Karsen Kitchen uses machine at Morehead Planetarium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Story by Emily Chambliss
Photo by Madeline Nguyen
Moments before takeoff, soon-to-be astronaut Karsen Kitchen sat atop what she called a “breathing dragon.”
One minute. The six passengers watched the clock count down.
30 seconds. The rocket rumbled, inhaled and exhaled, ready to launch the crew 2,238 miles per hour into space.
10 seconds. Only the Kármán line, the boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, stood between Kitchen and history. At 21, she would become the youngest woman to travel to space.
Lift off. Flame-orange light filled the crew cabin. The dragon took flight.
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As a child, Kitchen spent hours lying on her driveway, staring at the stars.
She thought about space’s vast emptiness and the mysteries within it. She pointed out the constellations. Inside, her bedroom walls were covered with posters of Saturn, paintings of galaxies and old space exploration newspaper clippings. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s astrophysics book sat on a shelf.
A boundless expanse of cold darkness, 96 percent of the universe remains unexplored. Galaxies, suns, planets and moons make up only a fraction of what lies beyond our greatest imagination.
Kitchen’s friends were scared of a limitless unknown. She was fascinated.
“I always looked up and knew my place was in the stars,” she said. “It’s such a mysterious place that we think we know a lot about, but we really don’t have that much understanding of. It’s always been something that’s really interested me.”
Kitchen, a UNC-Chapel Hill senior studying communications and astronomy, said space is “in her blood.” Her father, UNC Kenan-Flagler professor Jim Kitchen, held a similar interest, and several of her family members worked at NASA.
Jim Kitchen recalls nights spent stargazing with his daughter and reading papers she wrote about the feasibility of living on Mars, supporting a then-childhood dream.
“Her love for space never went away,” he said. “As a parent you assume they’ll grow out of it. But even when she got older it never changed.”
This interest led her to summers spent attending camps at Morehead Planetarium and research with Green Bank observatory. Karsen Kitchen became a Morehead counselor in 2023, teaching children about gravity, fusion and the life cycle of stars.
“To cultivate that childlike wonder that I once saw in myself is just really beneficial and fulfilling for me,” she said. “I love talking about space and teaching it to kids and seeing their eyes light up.”
In November 2022, Kitchen ate at a small Italian restaurant with her parents and friends.
A waiter delivered a series of envelopes throughout the meal, each containing a different letter. When arranged, the letters spelled “Blue Origin,” an aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos.
She was going to space.
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Blue Origin envisions a future with millions of people living and working in space. It works to create reusable rockets and aims to move “damaging industries” into space to protect Earth. A flight ticket reportedly costs at least $200,000.
Kitchen joined the Blue Origin team as a strategy, marketing and sales intern in June. Her father had flown with Blue Origin’s six-person New Shepard-20 flight in March 2022, something Kitchen joked “pissed her off.”
“I was like ‘I like space more than you do, I should be the one going,’” she said.
Jim Kitchen said he told his daughter about his upcoming spaceflight last.
“I was afraid of her,” he laughed.
At that moment, Kitchen decided she would be in space shortly. Her father’s involvement with Blue Origin allowed her to meet and network with a wide variety of professionals in the aerospace industry.
Karsen Kitchen told them if they ever wanted to send a young woman to space, she was their girl.
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Five hours before takeoff, Kitchen and her mother met friends and family at an astronaut village near Van Horn, Texas. They had about 10 minutes together before she had to get ready for her flight.
Kitchen had kept the secret of her spaceflight from the world for nearly two years, but she couldn’t keep it from her closest friends.
Sofia Padovano, Kitchen’s friend and roommate, was one of the first people to find out about the launch. She signed a non-disclosure agreement about the flight in 2022, their sophomore year of college.
“Finding out that she got that opportunity was very emotional for everyone,” Padovano said. “You’re so excited for somebody to achieve something that’s been a lifelong dream for them.”
Kitchen’s roommates have supported her through difficult classes, career crises and college nights out. Now, they had the opportunity to watch her dream take off, literally.
“I’ve never met someone so passionate about anything,” Padovano said. “It was obvious from the day I met her that space was her thing.”
Padovano recalls a time early in their friendship when Kitchen made her watch the movie “Interstellar,” her favorite film. Padovano found it heartbreaking. Kitchen found it beautiful.
