Meet Pauli Basubas, the Cebuana Scientist Hoping to Become the First Filipino Astronaut

(SPOT.ph) Every year for the past decade, Pauli Basubas has a habit of writing down the things she wants to make happen—even when they sound impossibly far away.

She has started each year with a list of goals on a Google Document. Witnessing a SpaceX rocket launch, helping enable a Philippine rocket launch, becoming an analog astronaut, and hosting space workshops all appeared there before they became real. Now, the 28-year-old Cebuana scientist is working toward an even bigger one: becoming an astronaut.

She’s currently a top candidate to be an astronaut in Space Exploration and Research Agency's (SERA) Space Mission competition, which partners with the aerospace company Blue Origin to bring civilians to space. When SPOT.ph spoke to Basubas, the 28-year-old was packing up her life in Munich for yet another move—this time to London for a new career opportunity.

At the age of six, Basubas dreamed of reaching the stars. All she knew back then was life on the island, where she was raised by a family of farmers in Cebu and Mindanao. She spent her childhood gazing up at the stars at night and watching space missions on television with her lolo, planting a curiosity about a world far beyond her own.

That sense of possibility was reinforced at home. Basubas grew up surrounded by strong, capable women—her lola became a single mother and raised her family to be fiercely self-independent after her husband was murdered. Her grand aunt, a teacher, ecognized her academic gift early on and introduced her to encyclopedias and educational content on television.

But it might come as a surprise to many that her first scientific ambition had nothing to do with space. After severe bouts of dengue during her childhood, Basubas decided to focus her career on biomedical research, looking for a cure for dengue while studying in a science high school.

“When I was first going to study abroad, my father did not allow it at first... No one had even gone to Manila to study,” Basubas told SPOT.ph. Her mother and grandmother eventually convinced her father to let her go. “[They] were pushing him and telling him, ‘You have this child who could have anything, who could do anything she works hard for, and you should not take that away from her.'”

A scholarship eventually took her to Minerva University in San Francisco, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2019. Its global immersion program took her to seven countries, where she worked in virology labs including Institut Pasteur Korea, Helmholtz Association, and Max Planck Society. When virology funding ran dry, she completed her bachelor’s thesis on breast cancer with MD Anderson in Texas, the largest cancer center in the world.

“I’ve always wanted to work in aerospace, but I didn’t think it could happen. I thought I had completely cut it off, but it was at the back of my mind,” Basubas said.

In between the lab and the classroom, Basubas spent her free time rekindling her childhood love for astronomy. Studying abroad gave her access to astronomy organizations and connections that would allow her to get a foot in the door.

By the time she moved to Barcelona for her master’s degree at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in 2022, she was already working with the Space Generation Advisory Council.

Then a space biology lab opened in her building in 2023.

“I could have worked in radiation, but there was a space biology lab that opened up in our building. I visited them because I was curious, and they were looking for an intern... It was the turning point where I realized that I could actually work in this industry.”

From there, Basubas began building her aerospace resume through programs including the UN’s Space4Youth Program, the NASA Adult Space Academy, and the World's Biggest Analog. She is now preparing to apply for a PhD in Space Biology or Space Medicine.

That path eventually led her to the Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA). Basubas had been developing hardware for space biology experiments when the organization approached her about bringing the technology aboard a New Shepard commercial spaceflight—and joining its astronaut competition.

“I thought it was gonna be a competition of the brains, you know?” Basubas recalled. She had barely maintained a public social media presence before then.

But SERA’s Space Mission was designed around a very different selection process. Its goal was to democratize astronaut selection, with participants competing for votes on the agency’s platform. Suddenly, Basubas also had to learn how to put herself—and her ambitions—online for the world to see.

“I’m sitting with the discomfort because I’m not a naturally confident, public person... It’s working as a feedback loop because now I keep reminding myself that now everyone knows [about my goals]. I get nice messages from students about how they feel like they could work towards their dreams because of me,” Basubas said.

She now uses social media to document parts of her astronaut training, from zero-gravity experiments and analog space missions to meeting astronauts and NASA scientists.

Despite Basubas’ initial apprehension, she’s currently in the top 10 of the competition—and the only Asian to make it this far. But her potential flight has been pushed back, with the SERA Space Competition currently on hold for at least two years.

That has not stopped her from preparing, though. Basubas is contacting other space programs for opportunities to fly or train while also working toward her PhD.

