On how the ocean changed him:

I’ve never been as calm as I’ve been since returning to land. I’m a kind of restless person in general, somewhat impulsive in certain contexts. I always feel the need to do something, another adventure in nature. I have this fire in me that just makes me adventurous. But I think the success of the crossing, including the three years of preparation, gave me a lot of confidence. And with confidence, I think came the calmness of knowing I didn’t need to prove anything to anyone anymore.

World Ocean Day is June 8.

On UCF’s influence in pursuing his dreams:

It was once a dream of mine to leave my home country and do research with NASA. Coming to UCF, I realized that dream. Maybe at one point I wouldn’t have been able to think rowing an ocean was possible, but achieving my dream at UCF gave me the courage to try.

On the role a common goal can have in a team’s viability:

Our ultimate goal was to cross the ocean such that we would be willing and able to do it again in the next few years with the same team. This is the first time I am admitting out loud, I think we failed at that — none of us wishes to row an ocean again, nor are we planning another adventure with the same team.

So, though I have to admit we didn’t succeed in the ultimate holistic goal that we had, I think our crossing in general was quite successful. What I didn’t understand going into this was how strongly a common goal can influence your ability to withstand stress, interpersonal stress or annoyances from other team members. Everyone in this team had to work properly for us to be able to complete the goal. So even though we had that interpersonal tension and occasional conflicts, because of the salience of the shared goal, we were able to work through it.

On the breathtaking force of mother nature:

The ocean is so vast and so powerful. You’re nothing. We felt that the most when we had a school of whales approaching us from the stern. We saw them breaching, and then one whale swam under our boat, and we saw that it was longer than our boat, like 30 feet at least. It could have just pushed our boat over and do whatever it wanted with us. We had no power whatsoever.

And I really enjoyed the storms. During the last week we had such a strong wind coming from behind, with rain falling literally horizontally. It hurts when it hits you. The rain comes on so strong. And then the wind was so strong that it just pushed our boat. We usually did like 3 knots on our own, but the speed at that moment was 7 knots without rowing. We raised our oars and they became sails basically. We felt how the wind pushed through our oars. You’re just experiencing this unbelievable power of nature. It was amazing.

On his new motto — “Don’t fight with the ocean”:

Just don’t fight with the ocean because you can’t win. There is no point. Just let things be, let them go. I think this was one of the things that I really took back with me from the experience. I can apply this anywhere. Like at the workplace, if we have colleagues who are difficult to deal with, you can’t change them. You can’t fight with the ocean. You can only change your own reactions and thoughts.

On halfway home still being a far way to go:

After we crossed the halfway point, it became more difficult. You would expect that maybe it gets easier because, oh, half is done, only half more to go, but only half more is still 20 days. It’s three more weeks. It’s still a lot of time to be thinking about, What do you want do when you finish? What do you want to eat? What are you going to do when you get back home? I think we as a team mentally got to the finish too fast. We really had to take a step back and remind ourselves to take it two hours at a time.

On the feeling of seeing land for the first time after 39 days:

We arrived at sunrise. When the light appeared and we saw those cliffs, it’s just something so overwhelming and unique, this feeling of, ‘It’s over. It’s done — 40 days of suffering basically has ended.’ As we entered the harbor, we saw our family and friends were up there on the cliff, waving the flags and then the finish flare going off. It was the high point, definitely.

On how the experience gave insight into his research on teams in extreme, isolated and confined environments:

I think one of the main takeaways that I got from this project was really that preparation is everything. Everyone externally was focusing on the mission, the row, because of course that’s the exciting part. For us, completing the row was the goal, but it’s the smallest piece of the whole project. The three years of preparation and those difficulties that we had, this was much more important.

So now for my research, I’m thinking, we’re always focusing on the part or the actual mission. It’s not necessarily irrelevant, but the mission is the outcome. The input that we should study is before the mission, the preparations. So that informs my future research quite a bit.

On what’s next:

I graduate in the summer. Days before we started the race, I accepted a job offer, which was a relief. I was prepared to take job interviews on the boat. I’m starting as an assistant professor of industrial/organizational psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson șŁœÇֱȄ in New Jersey in August.

I realized that I don’t like this type of several-weeks-endurance events, it’s too monotonous, too dull. I was thinking that my next big thing would be skiing across Greenland, which is more than a month as well. But now, no, thank you. There’s not enough variability, or excitement, for me. I love mountaineering, summiting a mountain in a few days. I just bought new mountain boots, so I think this will be my next thing.

When NASA launches its latest voyage to the International Space Station on May 12, it will carry a blood clotting experiment from the UCF College of Medicine’s newest faculty member. The research will include illuminated bone marrow cells floating in space to find better ways to keep astronauts and Earthlings healthier.