“I was crying,” Padovano said. “She was sitting there and being like, it’s OK. The story is so beautiful. Space exploration is awesome and it’s the future. She is so passionate about space and she is so passionate about the greater good. And space exploration, she sees that as the path forward.”
At the training center, Kitchen spent her last few moments on Earth watching the sunrise.
In awe of Earth’s beauty, and the mountainous landscape of West Texas, she felt nothing but gratitude for the life she’d been given. She knew she would never be able to look at the planet the same way.
“I was always so busy I never really had the opportunity to stop and think,” Kitchen said. “It was my last opportunity to be with the Earth before my life exploded. Kind of literally.”
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The dragon soared above Earth.
100,000 feet. Blue Origin’s New Shepard-26 crew propelled through G-forces toward endless possibility.
200,000 feet. Earth got smaller and smaller. Tears streamed down Kitchen’s face.
330,000 feet. The Kármán line, the glass ceiling, shattered.
Earth bathed in the fluorescent light of the sun. Textured mountains and oceans decorated the planet like brushstrokes on an oil painting.
In her seat, Kitchen sobbed. Overcome with emotion. And stuck in her seat.
She trained for spaceflight at the NASTAR Center in Southampton, Pa. She experienced suborbital training, designed to help astronauts prepare for weightlessness, centrifugal force and any issues they may encounter during travel. Now, the straps holding her to the seat wouldn’t come loose.
NS-26 Crew member Dr. Eiman Jahangir noticed, as Kitchen had been quick to get up in simulations. Jahangir loosened her shoulder straps, unbuckled her seatbelt and lifted her into weightlessness.
“I quickly turned on doctor mode, dad mode,” Jahangir said. “We’re a crew, we’re gonna help each other out.”
Kitchen stayed calm. Out of her seat, Kitchen and Jahangir moved to the window and watched the world, floating in zero gravity, from 62 miles above.
“I was just overjoyed, overfilled with joy at that moment. I had no negative emotion,” she said. “There was panic for sure. But I really would relive any, any moment of it. It was just the best experience that I will ever have in my entire life.”
Kitchen brought several keepsakes from Earth in her payload bag, including two He’s Not Here blue cups from the Franklin Street bar, her cat Coco’s favorite toy and an astronaut Barbie doll.
Kitchen found astronomy to be an unwelcoming, male-dominated field. Women are underestimated and expected to fit a certain “nerdy” look.
“I’ve experienced a lot of ‘You like astronomy? You can’t because you like to be done up and look pretty’ in those classes,” Kitchen said. “Astronaut Barbie signifies rejecting those weird standards.”
In a class at UNC dedicated to astrophotography, the imaging of astronomical objects, teaching assistant Mae Dubay complimented Kitchen’s nails the first time they met.
Dubay, an astrophysics doctorate student at UNC, was the only female student in her first undergraduate astronomy class. She said male professors have questioned if she’s right for the field and experienced mocking from male students.
“It’s difficult and frustrating but I had to stick with it,” Dubay said. “You have to be part of it all to change it. If there’s no female representation nothing will change.”
Kitchen said Barbie showed her she could do anything. She wanted to bring something to space that represented the unlimited potential of women.
In April, Kitchen founded Orbitelle, an initiative that encourages young women to pursue opportunities in space exploration. Through her own experiences and interviews with women in various sectors of the space industry, she aims to show that anything is possible.
“It fills me with so much pride to be able to represent such an amazing group of hardworking and dedicated young women. That is something I will never be able to pay back,” Kitchen said. “That is a surreal experience for me. And my main goal is just to really make all of them proud.”
Dubay said Kitchen was always excited and passionate. Her excitement is infectious and inspiring.
“Surrounding yourself with women in these fields is a great way to remember you’re not alone,” Dubay said. “They want to support you and they want to cheer you on.”
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From the launch site on Earth, Kitchen’s family and friends watched her return to Earth with pride.
“She stands as just such a pioneer for women in general. Young women and women in college,” Padovano said. “That’s really special.”
Kitchen tearfully exited the rocket, greeting her loved ones with hugs and gratitude.
Now that she’s checked space travel off her bucket list, Kitchen plans to continue working in the aerospace industry in space communications. The thought of being stuck in one career the rest of her life frightens her. Channeling her inner Barbie, Kitchen wants to be a jack of all trades.
“Space was always my destiny,” she said. “I hope that my experience can inspire other young women to never stop reaching for their goals. This is just the beginning.”
