than a job.
I knew I wanted to become a physician from the age of 15, having been inspired by my family doctor. I was enthralled by manned space exploration watching the first Mercury missions, and later by seeing live images of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. From then on I was hooked, and have remained a fan ever since. I graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia in pre-medicine, and attended the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine for my medical training. After my Internal Medicine internship I served in the US Navy as a Submarine Medical Officer assigned to nuclear submarines and diving units throughout the world. Mid career I switched military branches to the US Air Force, became a Flight Surgeon and then completed residency training in Aerospace Medicine. Not too long after I retired from my military career, I was fortunate enough to find the perfect job for me here at NASA, Johnson Space Center.
I love the outdoors, riding my bicycle, swimming, and scuba diving. I have a beautiful wife, Viki, who shares many of my interests and loves gardening. We have a daughter and son, Jessica and David. Jessica is in college studying elementary education, and David is in high school with interests in math, science and engineering. We live in Houston not too far from where I work at the space center.