Hansjorg Schwertz specializes in occupational health and focuses his research on how microgravity and radiation in space impact the body’s blood-clotting functions. After an extensive career overseas and at the șŁœÇֱȄ of Utah, he comes to UCF to serve as the associate director for Translational Aerospace Medicine Research at the UCF Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine (CASEEM).

As humans prepare for longer missions to the moon, Mars and beyond, the center is exploring how factors such as microgravity, radiation and isolation impact the human body in space and how that knowledge can drive innovation into diagnostics, treatment and disease prevention for patients on Earth.

“When it comes to putting footprints on the moon, there is no better place to be than UCF,” he says.

NASA Concerned About Blood Clots in Space

Pre- and post-mission medical testing of astronauts on the International Space Station has shown that spaceflight changes their immune system and blood clotting ability. A few astronauts have even developed blood clots during a flight or after returning. For that reason, Schwertz is leading the NASA-funded Megakaryocytes Orbiting in Outer Space and Near Earth (MOON) study, which he began working on at the șŁœÇֱȄ of Utah and continues to collaborate with the university’s researchers on.

“When it comes to putting footprints on the moon, there is no better place to be than UCF.” — Hansjorg Schwertz

Megakaryocytes are bone marrow cells that create platelets, which circulate in the blood stream and can stop bleeding or form blood clots. Both cells also play a key role in immune responses.

The MOON study is examining how space flight affects the development and function of megakaryocytes as they create platelets. The results could provide important knowledge about the risks of inflammation, immune responses and blood clot formation that will help space travelers and patients on Earth, Schwertz says.

His team is sending human cells to the ISS on board the SpaceX 34 resupply mission. Once they are aboard the space station, astronauts will culture the cells and help to develop megakaryocytes in space.

One part of the experiment is to watch the cells in real time, and how they develop their “daughter cell,” the platelets. Because the research will be in microgravity, the cells will float. They’ll be stained with fluorescent dye so UCF’s researcher can examine them remotely at better accuracy.

Schwertz says mentors taught him, “seeing is believing,” so he is “genuinely excited” to see megakaryocytes float in space.

Advancing Personalized Medicine

One of the challenges of space medicine research is that so few people have gone to space, so the sample pool is small. As space travel and colonization progress, more people will be traveling to and working on the moon and beyond.

Healthwise, many will be different than astronauts who are selected after going through vigorous testing and selection criteria. Thus, space is a new frontier of healthcare.

Schwertz hopes his study will unlock technologies and therapies to keep astronauts’ blood clotting mechanisms controlled, prevent abnormal clotting and bring those discoveries back to Earth.

“We’re examining the impact of space flight on each person’s cells,” he says. “This is personalized medicine, and isn’t that what healthcare is all about?”

Emmanuel Urquieta, vice chair for Aerospace Medicine at the UCF College of Medicine and founding director of CASEEM, Schwertz’s work reflects the program’s broader mission to connect spaceflight research with practical clinical and operational solutions.

“Our aerospace medicine program is intentionally designed to be operational and translational in nature,” Urquieta says. “We are building a program that can support the real medical needs of exploration missions while rapidly translating discoveries from spaceflight and extreme environments into innovations that improve health here on Earth.”

Schwertz received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the School of Medicine at the șŁœÇֱȄ of Mainz, Germany. After a residency in Internal Medicine/Cardiology at the șŁœÇֱȄ of Halle, Germany, he did a post-doctoral fellowship at the șŁœÇֱȄ of Utah, where he also served as faculty.

In 2012, he  was awarded a prestigious Lichtenberg-Professorship for Experimental Hemostasis and returned to Germany where he directed a research laboratory. He returned to Utah in 2015, where he completed his residency training in Occupational Medicine and was a faculty member, researcher and community physician.

The material is based upon work supported by NASA under award No. 80NSSC22K0255. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The mission will include multiple health studies on the four astronauts to determine how radiation, microgravity, isolation and other factors impact their physical health, mind and behavior — crucial information that will help pave the way for future lunar surface missions and develop our understanding about humans’ deep space capabilities.

Thanks to new technology and modern medicine, researchers have better ways to understand the impact of space flight on human health.

“Artemis II is both a historic and biomedically important mission,” says  Emmanuel Urquieta, the UCF College of Medicine’s vice chair for aerospace medicine and director of the university’s new Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine (CASEEM).

“For the first time since Apollo 17, humans will travel beyond the Earth’s magnetic field. That matters enormously from a research perspective, because now we have technology to thoroughly understand the health impact of embarking into deep space. The knowledge gained from Artemis II will help shape the future of safe human space exploration and drive innovations that can benefit medicine here on Earth and help us start preparing us for a mission to Mars.”

The Space Coast’s College of Medicine

As the closest medical school to the Kennedy Space Center, UCF’s College of Medicine is charting a new frontier in healthcare as humans prepare for longer missions to the moon and Mars, and commercial space flights take more civilians into space.

The goal: explore how factors such as microgravity, radiation and isolation impact the human body in space and how that knowledge can drive innovation into diagnostics, treatment and disease prevention on Earth.

