Rodrigo Carvalho Santiago, a native of Volta Redonda, Brazil, was selected by IIAS to join the Astronaut Scientist Candidate Class of 2018 and reported for duty in 2019. He has a background in space research and has performed two high altitude flights in space environment conditions.

Rodrigo was also a researcher and advisor for the MIT/T.E.S.S DATA ANALYSIS TESS GI Program lead by Padi Boyd at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. During quarantine, he contributed to the Folding at Home team that created a supercomputer through peer-to-peer networking.

Additionally, he joined a team to provide solutions for the NASA Human Landing System project for the new generation of toilets in lunar, Martian, and orbital environments.Rodrigo is the director of NMMS 1, which is a project involving the construction and operation of the NMSS-1 station that can accommodate 6 to 8 crew members. The station will carry out research and experiments near the lower mesosphere for up to 8 days at the edge of space.Furthermore, he was chosen by UNITY to develop applications for META QUEST 2, focused on photo-realistic simulations of space, lunar, and Martian missions.

In this episode we talk about -

• Microgravity,
• Sub-orbital flights,
• Challenges one has to face as an astronaut,
• Experience at IIAS,
• The future of space travel and human civilization,
• SpaceX and the Starship and so on...

This is the 19th episode of The Whimper Podcast.

Hope you enjoy it.