Meet the Expert:  Dr. Mike Harrison, Chief Medical Officer for Axiom Space

Michael  Harrison, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H. is the Chief Medical Officer for Axiom Space.  Dr. Harrison is also an emergency medicine and critical care medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. He is an aerospace medicine specialist. His interests include operational space medicine, hyperbaric medicine, and point-of-care ultrasound.

Mike is the son of a military helicopter pilot. So he grew up around things that flew a lot as a kid. He loved the family days the Canadian military had because he could fly in a helicopter with his father. Mike  always was very interested in things that flew.”

He went to UNB to study kinesiology, and went on to a masters and Ph.D in exercise physiology, statistics and biomechanics. During his doctorate, he became involved in a study of military helicopter pilots, coming full circle from those days as a kid on military bases. He took that love of flying and turned it into a career in aerospace medicine.

What is Axiom Space?

A commercial space company, “Axiom Space operates missions to the International Space Station (ISS) for customers, including space agencies, companies, and individuals. Axiom Space is also the builder and future owner and operator of Axiom Station, the successor to the ISS.”– per its website HERE.

Learn more about this amazing and innovative company. Maybe YOU could even work for them some day!

Dr. Harrison supporting SpaceX mission

Axiom Space launching the first all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station

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Challenge: Try to figure out how you can exercise without using weights. That means you don’t have anythign to push against. Can you do it? 

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Highlighted Book for this episode! 

Space Care: A Kid’s Guide to Surviving Space by Jennifer Swanson (Mayo Clinic Kids Press)

Book List to Learn More: 

Astronaut-Aquanaut: How Space Science and Sea Science Interact  by Jennifer Swanson

Space Exploration for Kids: A Junior Scientist’s Guide to Astronauts, Rockets, and Life in Zero Gravity by Bruce Betts Ph.D.

Welcome to Mars: Making a Home on the Red Planet by Buzz Aldrin (Author), Marianne Dyson (Author)

You Are the First Kid on Mars by Patrick O’Brien