To further those efforts, UCF’s CASEEM includes faculty experts in medicine, engineering, computer science, psychology, arts and educational leadership. This interdisciplinary group will work together to research and develop new technologies for keeping space travelers healthy, as well as soldiers on military missions, deep sea explorers and mountain climbers.

What Lies Ahead for Artemis II’s Astronauts

• Understanding Radiation Exposure Effects

Traveling to the moon — which humans haven’t returned to since 1972 — means astronauts will go beyond Earth’s Van Allen belts, which protect humans from cosmic radiation and solar storms. Space travelers to the International Space Station stay within Earth’s magnetic field. During their 10-day mission, Artemis II is anticipated to break Apollo 13’s record (248,655 miles) for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth.

Fifty years ago, researchers could do little more than measure radiation. This time will be different, says UCF’s William “Ed” Powers, chief medical officer of CASEEM and the former chief of NASA’s Medical Operations branch where he was a primary medical support physician for six shuttle missions.

“Medical knowledge, technology and the ability to diagnose disease have advanced significantly since then,” he says.

Physicians and scientists will be able to determine how radiation impacts cells, organs, blood proteins and other molecular functions.

Artemis crew members will carry dosimeters in their pockets that measure radiation exposure in real time. Monitors inside the Orion spacecraft will also gather radiation information throughout the flight for future analysis.

An astronaut suffering a medical condition in space is always a concern, but deep space travel brings additional challenges, Powers explains. While astronauts on the International Space Station can be returned to Earth in about a day, as happened recently when a crew member became ill, returning from the moon may take several days or more.

“None of the four astronauts on this flight is a physician,” Powers says. “And a space capsule certainly doesn’t have the same equipment you’d have in a hospital emergency room.”

• Does Space Flight Reduce Immunity?

Previous research has shown that spaceflight missions alter the and reactivate dormant viruses in the human body. As part of the Artemis II mission, NASA will conduct an AVATAR (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response) experiment that will investigate how deep space impacts specific cells and tissues as well as some vital bodily functions including immune system responses.

For this experiment, NASA-funded scientists created “organ-on-a-chip” devices that contain each astronaut’s bone marrow cells. This technology allows scientists to examine molecular changes and cell function.

“With this technology we can see how the body responds to stimuli across the whole mission,” says Jennifer Fogarty, CASEEM’s chief scientist who came to UCF after serving as chief scientist for NASA’s Human Research Program. “This capability will help us map the body’s molecular changes with tissue/organ function and much better predictive capabilities.”

As the “organ-on-a-chip” technology advances and proves accurate, it will allow NASA physicians to provide personalized and proactive medicine to astronauts because they will be able to predict a crew member’s biological response to space flight. Such technology could be used before NASA sends an actual crew to Mars. The space agency could place the crew’s personalized chips on unmanned flights to the Red Planet to better understand the potential health risks for each individual.

“It’s basically sending small versions of astronauts to Mars before we send astronauts to Mars,” Fogarty says.

• Teamwork and Behavior

Selecting an astronaut crew that will perform well under the stresses of space flight is always a top NASA priority. But deep space missions present additional personnel challenges, including communication delays, increased isolation and resource constraints.

Astronauts on moon and Mars missions also must live in a capsule that is significantly smaller than the International Space Station, highlighting the need for crews to work together seamlessly and be able to manage any conflicts.

The Artemis flight will conduct an experiment called ARCHeR (Artemis Research for Crew Health and Readiness) that will evaluate how astronauts perform individually and as a team during the mission.

They will wear sleep and movement monitors before, during and after the mission to evaluate their cognition and team dynamics.

“You watch the astronauts on TV, and it looks so easy,” Fogarty says. “But human performance is critical in space. You have multiple duties to conduct and you’re always pushing operations. So we need to understand how the team performs, their reserve and resilience. The mission itself is the experiment.”

Star Nona 2026

UCF’s leading space medicine experts, valued strategic partners and an astronaut who holds NASA’s record for spacewalks will gather April 10 in Lake Nona’s Medical City to discuss how they can work together to keep space travelers healthy and use that research to create groundbreaking clinical innovations on Earth.

The “Star Nona 2026” event is led by the Lake Nona Research Council, which is focused on encouraging interdisciplinary scientific partnerships between industry, academia and healthcare.

The council includes physicians and researchers from UCF, Orlando Health, AdventHealth, the Florida Space Institute, the Orlando VA Medical Center, Nemours Children’s Health, business and industry.

For more information, including how to register for the event, visit www.ucf.edu/news/progressing-the-final-frontier-of-medicine-space.

As a 67-year-old retiree, Amy Lendian wants you to know it’s never too late. Never too late to start over; to go for your dream career; to earn your college degree.

When the UCF Online history student assumes her spot at the console at Kennedy Space Center to lead the facility systems engineers for the upcoming historic Artemis II launch, that affirmation will echo within her once more.

