PhD Candidate Alyssa Carson Sets Sights on Being First Person on Mars

At 24, Alyssa Carson is not content with dreaming about Mars. She is studying it, training for it, and building a social media following of more than 536,000 Instagram fans around it, all while pursuing a doctorate designed to inch her closer to being the first human to set foot on the red planet. Carson appeared on CBS News to detail that singular ambition.

Carson, originally from Hammond, Louisiana, earned her undergraduate degree in astrobiology from Florida Tech. She graduated high school early in 2019 and earned a bachelor's degree in astrobiology from Florida Institute of Technology in 2023, then enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Arkansas, focusing on astrobiology under Professor Tim Kral.

As a doctoral student working with Kral, Carson's research centers on Mars and whether certain types of bacteria can survive and grow in Mars's atmosphere. That work, she has noted, has implications well beyond space exploration: the testing methods her lab develops can carry over into broader scientific applications on Earth. Her PhD completion is expected in May 2028.

Carson has her rocket license, advanced scuba certification with full face mask, pilot license, skydiving class A license, and is a certified Aquanaut. She goes by the call sign "NASA Blueberry," a nickname that has followed her from the early training programs she attended as a teenager. "I started doing scientific research when I was 15," Carson has said. "I regularly participated in space-related research projects."

"Alyssa is a focused and determined individual," said Dr. Deborah Barnhart, chief executive officer and executive director of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "She is working on that goal, day after day, year after year."

NASA has publicly stated that the organization "has no official ties to Alyssa Carson," and separately clarified that although Carson uses "NASA" in her website name and social media handles, it is not affiliated with her. Her status remains that of an aspiring astronaut building qualifications ahead of what human Mars missions, broadly expected in the 2030s, might require.

Carson describes her drive simply: "I think it's so important that we continue to pursue and learn more things about space, and I just want to be a part of it in some capacity." Given the depth of her preparation at 24, the scope of that ambition appears to be expanding by the year.