Meeting European Astronaut Paolo Nespoli at the ESA Headquarters today

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Italian ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli as he visited the European Space Agency's Headquarters where I work.

Me and ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli at the European Space Agency headquarters

The 60-year-old Italian is the oldest working astronaut in Europe and has gone to space on three different missions. With 313 days spent in space in total, he is the second most experienced European astronaut.

So when I heard he would visit to give a presentation - mainly aimed for a visiting school - I knew he was someone carrying more experience than most!

Picture taken by me during his presentation in the ESA headquarters main meeting room

Nespoli completed his first mission back in 2007 going to the International Space Station onboard Space Shuttle Discovery. At the time, the station was not yet fully constructed, and Nespoli's contribution as a flight engineer was to help install Node-2, also known as "Harmony". The name is quite fitting, as the node is the connection point between three science laboratories onboard the Space Station (one European, one American and one Japanese).

Since then, Nespoli has carried out numerous experiments in space, latest in 2017 when he spent 139 days in space, coming back to Earth on December 14, or two months ago. His presentation today focused mostly on his latest mission, Vita (Vitality, innovation, technology and ability) in which he did 60 different experiments in space.

I found it particularly interesting during the Q&A when someone asked him about his own choice in participating in experiments. As you may know, the ISS is mostly used to facilitate research carried out by Universities and research institutes all around the world. Since space and microgravity have many different effects on our bones, bodies, and psychology, it is perhaps the most interesting area of research. However, this means that the Astronauts are themselves the test objects.

How much choice do they really have if they also want to go to space? A lot, apparently, although Nespoli stressed that he himself had never turned down a request, stating that to him this was his opportunity to benefit humanity in the pursuit of further knowledge and understanding needed to venture further into space and also make new discoveries on medicine. Indeed, Paolo's spine has grown longer and his bones and muscles weaker during his time in space, so something good better come out of it!

Image to the right of Paolo wearing Circadian Rhythm thermometer. Credit ESA/NASA source

Meeting the man had me look deeper into his missions and also the experiments he carried out (if not only to share it with you all!). It is an impressive set of accomplishments to say the least and I'm left feeling very inspired and also lucky to be in a place where I get to meet people like him! If you want to watch a short wrap-up of his time in space in 2017 for the VITA mission, you can watch this short ESA video containing very nice footage of him onboard the ISS.

"Vita Mission wrap-up" by The European Space Agency

Anyways, beyond posting just a cool picture with him, I wanted to share a bit more of his person and what he has helped accomplish. As we're approaching 600 people to have gone into space, it is perhaps worth asking just how many of these brave men and women are actually known to most people? I'm at least very glad that we do have people willing to put their lives and health at stake to further our knowledge and deepen our understanding of how this Universe really works.

Paolo Nespoli is certainly one!

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@fredrikaa