“I always believed in myself and felt that I could do this,” she says. “It really is never too late.”

Turning a Setback Into a Comeback

Lendian spent the majority of her adult life building her career as a fire protection engineer, helping design sprinkler systems and other fire safety infrastructure.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. The construction industry came to a screeching halt. In her 60s, she suddenly faced unemployment.

“I thought, ‘Who is going to want to hire me in my 60s?’ ” she says. “But I made it my job to find a job. And not just any job. I set out for my dream job in the aerospace industry.”

She logged in every day on her home computer to research job listings, dressed as if she was headed to an office. She sought career counseling. She joined virtual seminars to learn new software and online tools she knew she’d need to master if she wanted to break into the field. She learned how to rework her resume to leverage her relevant skills.

Her strategy and persistence paid off. She got a call back for a fire protection systems engineer position on base at Kennedy Space Center.

Finding Her Place in Space

On her first day at KSC, she attended a briefing where they discussed etiquette while serving on the console. She says it took her a moment to process what she was hearing.

“I stayed up to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I have a photo of myself as a kid standing in front of an Apollo rocket. And you’re saying you want me to be on the console during a launch?!” she says. “I thought, ‘I’m here. I arrived.’ ”

Lendian served on the console for the Artemis I launch in November 2022.

Although she has since retired from her formal position with KSC and moved to Chicago, she is still employed as a part-time consultant and will be there again for Artemis II managing the fire protection systems on the launchpad.

Finishing What She Started

Her late-stage career change inspired her to consider other dreams she had yet to realize. A big one has been nearly 50 years in the making.

Lendian was 19 years old when she attempted college the first time. She enrolled in the șŁœÇֱȄ of South Florida’s electrical engineering program in the late 1970s. But after three years, she stopped her studies because she got married and needed to support her new family.

In 2021, she decided to resuscitate her dream of a college degree. She transferred her old credits into the program at Eastern Florida State College, earned her associate’s degree and looked to enroll in one of UCF Online’s degree programs so she could manage school with her full-time job.

The history degree she is working toward is affiliated with one of the top online institutions. UCF ranks No. 6 for Online Bachelor’s Programs nationally according to the U.S. News & World Report.

“I want that bachelor’s degree,” Lendian says. “I am doing this for me. I am going to do something that I love (history). And I am going to graduate.”

Nov. 13, 2025, 3:55 p.m. Jillian Gloria ’22 stands on a balcony at Blue Origin headquarters in Cape Canaveral, Florida, her eyes fixed on the horizon at Launch Complex 36 — the very launchpad her grandfather helped construct as a NASA engineer in the 1960s.

Engines ignite. Gloria’s breath catches as she wills the rocket to climb. Then she hears those crucial words: “Liftoff detected. New Glenn has cleared the tower.”

The Blue Origin rocket scientist has just witnessed the launch of her first NASA mission. It’s a goal the Orlando native has dreamed about since childhood; one marked by visions of the space shuttle soaring upward as she commuted to school and the roar of sonic booms when it returned to Earth’s atmosphere.

What makes this milestone even more rewarding is the determination, the hard work and the relentless tenacity it took her to get here.

“Your dreams are possible,” Gloria says. “All you need is passion and persistence. As long as you keep going, you can do anything in this world. You’re always going to end up where you’re meant to be.”

“You’ll Never Graduate”

Gloria’s college journey began outside of Florida despite the numerous space-related research and partnerships available in her backyard at UCF. Like many of her peers, she thought she had to branch out from her hometown to gain the most out of her college experience.

She realized quickly she had made a mistake.

Not long after arriving at the șŁœÇֱȄ in Texas at Arlington, an academic advisor told her she would never graduate with an engineering degree if she started her academic career in algebra. She would need an additional 1.5 years of math and science classes alone before she could set foot in an engineering class.

Rather than catch up on the mathematics education and credits she needed to pursue engineering, he advised she’d be better off going after “something more realistic for her current path like a business degree.”

“As an impressionable 18-19 year old, you listen to your adviser, right?” she says. “I just remember dropping the business class a few weeks in because I thought, ‘This is not what I want to do, and I don’t care how long it takes me, I’m going to do get an engineering degree.’ ”

Opportunity Comes Calling

She course-corrected and enrolled in the program at Valencia College. Valencia provided her the academic resources and tutoring she needed to overcome her initial struggles in math and science.

In 2018 ahead of transferring to UCF, she applied to the Central Florida Physics Research Exchange Program, a former initiative for undergraduate students to participate in a 10-week funded research project over the summer with UCF’s physics department.

She remembers doubting her chances of acceptance. After all, she was an aspiring aerospace engineer, not a true physics major. But the program came with the promise of $5,000, and for someone who was working her way through school, what did she have to lose?

