Dr. J.D. Polk can boast of having one of the coolest jobs on earth, since he works with people trained to leave the planet aboard rockets. Polk, who was formerly Des Moines University’s dean of osteopathic medicine, left Des Moines in late 2016 to return to NASA, where he serves as the space agency’s chief medical officer. Here’s an interview with Polk by The DO Magazine in which he describes how NASA is preparing to put more footprints on the moon and eventually send manned missions to Mars. To read the article, click here. And here’s a Business Record Insider piece in which I interviewed Polk last year when he visited Des Moines.