In the calm before liftoff, Amanda Nguyen is no stranger to countdowns. But unlike the final moments before a rocket ascends into space, the first ticking clock she faced wasn’t bound for the stars — it was set to destroy her only chance at justice.

Nguyen, a civil rights activist and aspiring astronaut, is now preparing for a different kind of journey.

Lifting off from justice

On 14 April, she boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-31, making history as the first Vietnamese woman in space. Alongside public figures like Aisha Bowe, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn, Gayle King, and Lauren Sanchez, her presence on the flight is a symbol of resilience, healing, and transformation.

But to understand how she got here, you have to start with the moment everything changed.

In 2013, Amanda was a 22-year-old Harvard student, three months shy of graduation. She was charting a future in astrophysics and had already interned at NASA. Another path — one with the CIA — was also opening up. Then, a brutal assault at a college party brought that momentum to a standstill. Reeling from trauma, Nguyen made the difficult decision to complete a rape kit anonymously, hoping to preserve evidence while protecting her future career options.

She would soon discover a cruel twist in Massachusetts law: unless she filed legal action within six months, her rape kit — key forensic evidence — would be destroyed. The statute of limitations for prosecuting rape was 15 years, but the clock on her justice had already begun its merciless countdown.

Her memoir, Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope, released earlier this year, details that uphill battle — one that started with cold calls to forensic labs and ended in the halls of Congress. What began as a desperate bid to save her own kit turned into a movement. She founded Rise, a survivor-led organization that successfully championed the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act, signed into U.S. law in 2016. Since then, Rise has helped pass 91 laws worldwide and pushed for a global treaty on survivors’ rights.

Nguyen’s advocacy stems not only from her experience of sexual violence but from a childhood shaped by survival.

Her parents, Vietnamese refugees who fled after the fall of Saigon, navigated by the stars on small boats to seek safety in America. At home, Nguyen endured years of abuse from her father, whose violence left literal dents in the walls. Her refuge was the sky. “The idea of going to space,” she writes, “meant an extra layer of promise… that I would find a way to escape.”

Science and salvation

It’s no accident that Nguyen’s life traces constellations of adversity and ascent. Space, to her, is both science and salvation. Her mission with Blue Origin is a testament to the ways we carry our wounds into our highest aspirations.

She recounts moments of laughter, friendship, and community-building. The bill that bears her work was drafted by survivors, lawyers, economists, and friends — many of whom were moved to act by Nguyen’s initial group email. “Every right in the bill,” she says, “was written for a woman on my team who experienced the absolute tragedy of not having them.”

In a world that often silences survivors, Nguyen has built a launchpad for voices like hers. Her trajectory — from hospital bed to Capitol Hill to space — redefines what survival looks like. It's not just about enduring, but transforming: pain into policy, grief into ignition.