As part of her application, she wrote a compelling letter to Professor of Physics William Kaden about his space weathering effects research for NASA and how much she’d love the chance to work in his lab.

The letter worked. Kaden would go on to become Gloria’s mentor throughout her 2.5 years at UCF and kickstarted her hand in research that yielded projects on finding water on the moon, collaborations with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), work with UCF’s and a co-authorship on a NASA-funded paper published in 2021 in the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology.

“The world of research at UCF really provided me the actual work experience and opportunities to turn me into an engineer and a candidate that these companies sought after.” — Jillian Gloria ’22, Blue Origin engineer

“The world of research at UCF really provided me the actual work experience and opportunities to turn me into an engineer and a candidate that these companies sought after,” says Gloria, who keeps her senior-year textbook Mechanics and Thermodynamics of Propulsion, Second Edition on her office desk. “I worked with industry hardware, a vacuum chamber that’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at NASA, flew a payload on a Masten Space Systems Xodiac rocket to track rocket plumes during launch and landing on the moon. I was a published author before I graduated. It all was such an amazing opportunity. That was the first time when I felt like I was actually doing the work I had dreamed about. The things I was exposed to at UCF really  just opened my eyes onto what’s available out there in terms of my career.”

Building a Road to Space

Since graduating in 2022, Gloria launched over a dozen successful missions across three launch-vehicle programs (Atlas V, Delta Heavy, Vulcan Centaur) at United Launch Alliance as a propulsion systems test engineer.

In January 2025, she joined the Blue Origin team as an integrated vehicle test engineer, specializing in the integration, testing, refurbishment, and optimization of complex fluid and pneumatic systems for her fourth launch vehicle, New Glenn.

In other words, she validates the build of the rocket, ensuring its integrity and functionality through every build stage before launch.

She is energized every day by the opportunities available to her to grow and learn within the company, who in addition to their rocket program is also developing a lunar lander and space station.

“This work matters. It’s the future.” — Jillian Gloria

“We’re all working together for the benefit of Earth, and you feel it every day you go to work at Blue Origin,” she says. “This work matters. It’s the future, it’s the next generation launch vehicle, and it just plays a hand in Blue’s mission statement that we want to build a road to space.”

Every milestone they hit — like the recent successful launch and first-time landing of the New Glenn rocket that ferried NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft to begin their journey to Mars — helps get them closer to that goal.

While current generations may not see it, she knows the work she is doing at Blue Origin is developing the infrastructure for future generations who will one day consistently travel to and live on other celestial bodies.

“The stars are the final frontier. It calls to us,” Gloria says. “You can’t really explain it, but when you look up at the sky, it kind of touches your soul. It just makes me feel more connected to something that’s so far away and so beautiful. It’s everything.”

UCF Trustee Chair Subith Vasu and postdoctoral scholar Justin Urso ’15 ’22PhD have been awarded a $750,000 grant from NASA to study the effects that AAM may have on communities. The UCF researchers have partnered with Ocala International Airport on this project, which will specifically explore the effects of pollution and noise on the surrounding neighborhoods.

“We partnered with Ocala International Airport because of the air traffic around that community,” Vasu says. “Anything that flies makes noise, and it can be annoying for residents. We’re looking at how to minimize the risk so the community isn’t bothered.”

Ocala International Airport was a prime partner due to its potential for implementation. Vertiports are the specialized launch pads for electrical air vehicles such as drones and air taxis. Companies like Amazon are interested in using AAM technology for fast and convenient home deliveries while organizations like NASA aim to develop this new transportation system that will deliver both goods and people around the world, safely and efficiently.

“If you live in Ocala and want to take a flight to Europe, California or New York, where do you go?” Vasu says. “The Tampa and Orlando airports are two hours away by car. Depending on where you live, AAM can be very helpful.”

Urso says we could see the development of a vertiport at the Ocala International Airport by 2035. The City of Orlando also has a vested interest in AAM and is working with NASA to develop an air transportation system plan. Vasu says, in the future, they may expand their project to include Orlando International Airport.

An additional partner on the project is Yingru Li, a professor of sociology at UCF, who will conduct community assessments to provide important data on the City of Ocala. Vasu says the goal is to put UCF at the forefront of this developing industry.

“There’s a lot of opportunity within AAM for UCF and the state of Florida,” Vasu says. “We just want to push UCF as a leader in that field.”

That philosophy has landed the UCF industrial and organizational psychology doctoral candidate on a mountain in the middle of a blizzard during an Arctic ski trip. It’s what has encouraged him to complete 50-mile ultramarathons. And it’s a big part of what is pushing him into his next big endeavor: rowing across the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the , 1,736 rowers have successfully crossed an ocean as of November 2025. Exponentially more people (over 7,000) have summited Mount Everest.

Motivated by the pursuit of a life well lived, and for the betterment of his research into optimizing teamwork in isolated, confined and extreme environments like outer , KĂ€osaar has every intention of adding his name to that exclusive list despite what his team is up against.

