23-04-2025
Meet the first human to conquer both space flight and Mount Everest
Not many can say they have flown to space or scaled Mount Everest. But Nasa astronaut Scott Parazynski has checked both off his bucket list. His next adventure is youth education
Fewer than a thousand people have ever flown to space, including the all-women crew of Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez and others on the recent Blue Origin mission. In comparison, the number of people who have successfully climbed Mount Everest is slightly higher, but it still remains below 10,000 throughout history.
Given these figures, it's clear that very few individuals have accomplished both feats. But Scott Parazynski is one such remarkable person who can claim to have achieved both.
The ex-Nasa astronaut completed five missions to space between 1994 and 2007, and also became the first astronaut to have summited Mount Everest in 2009. Now he's on another mission—to educate the youth on space programmes and more.
It was with this in mind that he was in Hong Kong earlier this month, by invitation of our city's chapter of the Royal Geographical Society. He also took this opportunity to share his experiences with local students.
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Above Scott Parazynski in space (Photo: courtesy of Parazynski)
'I love talking to kids, because I had role models who encouraged me when I was their age,' he says. 'Talking to people who were doing things that I wanted to do one day was transformative for me. Hopefully, there were a few kids in the room who found some inspiration in my talk. What I always try to get across to them is, regardless of whether you want to become an astronaut, STEM is going to the language of the future. It's important to know the foundations of it to succeed in whatever career you choose, be that a politician or lawyer.
'But, if you're interested in space programme, the opportunities are going to be much broader [than my time], because it won't just be a limited number of national programmes that will be flying people. Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are widening the field. So if you want to do it, you can make it happen.'
Above Scott Parazynski in his space suit (Photo: courtesy of Parazynski)
Parazynski himself was inspired by attending the launch of Apollo Nine at the Kennedy Space Center as a child. His father worked on the Apollo programme that sent astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 'As a kid, everybody in the block wanted to become an astronaut. I just never grew out of it.'
He went on to become a physician and physiologist at Stanford and though that, he connected with the Nasa Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. In 1992, he was selected to be an 'as hope'—a humorous abbreviation for 'an astronaut hopeful' before becoming an 'as can', short for 'astronaut candidate'. Training was a rigorous year-long process, which Parazynski describes as 'drinking from a firehose'.
However, it all paid off when he went on five spatial missions in the next decade. Each mission had a different purpose: to study the earth's ozone layer; to lead the first joint US-Russian spacewalk; to serve as a physician for US senator John Glenn in a mission that combined medical research with space exploration; and to construct and repair the International Space Station.
Above The sight of Mount Everest from space (Photo: courtesy of Parazynski)
The most memorable thing for Parazynski, however, was seeing the earth from space. 'It's such a profound human experience to see your planet from that perspective,' he says. 'What I would reflect on is how insignificant we as individuals are in the grander scheme of things. You turn your head and you look out into the blackness of space, and you see you're looking back nearly 14 billion years to the beginning of time. The scale of the universe around us is just overwhelming.'
'Everyone comes back from space as an environmentalist, at least to some degree. It's certainly a passion of mine now to travel the world and to talk to the media, schools and other groups of influential people about the importance of being responsible citizens of the planet.'
His first spatial mission also ignited his sense of adventure back on earth. 'On the shuttle flight to space, I took this beautiful picture of the summit of Mount Everest, which looked like the mountain was coming out at you. It was really extraordinary,' he recalls. It would, however, take him two attempts—and the painful experience of rupturing a disc on his back at 7,000 metres above sea level—to summit Mount Everest in 2009.
Above Scott Parazynski and his team climbing Mount Everest (Photo: courtesy of Parazynski)
According to Parazynski, climbing the world's tallest mountain and going to space have several points of similarity. 'It's the same kind of mental and physical preparation. It's about being mindful of the technical and operational risks. You can't make space flight perfectly safe, just as you can't make climbing a big mountain perfectly safe. But you can make it as safe as possible by being in your best physical condition and technically proficient, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your team and waiting for the right window of weather.'
While Parazynski has long retired from these extreme missions, his sense of adventure is very alive. It's this spirit that has led him to found Onwardair, an electric aircraft company that aims to alleviate urban congestion and provide rapid medical transport. The prototypes have been used in mainland China, the UAE and the US, and Parazynski hopes it will see significant growth in its global demand in the coming years.
'It will revolutionise the way we live. Ultimately, these types of aircraft will be in all our homes. That's the kind of future that we're aiming to build,' he says, looking out the hotel window at the bustling Central district below, as if looking out from a space shuttle.
