Meet Amanda Nguyen, set to be the first woman of Vietnamese descent in space

Space travel is a dream for the California native but she put it on hold after she was sexually assaulted in college.

For Amanda Nguyen, not even the sky is the limit.

Nguyen, 32 years old and a Southern California native, is set to be the first woman of Vietnamese descent in space.

It’s a lifelong dream of hers — traveling to space, becoming an astronaut — but it’s one that was put on hold after she was sexually assaulted in 2013 while studying national security and astrophysics at Harvard University. She discovered then that seeking justice was an arduous and antiquated process, and as she puts it, she had to choose between that justice and her dream.

Justice, making life on earth a better place, won out.

Nguyen got legislation passed in Congress that preserves the rights of sexual assault survivors — mainly through maintaining the preservation of and survivors’ access to rape kits — and in 2014 founded Rise, a nonprofit that works with state legislatures to implement similar rights for survivors. Two members of Congress, including former Rep. Mimi Walters from Orange County, nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, and she was selected as one of Time’s 2022 Women of the Year.

Now, nearly eight years since Congress passed that “Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights” — and unanimously at that — the nonprofit Space for Humanity said it is sponsoring her on an upcoming trip to space on a Blue Origin New Shepard vehicle.

“As somebody whose dreams have always been to go to space but were deferred and delayed — like so many people, so many women, especially, who encounter gender-based violence — for me, learning that I could have this opportunity meant justice in a way,” said Nguyen.

It’s a trip that celebrates her heritage — she’ll be the first Vietnamese woman and first Southeast Asian woman to fly in space — and it honors her survivor status, she said.

“I chose to delay those dreams to fight for these rights, and I’m still able to hold onto that identity of the person who I was before I was hurt,” said said.

Space for Humanity is a group that “sends thoughtfully selected, impact-driven individuals of any walk of life to space to experience the ‘overview effect,’ a cognitive shift brought on by viewing the Earth from space,” according to its website.

The idea for its Citizen Astronaut Program, the group says, is to encourage those it sends on spaceflights to use that unique experience to better the world upon return.

“Amanda’s novel voyage will represent a much-overdue, shining example to countless others,” Space for Humanity executive director Antonio Peronace said in a statement. “As an organization committed to democratizing space and making it accessible to all the world’s citizens, we’re proud that Amanda and her journey represent the strength, passion and brilliance we want to continue to launch to new heights.”

Nguyen was born and raised in Corona, spending all her weekends in Orange County’s Little Saigon, a community that she says is a microcosm of immigrant resilience and determination.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without that,” she said. “I’m just so grateful for the community I was able to grow up in in Southern California. There are clear skies in Southern California and looking up at them is helping me make my way to them to touch the sky.”

Both of her parents are refugees from Vietnam, her mom by fleeing by boat.

“As boat refugees, my family looked to the stars to guide their way to freedom,” Nguyen says in a video announcing her trip.

“Mom, you swam so I can fly. You crossed the ocean so I could touch the sky,” she adds in Vietnamese.

Some details — like who she’ll be traveling with and the date — are not yet public, but Nguyen is preparing by chatting with other female astronauts, dubbed the “space sisters,” and collecting their advice. The preparation is physical, too, training, for example, how to eat lunch in a microgravity environment.

And she’s found her activism and space travel go hand-in-hand.

She taught herself box breathing techniques — hold four, breathe four in, hold four, breathe four out — when she found herself in situations that could be triggering or scary, like testifying before the U.S. Senate. And those techniques have carried over as she trains and tests in a hyperbaric chamber at the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences

“Innovation lies at the edge of different disciplines and being able to combine them in different ways,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen looks up at the sky, knowing it can take up to a few million years for those photons to reach her sight. It’s humbling, she notes, knowing just how short of a time humans are on earth.

But it also instills a sense of gratitude, she says, “that I am able to be conscious and make choices and have the agency to fight for the things I believe in.”

And that’s a message she wants to give to younger girls interested in STEM careers: “Go for it. You don’t have to feel like you are qualified enough to just really go for it. You are already enough, and your dreams really do matter. Even if they seem impossible, just shoot for it.”