Emmanuel Urquieta knows what it’s like to live in a space capsule the size of a one-car garage, completely isolated for a month, with no windows and no privacy, on a voyage to the moon and to Mars. He’s been there… kind of.

“We’re at the front-end of a point in history where we can lead the way in training specialists and researchers who want to be part of what’s never been done.”

Before joining UCF’s College of Medicine in 2024 to develop one of the world’s only aerospace medicine programs, Urquieta volunteered to venture into places where he’d find people with immediate medical needs and limited resources to treat them. He flew around Mexico City on a helicopter. He traveled through villages in Africa where adults had never seen running water, let alone a doctor. Then, nearly a decade ago, Urquieta was selected to spend 30 days in a NASA simulation habitat known as the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) to gain a better understanding of the physical, mental and medical challenges

in space.

“All of those experiences now drive my work at UCF,” Urquieta says. “We’re at the front-end of a point in history where we can lead the way in training specialists and researchers who want to be part of what’s never been done.”

Urquieta says a new elective in aerospace medicine will be offered to students in UCF’s College of Medicine later this year. A master’s degree and residency program will soon follow. In its entirety, the aerospace medicine program will include aviation training and spaceflight training for government and private commercial applications, allowing graduates to pursue a wide range of careers — some of which do not yet exist.

“I came to UCF because we’re about to do something very different, which is a good fit for me. I like to think different.”

“It’s an exciting time,” says the mild-mannered Urquieta, pointing to the broader SpaceU initiative, which will position UCF as the leading university in preparing students and Ph.D.s for every aspect of spaceflight. “I came to UCF because we’re about to do something very different, which is a good fit for me. I like to think different.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find a resume like Urquieta’s. His interest in space and medicine began in Mexico City where his father worked as an aerospace engineer and his grandfather piloted planes for Mexicana Airlines.

“I thought I’d be a commercial pilot, too,” Urquieta says.

He earned his pilot’s license while completing medical school, and then combined his interests as a flight surgeon for Mexico City’s Police Department. This is where his perspective began to change. In a city of 25 million people, the department had only seven helicopters to conduct medical rescue missions.

“In that situation, the helicopter becomes a hospital for critically ill patients,” Urquieta says. “I call it a ‘resource poor environment.’ You have to scale down your tools to fit into a small workspace and then solve myriad medical scenarios with whatever is available. That was transformative for me. You have no choice but to think different.”

Urquieta learned similar problem-solving lessons during medical missions in Africa where his team encountered diseases they’d never seen, patients with no medical records, and where communication to the rest of the world was nearly impossible. They had to find life-saving solutions using the gear they carried. Urquieta excelled in those challenges, which explains why he jumped at the chance to move to Ohio and train at Wright State University after he heard about a rare program there: aerospace medicine.

“If you couldn’t tell by now, I like to figure out complex systems,” he says, “and very few systems are as complex as aviation, space and the human body.”

When the idea of commercial space flights with human bodies on board became more serious, Urquieta wanted to be involved. More specifically, he wanted to be fully immersed. So, he applied for a spot inside the HERA, where he could conduct first-person medical research during a month of isolation.

“I learned what it feels like to be in a high-tech environment while being limited to a few medical devices,” he says. “In space flight, you’re taking your entire healthcare system with you. Again, it’s about thinking differently.”

Urquieta would spend the next 10 years at Baylor College of Medicine as the chief medical officer for the Translational Research Institute for Space Health. His experiences in unique living labs had given him the background to manage medical research for public and private spaceflight missions to the moon and Mars.

And then came the perfect match. When Urquieta heard about UCF leveraging its research capabilities, broad expertise and proximity to Cape Canaveral to bring the futuristic SpaceU brand into the active present, he saw it as his next logical step.

“Everything is here to develop a world-class aerospace medicine program.”

“Everything is here to develop a world-class aerospace medicine program,” he says. “We’re 45 minutes from all human launch activities. We have simulation training, a strong research program in hypersonic systems, space-related companies nearby, and a pipeline of talent going between UCF, NASA, and commercial space companies. Our college of medicine is young and nimble enough to focus on the next generations who will lead this new era of human spaceflight.”

Urquieta is far from alone. His team in the College of Medicine is collaborating with 12 other colleges at UCF, working on advances in fields like computer science, engineering, optics and photonics, and psychology.

“It’s rare to find a university with such a variety of knowledge at the same table, where medical people listen to engineers and engineers listen to medical people,” he says. “At the end of the day, humans traveling into space will need all of these highly trained experts working together to ensure health and safety. This is why I feel that I belong at UCF. Everything has led us to this time and place.”