Navy SEAL-turned-NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is on his first space mission to the ISS. See photos of him at work.
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim can add going to space to his incomparable résumé.
Kim launched on an expedition to the ISS earlier this week to serve as a flight engineer.
Before NASA, he was an emergency medicine resident at Harvard and served as a Navy SEAL.
Jonny Kim served as a Navy SEAL on over 100 combat missions. He earned a medical degree at Harvard. And earlier this week, Kim went on his first spaceflight to the ISS, floating 250 miles above Earth.
The 41-year-old made the 262-mile journey to space Tuesday to serve as a flight engineer on an eight-month expedition aboard the International Space Station.
Before working at NASA, Kim's one-of-a-kind career journey includes receiving a Bronze and Silver Star while in the Navy and training as an emergency medicine physician at one of the top medical schools in the US.
First spaceflight
Shortly after midnight on April 8, Kim launched aboard a Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky.
A little over three hours later, the trio docked at the orbital laboratory around 5 a.m. the same day, boarding the ISS two hours later to join the Expedition 72/73 crew.
A video taken aboard the ISS captured the moment Kim was welcomed aboard the space station.
Joining the ISS expedition
For the next eight months, the NASA flight engineer will assist in scientific research intended to benefit future space missions and people on Earth.
Kim's research includes observing the flammability of certain materials in microgravity and testing new space-related technologies.
Enlisting in the Navy
Becoming an astronaut is a popular career aspiration for children, but Kim said he didn't have a dream job until he turned 16 and was drawn to serving in the Navy.
"As a kid, I did not have really any dreams until I was 16 years old, and I heard about Naval Special Warfare and the kinds of things that Naval Special Warfare operators do," Kim said in an interview with the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Emergency Medicine.
"That was really the first time, when I was 16, that I actually had a vision and a dream and felt that I was called to do something," he continued. "I never once thought I could be a physician, or an astronaut, or anything else."
When Kim, a Korean-American born to immigrant parents, told his mother about his decision to enlist, he said she tearfully urged him to reconsider.
"My mother, with tears in her eyes, [said], 'It's not too late; you can come home, and we'll do this family business,'" Kim told Business Insider in 2020. "And for a fleeting moment, I considered it."
But Kim said, "There wasn't anyone or anything to talk me out of it. It was the first time I set my sights on a dream."
Finding identity in Naval Special Warfare
After graduating from high school in 2002, Kim enlisted as a seaman recruit in the Navy, later completed Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training, and was assigned to SEAL Team 3.
As a Special Warfare Operator, Kim participated in more than 100 combat missions as a combat medic, navigator, sniper, and point man, receiving the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and other service awards.
The decorated Navy SEAL said serving in the military was "a very growing experience" that helped him find his identity, build confidence, and "see challenges for what they are and be able to draw off the strength to overcome."
"Going into the Navy was the best decision I ever made in my life because it completely transformed that scared boy who didn't have any dreams to someone who started to believe in himself," Kim said in a Q&A published by the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Harvard physician
Kim's combat experiences — particularly when he provided medical aid to his injured teammates and observed other medical doctors saving "lives and limbs" — are what led him to become an emergency medicine physician after serving in the Iraq War.
In his mid- to late 20s, Kim earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of San Diego and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He then completed a Harvard-affiliated internship in emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
From the Navy to NASA
While in medical school, Kim said physician-astronaut Scott Parazynski "opened up my eyes to NASA and its mission," which resonated with him much like Naval Special Warfare did a decade earlier.
"It really struck a chord with me, of going to the unknown of space and overcoming these impossible challenges, with technology we had not yet developed," Kim said in the medical journal interview.
Kim added that he was especially drawn to the idea that he "would have a chance to inspire young children who may be in tough situations as kids."
Kim was among a record number of people who applied to become astronauts in 2016. The rigorous application process included a range of mental and medical tests, including ECGs, blood draws, a chest radiograph, and a multiple-choice personality and behavioral test.
While Kim said he couldn't go into the specifics of the interview process, he said one of the rounds of interviews included team-oriented games and evaluations with behavioral specialists to see "how you react to stress and interactions with your team members, all of whom I had never met before."
Selected by NASA out of 18,300 applicants
While he was shopping at the grocery store the following year, Kim said he got a call from NASA that he would be one of 12 new astronaut candidates selected from a pool of over 18,300 applicants.
Kim said he "just couldn't foresee" getting selected among "so many amazing people who apply for this job." Most applicants don't get in on their first application, which he said initially made him feel "survivorship guilt" upon hearing the decision until he thought back to his time in the Navy.
"We have a saying in the [SEAL] teams — it's 'earn your Trident every day,'" Kim told Business Insider in 2020, referring to the insignia that Navy SEALs wear after earning their special warfare certification. "What that means is that you have to earn your right to be where you are every single day."
"I take that to heart when I think of this job," he said.
Space boot camp
After joining the new class of astronaut candidates in 2017, Kim embarked on a two-year-long training program, in which he learned how to operate on-board systems and robotics on ISS simulators, received physiological and expeditionary training, and practiced space walk procedures in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Johnson Space Center in Houston.
He also trained in field geology and water and wilderness survival, became proficient in Russian, and even completed a solo flight as a pilot on a Navy T-6 trainer aircraft.
In 2020, Kim graduated from astronaut boot camp and supported ISS expeditions before serving on his first space mission aboard the space station this year. But it likely won't be Kim's last time in space — he was also selected as an astronaut on NASA's Artemis moon-landing missions.
He said he credits his success as a NASA astronaut to "an extraordinary team of dedicated individuals who truly care."
"It's not the rockets, planes, satellites, or science that define this agency," Kim wrote in a post on X a day before launching to the ISS, "it's the remarkable individuals who bring it all to life — always has been, and always will be."
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