Swati Varshney may make the highest skydiving leap by a woman

Swati Varshney, an Indian American computer scientist, may become the first woman to vault from a balloon gondola in the stratosphere and break world records along the way by 2025.

Varshney is one of three highly experienced skydivers with Eliana Rodriquez of Colombian descent and Diana Valerín Jiménez with ancestry in Costa Rica, chosen by Hera Rising initiative, a project from non-profit Rising United.

One of them will make the jump, while the other two will stick on the team for ground support. The trio will also help furnish educational materials for students around the world; sign-up for teachers and other volunteering opportunities are available on the Rising United website.

The high-altitude suit and related technical expertise come courtesy of Paragon Space Development Corp, which also was the engine behind a record-breaking 2014 stratospheric jump.

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Besides which, Paragon is a spacesuit developer, working on a team led by Axiom Space that will outfit NASA’s moonbound Artemis program for astronauts.

All three “explorers,” as Hera Rising calls the trio, have many years of experience in skydiving and work in a technical field to support their sports passion.

For example, Varshney, a first-generation American of Indian descent, born in and raised in the United States, has been skydiving since 2010 with 1,200 career jumps behind her with a specialty in vertical freefall.

Varshney has a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master of philosophy in microtechnology and nanotechnology enterprise from the University of Cambridge, and a bachelor of science in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University.

While at MIT, Varshney worked on creating flexible body armor based on fish-scale biomechanics alongside the MIT Skydiving Club.

Her career has focused on systems and test engineering of emerging technologies. Her research expertise includes biomaterials, polymer chemistry, and 3D printing.

Skydiving, Varshney told Space.com in an exclusive interview, “is a lot more similar to my scientific training than I ever thought it would have been in the first place. It was just another avenue for me to pursue this goal of lifelong learning.”

“The way I thought about this project is it’s a combination of some of my most key interests,” Varshney said. She explained it puts together her hobby in skydiving, her career focuses in science and engineering, and her “passion for representation and inclusion.”

“To have all three of those interests in one spot and one project — and to have a single thing to work on instead of my brain split in three different directions — it’s really incredible,” she added.

A speaking tour and museum exhibits will also flow as the female explorer jumping from the stratosphere aims to break these records: Freefall from the highest altitude by more than 3,609 ft; Break the speed of sound unaided by 164 mph; Highest crewed balloon flight by 3,534 ft; and Longest freefall time

Along with the female stratospheric flyer, 10 experiments will fly up high. Topics under investigation include tailoring spacesuits to the statistically smaller sizes of women, and investigating the stress of jumping on female minds and bodies.

Financial backing comes courtesy of a campaign with Rising United, a non-profit educational charity focused on female empowerment. It is aiming to raise $750,000 on Kickstarter to underwrite the Phase 1 of the program.

That phase will finance items such as spacesuit and mission design, the educational curriculum, and marketing and social media to bring Hera to a wide audience.

The English and Spanish curriculum will focus on students in Grades 5 to 8 (roughly ages 10 to 14) in the United States and Latin America, although online materials will be available worldwide. Low-bandwidth and mobile options will be available, too, to broaden the reach.

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While the materials are still in the works, sample standards-driven content will include an educational video game about skydiving, a digital magazine, a series of math questions tailored to the physics of freefall, and glimpses of training from the explorers and ground team alike.

Hera Rising takes its name from the Greek goddess Hera. She was wife of Zeus, the god who ruled from Mount Olympus, and is associated with women, childbirth and patronage of key city-states in what we now call ancient Greece.

Hera also displayed a lot of female agency in the myths, usually in retaliation for Zeus’ perpetual infidelity.