Sure, the trip is only 11 minutes, and yes, the rocket-capsule will barely cross the 68-mile-high line into space.

The space tourism flight is suborbital and sub-optimal in a way for a Vanderbilt University cardiologist who has spent a lifetime dreaming of — and, lately, training for — walking on the moon. Or orbiting Earth in the International Space Station, anyway.

But when the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin flight lifts off from West Texas at 8 a.m. Thursday — if weather and other conditions allow, of course — Nashville Dr. Eiman Jahangir will be thrilled to be on it.

First Iranian-American in space. First Nashvillian in space (though Mt. Juliet high school grad Barry "Butch" Wilmore and fellow NASA astronaut Sunita Williams are currently stuck on the International Space Station until next year after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft developed problems on the flight that took them there in June).

"I see the Blue Origin flight as an opportunity to do something amazing," Jahangir told The Tennessean last week.

‍

"There are still only about 700 people who’ve gone into space," he said. "And it’ll give me real world understanding of what this feels like."

Jahangir, 44, said his space dreams are rooted in danger: He spent his first years in war-torn Iran, looking up into the sky for rockets as his family hustled to safety in a basement after air raid sirens went off in capital of Tehran.

'First realization that things could fly'

The little boy, though, wasn't scared.

He was fascinated.

"That was my first realization that things could fly in the sky," he said.

His family — including brother Alex, now also a Vanderbilt physician, who served as Nashville's COVID czar during the pandemic — moved to Nashville when Jahangir was 4.

His first trip to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in nearby Huntsville, Alabama, came only two years later. Little Eiman Jahangir stood under the giant rocket there, staring in awe, thinking repeatedly — wow, this thing goes to the moon?

"I always thought of putting my feet on the moon," he said. "I wanted to touch that surface."

Those dreams grew as Jahangir started visiting, then volunteering at, then working for Nashville's Adventure Science Center, which regularly had displays about space travel. But science-loving Jahangir's more practical side, and a push from his parents, steered him into pursuing a career in medicine.

His grandfather's stroke pushed him into cardiology. "I saw it devastate his life.... and I wanted to be a part of the solution," he said.

Still, space was Jahangir's first passion, and that was reignited when he visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after he graduated from medical school.

‍

"I want to feel that force that allows you to leave gravity," he said.

He did a search online: What are the qualifications needed to become an astronaut? Turns out being a physician gets you pretty far along in the process.

He started applying in 2008, telling friends and family he just wanted to get it out of his system. Funny thing, though —  NASA chose him to do a second application. And then a weeklong round of interviews and tests at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Jahangir met real astronauts.

And then a finalist round interview.

And then .... Well ....

'It was fueling the fire'

He got a call in 2009 saying he didn't make it, but that he should apply again.

"I was so close," he said, wistully adding, "It was fueling the fire; you can almost touch the sky."

He applied again in 2012. He made the final round again. He got rejected again.

The next three times Jahangir applied, he didn't even get to the second application. But Jahangir didn't give up hope.

He started sending research proposals to the private space companies that were springing up. He joined an online space community, MOONDao, that crowdfunded two spots on the Jeff Bezos Blue Origin space tourism flights.

And for that second flight — the one launching this week — Jahangir won. Kind of by default.

He was the fourth person picked for this week's flight. And then, one by one, the three people in line before him dropped out, for various reasons.

On a Monday afternoon, he got a text from the MOONDao guys to be on a call the next day. The call went something like, "You're going to space!"

Jahangir jumped up and down at his clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and then called his wife, and they jumped up and down together. Then he went to tell his brother who was working on the floor below, and they jumped up and down together.

"I'm ecstatic!" Jahangir said. "I couldn't believe it!"

He'll be on a reusable New Shepard rocket-capsule, and the expected 8 a.m. Thursday launch will stream live on the Blue Origin website, starting at 7:20 a.m. Jahangir will be one of six people on board. The others include a university professor, three rich entrepreneurs and a college student, 21-year-old Karsen Kitchen, a senior at the University of North Carolina.

Jahangir will be wearing portable health data collection devices so Vanderbilt researchers might look at how space affects the immune system, genetic expression and genetic mutations in blood stem cells.

But he mostly will be concentrating on being in the moment and staring out the capsule's oversized windows.

"We're in the beginning of the new space age," he said. "I'm not scared. I couldn't be more excited."

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384. Read the article at Tennessean.com.

‍