INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION\/ COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – 250 miles above Earth, Astronaut Nichole Ayers is fulfilling a life-long dream. Ayers has been aboard the International Space Station since March when she piloted SpaceX\u2019s Crew 10 mission to space.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, she spoke one-on-one with 11 News Anchor Adam Atchison while circling the planet in the research station.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always loved space since I was just this big,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat were your first impressions?\u201d Atchison asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my first impressions is something that is never going to get old… it\u2019s kind of become my party trick,\u201d said Ayers, while demonstrating zero-gravity. \u201cWhen you\u2019re first on board here, you have to get used to talking to someone who\u2019s on the wall, or someone who\u2019s on the ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t just floating around for Ayers or any of her colleagues on board. At any given moment, there are over 200 experiments happening both inside and outside the station. Helping manage them is part of Ayers\u2019 responsibilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, one of the biggest honors of being up here is to have a small part in that science,\u201d said Ayers. \u201cIt takes some scientists their entire career of effort and research to get their experiment on board here. It\u2019s a privilege and honor to have a small part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ayers was selected by NASA to become an astronaut in 2021. She\u2019s a graduate of Woodland Park High School and the Air Force Academy. She led the first all-woman F-22 formation in combat.<\/p>\n
The Air Force Lieutenant Colonel also took her first spacewalk in May.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was suddenly very aware of how thin that visor is, you know, when it\u2019s just you and the spacesuit and you\u2019re looking at the vacuum of space,\u201d she told Atchison.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s our goal, as astronauts, is to do the hard things and make it look easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she\u2019s not taking walks in space, Ayers takes photos. Some of them have gone viral on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we look at the Earth, we can see the whole population of the whole Earth, and there are no borders, there\u2019s no solid color state or country. It\u2019s all one giant humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s your message to others – young people – who might have aspirations to get to space?\u201d asked Atchison.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut your nose to the grinder, work really hard and be a good team player,\u201d Ayers responded. \u201cThat will get you anywhere you want to go in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ayers is scheduled to come home from the ISS in August.<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview below:<\/p>\n
250 miles above Earth, Astronaut Nichole Ayers is fulfilling a life-long dream. Ayers has been aboard the International Space Station since March.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 KKTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION\/ COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – 250 miles above Earth, Astronaut Nichole Ayers is fulfilling a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-33840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}