On Jan. 22, 1992, Dr. Roberta Bondar made history as Canada’s first woman in space.
“I have always said that there are three dangerous parts about space: The launch, the landing and everything in between,” Bondar said.
“You’ve trained for this, you focus on it, you don’t focus on all the things that might go wrong – you focus on what you can do if they do go wrong.”
But the launch and mission aboard Discovery went well. She trained more than eight years for it. As the world’s first neurologist in space, Bondar conducted over 40 experiments from 18 countries during the first International Microgravity Laboratory Mission.
“That’s a lot of countries to try and keep happy when you have a timeline that’s only seven days long and we were given an extra day in orbit,” she said.
For more than a decade, Bondar headed an international research team to find new connections between astronauts recovering from the microgravity of space and neurological illnesses here on earth such as Parkinson’s disease.
“The best thing I’ve ever done, hands down, is becoming a physician,” she said.
“I mean that’s something that I’ve been able to help so many people. I’ve been able to save lives.”
Twenty-five years have passed since Bondar circled the world aboard the Shuttle Discovery, but to her it feels relatively recent.
“It doesn’t seem like 25, sometimes it feels like five years,” Bondar said.