They are not experienced sailors or fishermen. In fact, in their everyday lives they are a wood chemist, a geneticist, a psychologist and a banker who had never held an oar in their hands until three years ago when they committed to this goal.

“We just have one life. We have to allow ourselves to dream, even if they seem wild.” — Andres KĂ€osaar, UCF student

They had not attempted to actually row on the Atlantic, whose waves can measure up to 20 feet high, until a few days ago when they performed a test run ahead of their official embarkment Dec. 11.

Their 30-foot-by-5-foot vessel must be self-sustaining with enough food and provisions to withstand a 5,000-calorie/day diet over their 3,000-mile voyage westward. There is no getting off the boat once the endeavor has started. If an emergency dictates otherwise, they will forfeit their journey.

They intend to row in pairs in two-hour time blocks. That’s 12 hours of rowing a day, with never more than a two-hour break in between shifts, for 40 days straight.

The challenges — and potential glory — ahead are as vast and wide as the ocean itself.

“We just have one life. We have to allow ourselves to dream, even if they seem wild,” KĂ€osaar says. “If someone asks me if I would like to do something extraordinary, I can’t say no.”

What It Takes to Row the Ocean

Races across the Atlantic have been formally organized since 1997, and since 2015, the World’s Toughest Row Atlantic competition has been held annually every December.

In 2025, more than 30 teams and another 10 individuals in solo boats will participate in the challenge. KĂ€osaar’s team, Team Rowtalia, will be on the starting line Dec. 11, in San Sebastian de la Gomera, Canary Islands, when they push off for English Harbour, Antigua and Barbuda.

“The race organizers actually say that 80% of the whole endeavor is getting to the starting line,” KĂ€osaar says. “The rowing itself is the easy part. There is nothing else to do. There is nothing to think about anymore. You just have to cross the ocean.”

KĂ€osaar learned about the World’s Toughest Row three years ago when a friend in his home country of Estonia approached him with the idea to enter the race. His now teammate prepared a 30-minute presentation to sell him on the idea.

KĂ€osaar isn’t easily intimidated. He spent a month in Antarctica for research earlier this year. He was willing to say yes 60 seconds into his buddy’s presentation, but he politely sat through the full pitch before agreeing. They decided to recruit two of their former fraternity members “bold and naĂŻve enough” to join their daring mission.

They found a coach to teach them the rowing technique since none of them had any experience. They raised $163,000 of their $184,000 goal, which includes the cost of the boat they purchased in May. They accumulated 200 hours of individual training time on the Baltic Sea, with more than half of those hours accumulated during a five-day practice session. Most of their training has been done on indoor rowing machines.

They have listened to podcasts of former ocean-crossers to get a sense of what to expect. Their biggest takeaway: “While it’s going to be hard, you’re there to get the experience. Just try to enjoy it.”

They also prepared with a team-building trip to the Finnish Arctic, camping in a tent in remote snowfields for six days to pressure test how they worked as a team in such a harsh environment.

KĂ€osaar’s field of research and the expertise he has gained in his years studying at UCF make him uniquely suited to navigate how their team dynamic and effectiveness will be impacted by factors like emotions, personalities and situational behaviors that will inevitably reveal themselves under such environmental strain.

While they each have their individual motivations and aspirations for this endeavor, they have also discussed their shared vision as a unit. One definition of a successful mission, KĂ€osaar points out, is solely focused on the optimization of the desired outcome. A team could despise each other and the experience throughout the entire process, never wanting to interact with their teammates again once the mission is complete, but still be considered successful if the goal is completed.

KĂ€osaar likes to define a successful team more holistically.

“I think a better way of looking at it is to think about this concept of team viability; do we think that in the future we could work again successfully?” he says. “Our ultimate goal is that we hope to cross the ocean such that we are willing and able to do that again in the next few years with the same team.”

Ocean Tides to Outer Space

Part of what makes this journey so appealing to KĂ€osaar is the insight and street cred he will gain in his field and research subjects.

The psychology behind teamwork in isolated, confined and extreme environments applies to fields with life-and-death stakes on the line: think submariners, certain military deployments, oil riggers and his specialties, astronauts and Antarctic-based researchers.

KĂ€osaar first zeroed in on this specialized field as a clinical psychology graduate student in Estonia as he wrote a cover letter applying for a European Space Agency internship.

“I was thinking in space we have astronauts, we have people, so we need psychologists,” he says. “I realized that that’s me. That’s what I want to do. That’s my life. My eyes went big and I was like, ‘Wow, OK, let’s go.’  From that moment I started dedicating my life and time toward that.”

As he looked for research opportunities, he came across Research Professor Shawn Burke at UCF’s Institute of Simulation and Training, whose work in team leadership and resiliency has been funded by powerhouse names including the U.S. Army Research Institute, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Office of Naval Research, the U.S. National Science Foundation, DARPA and NASA.