“The median age when astronauts get selected is around 35. By then I would have finished my PhD, so I think I’m still within the timeline of becoming an astronaut,” Basubas said.

For a Filipino hoping to reach space, there is another complication: there is no national human-spaceflight program to apply to. Government-backed agencies like NASA or ESA require citizenship, so aspirants such as Basubas have to look toward commercial spaceflight opportunities backed by private companies or careers in the private space industry.

“I felt like I was lagging behind by not doing my PhD yet. I had to tell myself that it's not the same,” Basubas said.

While a lot of it boils down to geographic luck, having an amazing resume also counts: most astronauts have a PhD in a STEM field, decorated military experience, outstanding flying and diving skills, and incredible athletic ability—some astronauts are even Olympians and World Cup medalists!

Still, she doesn’t see growing up with fewer resources as purely a disadvantage.

“Being in a low-resource setting is really helpful because it's much easier to go from a low-resource setting to a high-resource one. When you have everything, it’s so easy, but when you don’t have a lot of resources, it’s really difficult, which is what a spaceflight environment is.”

For now, Basubas is building the qualifications she can control. Her usual routine involves working four hours on her part-time stealth startup job, another four studying and applying for a PhD, working out twice a day, doing some art, and volunteering on projects in the Philippines.

Her success is part ambition and part discipline: she lives by her color-coded calendar, but that structure came after learning the hard way that ambition also needs limits. There was a time when she treated herself like a machine, working from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., putting in 12- to 16-hour work days at the lab doing everything until she burned out.

“I realized I like doing [what I do] because I'm passionate, but I have found my rhythm—I go all in for a period and then I need rest,” Basubas said.

For all the milestones on Basubas' resume, getting comfortable taking up space has been another story.

One of her posts reads: “As a girl and woman in science, there will be many times where you’ll be the only female in the room... It’s important that you stay in that room!”

It is advice that has become personal for her. Bausubas shared with SPOT.ph how she was told by white male classmates that she didn’t have what it takes to get into grad school, being drilled more than her competitors, or being the last female standing in a challenging university class.

“[Misogyny] is something you never realize in the Philippines because in the Philippines I’ve never experienced discrimination. I was always the top of my class, I was female, everyone was cool with it. Our director general for the Philippine Space Agency is female,” Basubas said. She never thought the misogyny affected her until it caught up to her. After all, she wasn’t raised to be vulnerable to things like these.

“I've had this inferiority complex for so long to even go and put myself out there and apply for the PhD. When I was deciding to do it I realized 'Wow, why did it take me so long to do it?'”

Whenever Basubas gains access to a new part of the industry, she finds herself thinking about how Filipinos might gain access to it, too.

After becoming an analog astronaut, she began planning an analog space mission for Filipino university students. Her work with microgravity abroad led her to organize a microgravity research consortium in the Philippines, while her experience with parabolic flight inspired similar training programs with Filipino pilots.

“Whenever I would be working in a lab abroad, I always experienced this bittersweet feeling wishing that the students and scientists in my country could have these things too. I'd be working with robotic microscopes or very fancy expensive equipment. We have these microgravity simulators that cost about P8 million per piece—and every single time I think to myself, 'Oh, how I wish you we could have this in our country as well,'” Basubas said.

That instinct has carried into one of her latest projects. Three months ago, Basubas was given the opportunity to help build a satellite with partners from India and Portugal. She made sure Filipino engineers could work on the project, too.

Now, the Philippines’ first grassroots satellite payload, Mission LUZINHA, is projected to launch in October 2026.

It is easy, from the outside, to see only how far Basubas has already traveled. She is more conscious of how much figuring out it took to get there.

“A lot of it sounds super cool. Everyone sees the stories and they see what I am right now, but like, it's years of just working really hard without even knowing where you will get to,” Basubas said. “But to me, that has been my entire life and my reality—figuring it out, being out there every single time, trying over and over again. But then sometimes, when I remove myself from the first person and see myself in a third person point of view, I also realize that it's actually quite cool how far I've come.”

Coming from only knowing life on the island, Basubas has crossed oceans to reach her dream.

“My family isn't rich. We live in a normal Philippine house—no paint even, just concrete walls. Like wow, this is where I come from and then this is where I am now.”

Who's to say she can’t cross atmospheres to reach outer space?