By Anjali Kapilavai
For years, Alyssa Carson ’23 has been introduced the same way: the girl who wants to go to Mars. It’s a catchy line; one that has stuck since she was in elementary school. Now that Carson has earned her bachelor’s degree in astrobiology from Florida Tech and is deep into her Ph.D. in space and planetary sciences, that description falls flat. Her story is not just about a child’s dream stretching into adulthood—it’s about unapologetic curiosity and the way she’s learning to balance ambition with realism.
Today, Carson is enrolled at the University of Arkansas, where her research sits at the crossroads of microbiology and planetary sciences. She studies whether microbes could survive in the soil and atmospheric conditions of Mars and what that might tell us about the possibilities of life elsewhere.
A Childhood of Questions
Carson’s fascination with space didn’t come from a family of scientists. Her dad remembers her, barely 5 years old, peppering him with questions: “Have we been to the moon? Is space real?” That restless curiosity soon had a home at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, where 7-year-old Carson spent a weekend with her father pretending to be an astronaut.
Pretending, however, wasn’t enough. She returned every summer, rotating through mission roles—commander, scientist, explorer—figuring out what excited her most. Those camps gave her valuable exposure, teaching her to sample various possibilities before committing to one.
Meanwhile, she lived a bustling childhood: competitive soccer, ballet, piano, robotics club and Girl Scouts. Looking back, she thinks that variety saved her.
“If [my] life had been ‘space, space, space’ without pause, [I] probably would’ve burned out before high school,” she says.
From Simulations to Reality
By her midteens, Carson was ready to trade simulations for the real thing. Through the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS), she trained in microgravity, tested spacesuits and even performed water survival drills.
Even after these early experiences, she still wasn’t sure where she fit. For a while, she leaned toward astrophysics, simply because it seemed like the only path outside engineering. She then met a NASA astrobiologist who opened her eyes to a different field: astrobiology. The study of life in the universe combined her love for space with her growing interest in biology. Suddenly, she had a direction that felt both specific and exciting.
That decision led her to Florida Tech, a small, private research university on the Space Coast—a high-tech hub, home to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and one of the few schools offering astrobiology as an undergraduate major. She spent time in the lab studying microbes, specifically plant-growth-promoting bacteria, that could help future astronauts grow food in space. It was the first time she saw how something as small as bacteria could truly impact the survival of humans in space.
Why Mars Still Matters
Today, Carson’s Ph.D. work continues that line of inquiry on a bigger scale. She experiments with how microbes handle Mars-like pressures and soils, asking if Mars could have once supported life or if it still could, at least on the microbial level.
She’s careful not to overhype the work. Aliens aren’t yet on the table. The realistic hope is bacteria. But finding even a single microbe on another planet would rewrite our understanding of biology, and she knows it.
Carson also keeps a close eye on missions that could inform her work. NASA’s Perseverance rover is currently caching samples on Mars, with hopes they’ll eventually be brought back to Earth. NASA’s Europa Clipper and the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission are aimed at Jupiter’s moons, both considered promising for life under their icy shells. NASA’s upcoming Dragonfly mission will one day head to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, to determine whether methane lakes could support chemistry unlike anything on Earth. These are decade-long bets, but Carson doesn’t mind. Science, she knows, moves at its own pace.
Humans, Robots and What We Bring With Us
Despite being framed as a “future astronaut,” Carson is surprisingly cautious about humans on Mars. Yes, astronauts can accomplish in hours what takes rovers months. People also bring baggage—literally and biologically.
“Every human carries trillions of microbes, and the risk of contaminating Mars with Earth life could make it harder to tell whether we found Martian organisms or simply our own hitchhikers,” she says.
There are technical hurdles, too. Current propulsion would make a round trip to Mars stretch into years. Researchers are working on engines that could shorten the journey from six months to six weeks, but until then, Carson thinks extensive colonization is more dream than plan.
“Science missions, yes. Permanent settlement, I’m not so sure,” she admits.
Beyond “Mars Girl”
Carson is aware that the media sometimes reduces her story to a single dream. But she’s worked hard to broaden the narrative. Her books aren’t prescriptive memoirs; they’re guides for others to figure out their own paths. She insists there’s no one way into the space industry—or any field, for that matter.
“You could copy everything I’ve done or nothing I’ve done and still end up where I am,” she tells young readers.
What she emphasizes instead is balance: between school and fun, ambition and rest, science and sports. It’s an underrated lesson in a culture that often glorifies a singleminded obsession, she says. For Carson, balance is what makes long-term success possible.
Looking Ahead
When asked what she hopes her legacy will be, Carson doesn’t talk about planting a flag on Mars. Her goals are quieter: contribute to the scientific puzzle, piece by piece, and help young people believe their ambitions are worth chasing.
She’s a scientist in training, wrestling with real questions about contamination, responsibility, and balance. Her influence may not come from a single historic “first,” but from the way she reshapes how we think about space exploration itself.
This piece was featured in the fall/winter 2025 edition of Reinvented Magazine.
