Mainer Gets Ready for an Out of This World Experience

Imagine have the dream of heading into space and then one day that dream comes true!

That's exactly what's happening to Jessica Meir. The 40-year-old Mainer who's headed to the International Space Station says she's always dreamed of being in space and "seeing this giant blue ball below me."

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir is scheduled to launch in September with a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates. She'll return in 2020.

The Bangor Daily News reports she told students at Caribou High School in 2016 that she didn't give up after NASA rejected her first application to become an astronaut. She was among three women and four men selected from 6,100 applicants for the next class in 2013.

Meir was valedictorian at Caribou High School. Other Mainers who've spent time in space are Bar Harbor native Charles Hobaugh and York High School graduate Chris Cassidy.

We wish safe travels to Jessica and her fellow astronauts and cosmonaut.