Kellie Gerardi. Kellie Gerardi (born February 16, 1989) is an American popular science communicator, social media influencer, and commercial astronaut who is known for a sub-orbital spaceflight with Virgin Galactic as a payload specialist in 2023. She has worked at Palantir Technologies since 2015, where she is a lead on the company's mission operations team.

Gerardi was among the first 100 women in space. She was also a candidate for the Mars One mission. She is scheduled to lead an all-female sub-orbital spaceflight with Virgin Galactic in 2026.

Early life and education
Gerardi graduated from Jupiter Community High School in 2007, in the town of Jupiter, Florida, where she was born. She said she watched space shuttles launch from Cape Canaveral from her bedroom window. She studied documentary film making at Barnard College and transferred to New York University (NYU), graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in film.

Career 
Gerardi became a media specialist at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a commercial spaceflight lobbying group, in 2012. She also worked in business development at Masten Space Systems and has done work in copywriting and communications.

In 2015, she began working for Palantir Technologies, a software company, as a technical project manager for its philantropic clients. , she worked as a lead on the company's mission operations team, which provides customers like the United States Space Force with logistical and analytical support with the use of its data analysis software Gotham.

Gerardi says she is professionally driven to democratize access to space and expand "Earth’s economic sphere within the commercial space industry". In a 2015 contribution to HuffPost, she said reduced costs associated with spaceflight would extend the economy into space with lunar and low-earth orbit business opportunities.

Citizen science and commercial spaceflight research 
After meeting Richard Garriott at The Explorers Club, where she worked the coat check, in 2014, Gerardi decided to join as a member. She later served on the board of directors, and is on the Truman National Security Project's Defense Council.

In 2014, Gerardi was accepted as candidate for the Mars One mission, an organization that planned to colonize Mars as a reality television show, which gained her national attention. The organization received harsh criticism from the scientific community and went bankrupt before a mission could be conducted.  In February 2014, she spent two months as a crew member at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a Mars analog habitat operated by the Mars Society. In 2015, she wrote an essay in Popular Mechanics about her experience at the MDRS, which included wearing a space suit. In an interview with Popular Science, she said they tested the ability to grow hops in a simulated Martian regolith using Earthen soil as a control.

In 2017, Gerardi joined a private international education and research facility called the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS). Gerardi completed a program called "Project PoSSUM", which stands for polar suborbital science in the upper mesosphere, which includes study on topics such as bioastronautics and training in high altitude flights to experience weightlessness. Gerardi is IIAS's director of human spaceflight operations.  

On November 2, 2023, Gerardi flew the sub-orbital spaceflight operated by the space tourism company Virgin Galactic, Galactic 05, as a payload specialist doing scientific research with Alan Stern, a private passenger also on board. The trip lasted around two hours from take off to return. Onboard, she collected research data for three experiments focused on the physiology of microgravity developed by the National Research Council of Canada and sponsored by IIAS. Gerardi performed a fluid dynamic test for future designs of syringes and humidifiers specific to spaceflight. She wore a smart undergarment that collects biometric data during her flight developed by Canadian startup Hexoskin Astroskin and the Canadian Space Agency. She also wore a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) to passively measure glucose levels to investigate any relation between high-altitude flight and insulin resistance. She was the first social media influencer in space and among the first 100 women.

In June 2024, Virgin Galactic announced Gerardi as a crew member on a second research spaceflight scheduled for as early as 2026 aboard the Company’s Delta Class spaceship. The mission is designed to enable IIAS to introduce new research while also expanding upon the results from the Galactic 05 mission. Gerardi will be leading an all-female, international research space flight crew from IIAS.

Science communication and social media 
Gerardi is a popular science communicator and social media influencer. As of March 2024, she had over 764,000 followers on TikTok and over 1.3 million followers on Instagram. She has a brand partnership with Sun Chips. She began her social media career as a teenager on YouTube filming popular Christmas content of her family, when the site was new. 

In 2021 and 2023, she walked in New York Fashion Week shows, wearing her navy space suit and a space-themed dress she designed, respectively. In 2021, Gerardi partnered with NASA to host the first all-female episode of NASA Science Live during Women's History Month.

In 2020, Mango Publishing published her first book, Not Necessarily Rocket Science: A Beginner's Guide To Life in the Space Age. She has also created children's books about space called Luna Muna.

Personal life 
In 2015, Gerardi's space-themed wedding was officiated by astronaut Michael López-Alegría, a commander of the International Space Station. Gerardi lives in Jupiter, Florida with her husband and their daughter Delta V, who was named for delta-v, the quantitative measure of a change in velocity.

References

External links

1989 births
Living people
People from Jupiter, Florida
Women space scientists
Tisch School of the Arts alumni
Astronautics
American science communicators
American social media influencers