Rohin Francis, MBBS, applied for astronaut selection to the European Space Agency. While he has no chance of getting in, he chats with doctors who are currently training for space here on Earth.
Following is a partial transcript of this video; note that errors are possible:
Rohin Francis, MBBS: Some friends were chatting the other day about who the first YouTuber in space could be. I promise you this is something that’s probably going to happen quite soon.
I recalled a conversation between Grey and Brady on Hello Internet a while back where they pondered this exact question. I think they concluded it might be a beauty vlogger. Maybe I’m totally misremembering that. I probably should have checked it. I personally quite like it if it was someone like Mark Rober with his engineering pedigree, his NASA connection, and bona fide YouTube A-list ranking. But what with the fever dream of Logan Paul fighting Floyd Mayweather still haunting my nightmares like a ghoulish apparition … did that really happen? I have a sinking feeling the first YouTuber in space could be an utter spanner.
If the first YouTube astronaut is going to be an insufferable moron, why shouldn’t that insufferable moron be me? Yes, I have applied to become an astronaut. This isn’t click bait. It’s real for no other reason than to have my sodding Wikipedia entry updated. I guess I should’ve known that publicly saying that I am not a vlogger would’ve encouraged you wags out there to deface my entry. But little did you realize, jashannashwyn1, that I know it was you.
Male: You broke my heart.
Francis: You might have seen a lot of your favorite internet science talky people making videos asking for your support to send them into space as part of space tourist expeditions. This is indicative of the changing way we are sending people into space.
A wonderful science communicator, Kellie Gerardi, is going to become a payload specialist with Virgin Galactic, meaning she can legitimately call herself an astronaut, having come to it without any engineering or science background, as far as I know, which is genuinely cool.
Because as I’m going to find out when I don’t make it through to the second round of this selection process, the established way into space is insanely hard to get through. A lot of the talk in the space world now is about democratizing entry into space.
This year, for only the fourth time in its history, the European Space Agency [ESA], accepted applications for its astronaut training program. To be honest, I’m not sure that making a video about the details of this process is really advisable. I don’t know about the confidentiality of the process. It might jeopardize my chances, but I figured I have got about a 1 in 10,000 chance of being selected. But I’ve got a 1 in 1 chance of turning this into content. At the end of the day, isn’t that all that matters?
Actually, I can tell you the exact statistics because they have had just shy of 23,000 applications for a tiny handful of spots. Last time around in 2008, I was too young and inexperienced to qualify. Next time around, assuming it’s in another 10 or 12 years, I’ll be knocking on the upper age limit, so this is really a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
Unlike in the U.S. where NASA take recruits every couple of years or so, in Europe your chances are slim. There has officially only been one British astronaut, which was Tim Peake. There have been a few other Brits in space who went up as American citizens or with the Soviets. My friend Matt Gray made a vid … he didn’t go in space. He made a video about the key specifications for application that you should go check out.
I won’t go over those basics, but instead I thought I’d just sub-Kármán line wing it — that’s a niche space joke there — and focus on the health/medical-related topics, including talking to two incredible, real-life space doctors and analog astronauts about what an analog astronaut even is. Stay tuned for that. I’m assuming it’s an astronaut that takes a record player and a film camera into space because digital just doesn’t have a soul, man.
Matt’s video will tell you that ESA requires a minimum of a master’s degree, 3 years’ experience in a relevant field, good manual dexterity, a second language is highly desirable, and I had to submit a motivation letter and a CV along with my answers to a bunch of questions about my experience. Which is okay, but it’s pretty laughable compared to my two guests later in the video.
I kept my motivation letter fairly brief. I drew some parallels between the manual dexterity and calm head needed in interventional cardiology and being an astronaut. I shamelessly lied about [my] YouTube channel and said that it was about science education instead of the reality that you all know, that it’s just a vehicle for my questionable jokes. I did talk about my personal motivations in the letter, but, well, that’s personal and I am not a vlogger. Maybe something for my podcast. I don’t have a podcast.
One thing I didn’t mention is my tendency to provoke in-flight medical emergencies in fellow aircraft passengers. I mean, I don’t really see how that could be relevant, but what about physical attributes? ESA and NASA have both announced that they’re aiming to put a physically disabled astronaut into space in the near future, which, of course, would be a first, although disabled in quite a specific way. Kind of related to the fact that you don’t really need to use your legs much in space.
But if we consider the non-parastronaut application — unlike “The Right Stuff” era of those incredible early space explorers — you don’t need to be a super-athlete, just reasonably fit. I had to undergo a part-MED [medical] pilot license, which was pretty in-depth, especially for vision. It was quite fun really. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to film it except for the waiting room, which is a shame because I’d never even seen some of the gizmos that were used before.
But at least I can show you my ECG because, believe it or not, it’s the first time I have had a full 12-lead ECG of myself recorded. For those of you that are into this stuff, you can see a pretty marked heart rate variability there. We had to try a couple of times to get the heart rate above 45 actually, because below that I would get referred to … well, to myself.
Fitness influencers show off their physiques. Beauty influencers show off their looks. As I have got neither of those things, you have to at least allow this YouTube cardiologist a heart rate flex.
(See the full video for the interviews with space doctors Bonnie Posselt and Beth Healey)