Since joining her lab in 2021, he has contributed to two NASA research grants, once an unfathomable dream that has now become his reality. He credits Burke for molding him into a confident researcher who has grown considerably from his immersive experiences.

“Without UCF being so big in its focus on the space field, seeing rockets launching in the evening when I’m driving home, just this widening of understanding what’s [achievable] — I think this has been something that wouldn’t be possible without being exactly here,” KĂ€osaar says.

He hopes this rowing challenge will build upon the practical skills he has gained at UCF for his future research by providing him with firsthand knowledge of the isolation and extreme circumstances his astronaut subjects in space work through.

“I don’t think I would be able to fully understand the participants of the studies or the subjects we’re studying without putting myself in that situation and really being like, ‘OK, that’s what you guys feel,’ ” KĂ€osaar says.

With his impending graduation in the spring, KĂ€osaar is looking forward to continuing his work, making real contributions and impact to this next frontier of space exploration.

“I don’t want to use the cliche words of becoming interplanetary species, but that’s basically what we are thinking about. I think this could have huge implications for the sustainability of humans in space,” he says. “I think being able to support those endeavors and support this development of humanity, that’s a big part of why I do it, and I’m passionate about it.”

Andres KĂ€osaar’s team, Team Rowtalia, will have solar-powered internet on board. You can follow their journey across the Atlantic on Instagram at .

Founded to reach the moon, we’re already on our way to the next frontier. Built for liftoff, America’s Space șŁœÇֱȄ celebrates UCF Space Week Nov. 3-7.

Where Global Leaders Unite to Boldly Forge the Future of Space

When humans return to the moon, they won’t be alone. NASA will send robotic machines with them, and like all relationships, trust will be critical.

Through a partnership with Cislune Inc., UCF is using immersive technologies to improve trust between humans and artificial intelligence for decision-making in space when circumstances are changing and data remains uncertain — ultimately ensuring astronaut safety and mission success.

Led by UCF Associate Professor Gerd Bruder as principal investigator, Phase I of the project was funded through a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant in which UCF collaborated with Cislune to design and build a moon mission simulator. The system was used to refine human decision-making behavior and optimize interactions between astronauts and autonomous systems across the mission timeline.

The project aims to help reduce cognitive workload for astronauts while enhancing critical data, such as breathable oxygen levels, propellant stores and rover range. It’s also an example of how Knights are developing tech solutions that will propel humanity’s possibilities in space, which UCF was founded to fuel.

“In future lunar missions, humans will be working in concert with highly autonomous machines — and both will be making decisions while inundated with data from an ever-growing network of sensors and computers,” says Hiroshi Furuya, a UCF computer science doctoral student and graduate research assistant who worked on the project.

Cislune provided insights into space mission operations from previous work with space robotics and rovers, while experts from UCF’s supplied expertise in using virtual reality (VR) to create immersive simulations. The collaboration highlights how UCF often works with industry to generate collective impact.

UCF’s team leveraged interdisciplinary knowledge from computer science, engineering and human factors in healthcare — examining decision support systems designed for nurses and medical professionals.

“The healthcare research gave us an insightful window into how practitioners evaluate systems when risk and time pressure are critical features of the workplace, which has important connections for space health and missions,” says Furuya, who was previously awarded a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship for his graduate studies.

AdventHealth Endowed Chair in Healthcare Simulation , co-director of SREAL, provided insights into factors that influence trust and the design of human subject experiments.

“I find it fascinating how seemingly subtle changes in how relevant information is conveyed can impact trust and decision making,” says Welch, a computer scientist and engineer in UCF’s College of Nursing.

The team studied how human-machine trust, uncertainty and decision-making intersect by using VR simulations. The resulting simulator prototype immerses users in a realistic, mission-relevant environment.

The simulator could be crucial not only for the Artemis program, but also for future lunar and deep space exploration missions.

Cislune and UCF have submitted a proposal for Phase II of the project, which will expand the simulator and conduct research studies to improve the way machine assistants can help astronauts make decisions under stress and uncertainty.

Greg Autry, who serves as UCF’s associate provost for Space Commercialization and Strategy, is nationally recognized for his leadership in space research and innovation, including how the space landscape is evolving with the rapid expansion of private flights.

Autry has been nominated by President Trump to become chief financial officer of NASA. Pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate, he will be responsible for ensuring the financial health of the agency and will oversee all financial management, budget, strategic planning, and performance activities relating to NASA’s programs and operations.

“Our space agency has a long history of excellence in financial management, and I am looking forward to joining the incredible team at NASA,” Autry said. “I have been honored to help move UCF’s incredible space enterprise forward, and I hope to return after my service at NASA.”

Autry, known as UCF’s “space czar,” is a leading researcher on entrepreneurship. Before joining UCF last year, he was director and clinical professor of Space Leadership, Policy and Business at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State șŁœÇֱȄ.

