Astronaut with Navy SEAL Past Completes Historic Space Mission

A Remarkable Journey Home

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim flew home with two Roscosmos cosmonauts from the International Space Station packed tight in their Soyuz spacecraft landing in the frozen steppes of Kazakhstan on Dec. 9 to complete an eight-month stay in space . Enduring re-entry temperatures of some 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit and rapidly decelerating in the process, the Soyuz descent module landed at 12:03 a.m. EST Tuesday and tipped over on its side, where Russian recovery crews and NASA support personnel quickly reached the charred spacecraft .

Kim appeared healthy and in good spirits, smiling his thanks after Russian recovery crews presented him with a nested matryoshka doll with his face painted on the outermost shell . Kim and his crewmates completed a 245-day mission aboard the station, orbiting Earth 3,920 times and traveling nearly 104 million miles .

An Unlikely Path to the Stars

Kim is a dual designated Naval Aviator and Flight Surgeon, and as a former Navy SEAL has completed more than 100 combat operations . While a sailor, Kim also earned a Bachelor of Mathematics (summa cum laude) from the University of San Diego, and a Doctor of Medicine (MD) from Harvard Medical School . On 7 June 2017, Kim was one of twelve candidates chosen from a pool of over 18,300 applicants to join NASA Astronaut Group 22 .

The feelings of helplessness that struck him that day partly inspired Kim to become a doctor. "I made a promise to my fallen brothers that I would live my best life in a way that betters the world in their honor. For me, medicine was the answer to that," Kim said in a Navy press release . After graduating he began his medical studies at Harvard Medical School in Boston, where he met astronaut and physician Scott Parazynski, who encouraged Kim to consider applying for NASA's astronaut candidate program .

From Trauma to Triumph

Kim's journey began under difficult circumstances. Jonny was born in Los Angeles in 1984 to 1st generation Korean American parents. His father was an alcoholic and Jonny grew up being "I was a scared little boy. Scared of the world, scared of relationships, scared of talking to people, going to school, of having my own opinions, speaking up or fighting for what I believe is right" .

During a change-of-command ceremony on Sunday, Kim said what he will remember most from his eight months in space is "the bond that we shared together." "I firmly believe that the greatest quality of an astronaut, and a human, is not technical competence, or loyalty, or any of the myriad other things we like to ascribe to astronauts. It's love," he said .

The Future of Space Exploration

President Donald Trump's proposed NASA budget had called for fewer flights to the space station, and possibly with less crew, as it nears the end of its service after 2030. Trump's nominee to be the next NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, said during confirmation hearings this month that he would like to continue to see NASA use the space station as much as possible during its end run while pushing commercial companies to progress on their proposed replacement stations .

Kim's extraordinary background positions him uniquely for future deep space missions. The Artemis program is viewed as a stepping stone toward future crewed missions to Mars, mooted to take place in the late 2030s, and Jonny's status as one of only two trained physicians within Astronaut Group 22 makes his participation in those missions seem highly probable . His combination of medical expertise, military precision, and space experience represents exactly the type of versatile astronaut needed for humanity's next giant leap beyond Earth's orbit.