LI astronaut on top of the world

Jasmin Moghbeli is on top of the world — both literally and in the hearts of Long Islanders aware of the region's long history of contributions to the nation’s space program.

The Baldwin-raised commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7, along with three other astronauts, arrived Sunday at the International Space Station, beginning a six-month mission in space. Moghbeli’s extraordinary personal example is an inspiration to all, but especially to young women and those whose families, like hers, immigrated to America. 

Moghbeli's dream of becoming an astronaut traces back at least to sixth grade at Lenox Elementary School in North Baldwin. Assigned to write about someone she admired, she chose Valentina Tereshkova, the Soviet cosmonaut who became the first woman in space. With her mother’s help, Moghbeli even made her own spacesuit cut from white windbreakers, with winter boots and a plastic container for a helmet.

At Baldwin High School, where she excelled academically and also played basketball and lacrosse, Moghbeli furthered her dream by attending the Advanced Space Academy, a camp in Alabama offering simulations in space flight. There, students wore royal-blue flight suits and she brought hers home, wearing it on Halloween around her Baldwin neighborhood.

After studying aeronautic engineering at MIT, Moghbeli entered the military and became a Marine Corps major. In Afghanistan, she flew some 150 combat missions. She was given the nickname “Jaws” — somehow fitting for a Long Islander — which was etched on the side of her helicopter. In 2017, she joined NASA’s latest astronaut class — among 12 chosen from a record-setting 18,000 applicants. Sunday’s trip into space was her first, but probably not her last.

Moghbeli’s arrival in space also was the culmination of a long family journey that began when her parents fled the 1979 Iranian revolution as political refugees. They landed in Germany, where Jasmin was born, and eventually immigrated to the U.S., where she grew up as a Long Islander, aware of her cultural heritage. “That’s part of what’s so great about America, right?" she reflected in a 2017 interview. “You have all these people, from different backgrounds, and we share some of the same values as Americans generally, but then there is so much tradition and culture behind each one of our different backgrounds.”

Moghbeli, who follows other Long Islanders like Mike Massimino into space, enriches the region's proud tradition of reaching for the stars. Its roots are in the first solo trans-Atlantic flight in 1927 by Charles Lindbergh, who took off from  Roosevelt Field and landed in Paris. But it was NASA’s glorious moon landing in 1969 — with the lunar module built in Bethpage by aerospace contractor Grumman — that forever placed space exploration into our imaginations. Moghbeli’s journey, both as an astronaut and as an immigrant, is very much an American success story. On her latest mission into the heavens, we wish her godspeed.

CORRECTION: Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on his trans-Atlantic flight to Paris in 1927. The airfield from which he departed was incorrect in an earlier version of this  editorial.