Fall 2025
By Marcy de Luna

Peggy Whitson ’86 isn’t done with space just yet. The record-holding astronaut — who’s logged more days in orbit than any other American — is preparing to return to the International Space Station, this time as commander of Axiom Space’s fourth private mission. For Whitson, it’s another high point in a career that has redefined what’s possible in space exploration.

Long before she was floating in microgravity or commanding crews on the ISS, Whitson was a graduate student at Rice, immersed in the study of biochemistry. And long before she donned a flight suit, her alma mater had already helped put Houston — and itself — on the map as a launchpad for the space age.

Rice doesn’t just study space; it helped launch Houston into the space race. When President John F. Kennedy stood in Rice Stadium in 1962 and declared, “We choose to go to the moon,” he wasn’t speaking hypothetically. That speech marked a turning point — not just for the U.S. space program, but for Rice and Houston alike.

What’s less known is how Rice helped make Houston NASA’s home base in the first place.

Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as the U.S. geared up to put humans in space, NASA began searching for a new site for its Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center). Cities across the country were in the running. But Rice played a strategic — and deeply persuasive — role in tilting the scales.

Rice alumnus and then-hair of the Rice Board of Governors, George R. Brown was instrumental in the effort. Brown not only lobbied NASA on Houston’s behalf, but also offered a 1,000-acre tract of land — donated by Rice and Humble Oil (now ExxonMobil) — as a potential  site for the center. That land became the Johnson Space Center. This bold move, along with Houston’s proximity to key military and industrial infrastructure, sealed the deal.

And that was just the beginning. Within a year, Rice established the nation’s first Department of Space
Science in 1963, cementing its position as a scientific partner to NASA and a key pipeline for future space talent. On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. On that historic mission, they carried with them a lunar dust detector experiment designed by Rice professor Brian O’Brien.

For decades since, Rice has remained a vital collaborator with NASA, contributing to research in everything from space weather modeling to planetary science. In recent years, Rice scientists have studied the effects of microgravity on human cells, developed technologies for off-world exploration and helped plan lunar missions.

Rice is also a key player in nurturing the next generation of space explorers. Just last year, the Rice Space Institute — which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year — hosted the prestigious International Space University’s Space Studies Program, bringing researchers, astronauts and industry leaders from around the globe to campus.

It’s no surprise, then, that Whitson’s trajectory has been partly shaped by the university’s strong pull toward space. She earned her Ph.D. from Rice in 1986 and joined NASA as a researcher just a year later. Over the course of her career, she’s flown three long-duration missions, led as NASA’s first female chief astronaut and accumulated an awe-inspiring 675 days in space.

In 2023, she became the first woman to command a private mission to the ISS (Axiom’s Ax-2), and now she’s preparing to do it again for Ax-4, a mission featuring astronauts from Poland, Sweden and Turkey.

As Whitson prepares to command Ax-4, she does so with the experience of three prior missions and a reputation as one of the most capable leaders in spaceflight. But even as she continues to break barriers, she remains grounded in her roots.

When she returned to Rice in 2024 to deliver the undergraduate commencement address, Whitson spoke about embracing the unknown, taking unconventional paths and trusting in your own trajectory. “You don’t have to follow the well-worn trail to get to your goal,” she told graduates. 

Whitson may be launching from Earth again soon — but she’ll carry with her a little piece of Rice, a university whose ambitions have always reached far beyond its campus, beyond Houston and beyond gravity itself.