Niko Blanks, of Signal Mountain, will graduate from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 2022 / Contributed photo.Twenty-two-year-old Niko Blanks knows you can't hang your head when your dreams are sky high.
Blanks, who survived childhood cancer, dreams of going to Mars. A student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University in Daytona Beach, Florida, he will graduate college next spring.
He has already completed several prestigious internships and this fall will work at Kennedy Space Center for Blue Origin, a privately funded aerospace manufacturer founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Blanks, a graduate of Baylor School, faces significant headwinds in his plans for space travel. As someone who lives with a tumor in his brain, he has been told repeatedly that being an astronaut is a long shot.
"Honestly, it's hard," he said of his odds. "The thing that keeps me optimistic is there are so many private companies [involved in space travel]."
Blanks, who grew up on Signal Mountain, said that within his lifetime space travel may become so routine that "who can go into space will be a lot more wide-ranging."
Coping with cancer has helped Blanks develop a deep well of perseverance.
When he was six years old, he began having painful headaches while at Thrasher Elementary on Signal Mountain. Doctors did an MRI and discovered a malformation and a tumor in his brain. His diagnosis was fibrillary astrocytoma. Brain surgery turned off his headaches, but the tumor remains.
"I live with it," Blanks said. "It hasn't changed or grown at all.
"I think going through so much at a young age, it made me mature a little faster," he said. "It's definitely helped me cherish the opportunities I had in life."
Growing up, Blanks had his interest in space stoked by frequent visits to Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He eventually had a prominent role in "The Mars Generation," a 2017 Netflix documentary about self-described "space nerds" attending Space Camp.
His Space Camp experience inspired Blanks to establish a fund-raiser to help send kids with cancer to Space Camp. Through a virtual auction earlier this year, $25,000 was raised, enough to send eight families to Huntsville for the camp experience this year.
"Space Camp inspired me a lot, and I'm sure it will inspire other kids if they have the opportunity to go," he said.
Blanks is being assisted by the Austin Hatcher Foundation, a childhood cancer nonprofit in Chattanooga, and Yuri's Night, an American organization for space enthusiasts named after Yuri Gargarin, the Russian cosmonaut who became the first human in space on April 12, 1961.
Blanks said the Austin Hatcher Foundation helped with his cancer recovery when he was a child and that he is a member of Yuri's Night. The organization's co-creator Lorretta Whitesides encouraged him to come up with a space-related project, he said, and providing Space Camp scholarships was his idea.
He said the scholarships allow for the siblings and parents of children with cancer to travel along with them to Space Camp.
"It [cancer] affects the child and the whole family, so we wanted the siblings to go, too," Blanks said.
Blanks said that after he earns his undergraduate degree, he plans to attend graduate school to earn a master's degree in engineering.
After that, the sky is the limit.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com.