In a “Show Your(s)elf” video released earlier this year, Nguyen was asked, “When you return from space, what is the first thing you want to eat?” She responded, “Actually, I’ve thought about this a lot. It will definitely be Vietnamese food.”

While she has not specified a particular dish, she has frequently shared her love for Vietnamese cuisine, especially banh xeo (Vietnamese fried pancake). She revealed that she had hoped to “sneak” this dish into the astronaut village while awaiting her space journey.

In a TikTok video where she took part in a challenge to rank her favorite Vietnamese dishes, she placed banh xeo at the top of the list. The rest were bun bo Hue (Hue-style beef noodle soup), tam (broken rice), ball (Vietnamese sandwich), pho (noodle soup), Cuon ball (steamed rice cake), bo at the lot (beef wrapped in betel leaves), Call Cuon (spring rolls) and ca kho to (braised fish in clay pot).

Good cha (Vietnamese grilled pork with rice noodles) ranked at the bottom of the list, but she mentioned that her mother loved it.

Nguyen, a researcher and activist, joined a crew of six women to take a flight to space organized by Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, from West Texas, the U.S. on April 14 (local time).

She was accompanied by Lauren Sánchez, fiancée of Jeff Bezos, pop star Katy Perry, and other notable women, including “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

Born on Oct. 10, 1991, Nguyen graduated from the Harvard University and interned at NASA in 2013. She then worked at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and then served as deputy White House liaison at the U.S. State Department.

In November 2014, she founded Rise, a non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of victims of sexual assault, drawing from her own experience as a survivor. In 2019, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to fight for the rights of victims of sexual assault.