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NASA astronaut Col. Eric Boe with BWH's Srini Mukundan
From the moment a crew's space shuttle takes off until it touches back down to Earth, about 1,000 people per astronaut are needed to make the trip a success.
"If there are six of us onboard, one way or another, there are about 6,000 people supporting us and making the job look easy on the ground," said Air Force Col. Eric Boe, MS, during a Feb. 4 presentation at BWH sponsored by the Department of Radiology. "It's all about the team, just like medicine; if one person doesn't make it happen, it makes a big difference."
In front of an audience in Bornstein Amphitheater, Boe, deputy chief of the Astronaut Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, spoke to BWHers about his experiences as a NASA pilot and the lessons learned about teamwork and safety from manned spaceflight.
Originally from Georgia, Boe was selected as a pilot by NASA in July 2000. In addition to serving as NASA director of operations at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, he served as a pilot for two missions, including STS-133, the final flight for the space shuttle Discovery in 2011.
Boe was invited to speak at the Brigham by his high school friend, Srini Mukundan, Jr., PhD, MD, section head of Neuroradiology at BWH. Mukundan said he's had impassioned conversations with Boe about teaching and safety and knew this would be something fellow BWHers would be interested in hearing more about.
"The astronaut and space travel aspects are fascinating, but when one realizes there's a paradigm behind it all and there's diligence and thoughtfulness that go behind everything they do, it's a very good opportunity for us to learn," Mukundan said.
What struck Mukundan most about Boe's talk was the fact that when there's a problem in space, astronauts have to keep flying. He said this is very similar to the medical field. "When a surgical team is in an operating room and begins surgery, they have a job to do-they are committed to it, no matter what happens."
Boe also explained how critical it is for organizations like BWH and NASA to continue to be forward-thinking and innovative. He said as leaders and roles change in organizations over time, it's essential for teams to always be thinking about how they're going to build for the future. "The key is to keep asking yourself the hard questions," he said.
After the talk concluded, Cynthia Lemere, PhD, neuroscientist in the Center for Neurologic Diseases at BWH, stuck around to meet Boe. She decided to attend the event because she has been fascinated with space since a young age. She recently learned that she was chosen to receive a research grant from NASA to study the impact of deep-space radiation on aging in the brain, as well as Alzheimer's risk.