Autry is a visiting professor at Imperial College London. He also serves as the vice president for space development at the National Space Society and chairs the Business Case sub-committee for NASA’s In Space Production Applications program (InSPA) which sends manufacturing experiments to the International Space Station.

At UCF, Autry has been working to lead the College of Business’ efforts to establish Executive and MBA programs in Space Commercialization while helping the university enhance and expand awareness of its many space programs.

UCF was founded in 1963 to provide talent for the space industry and today continues to be a top provider of talented graduates and research to a space economy expected to grow to more than $1 trillion in the 2030s and triple that by mid-century.

UCF is the nation’s top supplier of graduates to the aerospace and defense industry, according to Aviation Week Network.

“Space is the most important thing to happen in at least half a millennia,” Autry said. “We are charting a new future for humanity, improving the lives of billions, saving our biosphere, making our nation more secure, and creating jobs right now.”

As space travel expands and becomes less exclusive to the wealthiest demographic, it will require more people to be educated and trained in space-specific medicine, business, psychology, science, engineering, even hospitality for cities with launch sites around the world.

“It won’t be long before careers are available for anyone like me who always wanted to be involved in space but couldn’t get into an astronaut program,” Autry says. “This is where the preparation will happen, at UCF, to enter an industry with unlimited potential.”

This strategic collaboration combines Operator Solutions’ hands-on operational expertise with UCF’s academic and research excellence to develop cutting-edge training programs, pioneer medical research and enhance real-world response capabilities in high-risk environments.

Key Initiatives of the Partnership

The collaboration will drive multiple initiatives aimed at improving medical preparedness in spaceflight and extreme environments.

• Developing Medical Training Modules for Commercial Spaceflight

Operator Solutions and UCF will provide specialized training for physicians, paramedics, flight nurses, medical students and resident physicians. The focus will be on triage procedures, in-flight patient care using helicopters and managing mass casualty incidents at sea. Operator Solutions is also developing a medical skills lab at UCF, where paramedics can master critical techniques such as wound care, fluid resuscitation and stabilization under high-stress conditions. Additionally, trainees will gain hands-on experience in the College of Medicine’s Anatomy Lab, learning life-saving procedures like chest tube insertion and evisceration treatment.

• Enhancing In-flight Medical Care for Space Travelers

With the number of space travelers increasing and missions lasting longer, Operator Solutions and UCF aim to develop new technologies to improve point-of-care medical treatment in space. Their research will focus on ultrasound and telemedicine systems for treating conditions such as kidney stones and blood clots, as well as real-time health monitoring solutions for astronauts — critical for long-duration missions, including those planned for Mars.

Advancing the Future of Aerospace Medicine

As America’s Space șŁœÇֱȄ, UCF is the ideal academic partner for this endeavor. The university was founded to provide talent to fuel the nation’s space program and today is a national leader in many areas of space research, including developing new technologies for space missions and advancing the health and well-being of space travelers.

This partnership strengthens an unrivaled opportunity for UCF students to prepare for careers in this rapidly growing field. UCF is creating a new space medicine curriculum that will involve students from many disciplines, including medicine, nursing, engineering, computer science, optics and photonics — and establishing what will be the nation’s first master’s degree in space medicine.

Located in Melbourne, Florida, Operator Solutions combines decades of military, spaceflight and medical expertise to offer operational, rescue and recovery services to government and private companies. Its pararescuers are qualified to offer paramedic-level care anywhere in the world, including parachuting into remote rescue sites. The company specializes in open-ocean rescue of boaters and astronauts and helped develop procedures for astronaut rescue and retrieval for the commercial space program. Its workforce is 100% military veterans.

“This partnership represents a significant leap forward in aerospace medical training,” says Christopher Lais of Operator Solutions. “By combining our hands-on operational expertise with UCF’s world-class academic research, we are creating a framework that will shape the future of spaceflight medical preparedness and emergency response.”

Emmanuel Urquieta, vice chair of at UCF’s College of Medicine, emphasized the growing importance of aerospace medical training.

“As commercial space travel expands, ensuring that astronauts, spaceflight crews and emergency responders are equipped with essential medical knowledge and skills is critical,” Urquieta says. “This collaboration will push the boundaries of medical science and training, helping us ensure safety and preparedness in extreme environments.”

Urquieta is one of the world’s foremost leaders in space medicine. He came to UCF after serving as chief medical officer of the NASA-funded Translational Institute for Space Health led by the Baylor College of Medicine. His goal is to make UCF a model of interdisciplinary medical research focused on improving the health of space travelers and also those on Earth.

Setting the Standard for Space Mission Readiness

By leveraging their combined expertise, Operator Solutions and UCF’s College of Medicine are establishing new benchmarks in medical education, research and operational readiness for both spaceflight and emergency response. This partnership is poised to transform aerospace medicine, delivering life-saving solutions for the next generation of space missions.