8-18 Media reporter Zoe Gramana, left, speaks one-on-one with pioneering astronaut Sunita Williams during Williams’ and fellow astronaut Dr. Anna Fisher’s recent visit to Marquette Mountain. (Photo courtesy Ryan Stephens)

They invited some people from 8-18, Graceyn Kitchel, Edith Kitchel, Zoe Gramana, Iris Dohrenwend, Eleanor Dohrenwend and 8-18 Media director Marnie Foucault.

The people there got to ask the astronauts a few questions.

I was called on to ask Fisher a question and asked, “Did you work as a doctor in space?”

“Ah, you know, every crew gets a medical officer, so somebody gets medical training,” Fisher said. “If you are already a doctor, then obviously you are the medical officer.

Pioneering astronaut Sunita Williams, top center, stands with members of the Gramana family during Williams’ recent visit to Marquette Mountain. From left are sisters Zoe and Daisy Gramana and their mother, Lindsay Gramana. (Photo courtesy Ryan Stephens)

“But the thing with the shuttle is, we had very little capability. We had a basic emergency kit, similar to what you might have on a camping trip, including a bag of IVs and mostly medicines.

“If there were a serious illness, and thank goodness, to my knowledge, we never had one throughout the shuttle program, then the plan was to bring the shuttle back.

“On the space station, they have a lot more capability. They have a health maintenance facility; they have the capability, but still, for a really serious problem, they would have to bring them home or something like that.

“One thing I will add is if you want to be on the first crew to Mars then they are going to send geologists to Mars, and I’m pretty sure they will include a doctor because you are going to be gone a long time with no chance of coming back.

“And then everybody needs an IT (information technology) person, so if I was going to plan my life as a young person to at least have a chance to be on the crew to Mars those are probably the specialities I would pick.”

Sunita also weighed in on why it is important to have someone on board with medical training, especially as space exploration advances further and further away from Earth.

“When you’re on the space station and there is no one with extensive medical training, there is a lot of motivation not to get sick,” Williams said. “If you see things like ‘Star Trek,’ it’s actually forward-thinking about how crews are divided and each has a specialty, and I totally agree when we start going further away for longer periods of time.”

This meeting was important to me because I got a glimpse of what life was like on the International Space Station. I also got to meet two famous astronauts.

It was pretty cool that Williams and Fisher had time to fly all the way here to speak at the lunch-and-learn hosted by Kall Morris Inc. of Marquette.

Zoe Gramana, age 11, is a Marquette resident and member of 8-18 Media.