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.
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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Since you are working at ESA @Fredrikaa, do you know if it is possible for us mortals to come and visit and get a tour there? Or is the security high and visitors not allowed?
Kindest regards
@Gyldenhorn
ESA Headquarters is not very interesting to be honest. Unless there is a cool presentation like this one then the room used in the picture above sets the tone right since it's the one used for most "big" meetings.
If you want to see coll stuff you'll have to go to ESTEC, which is the European Research and Technology Centre. I think they have an open day about once a year for the public coming from anywhere to visit. So that would be your best bet :)
That's pretty interesting. I hope to see a couple of rocket launches in my life. I guess US would be a good bet for that eh?
Thanks! Well, for as long as SpaceX is rocking the show with their spectacular landings, the US is certainly the place to be at the moment (Kennedy Space Centre in Florida to be specific). That's also where I saw two launches myself back in 2012 which I shared here.
However, there are many countries that do launches. I would say India is a pretty exciting country as well with the impressive number of satellites they manage to deploy with the PSLV launcher. Based on their current scheduling, their next launch should be in late March from Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. So maybe that would be an opportunity to see one at home turf? :)
Having just looked it up, I can see they will use a PSLV XL configuration of the rocket with enlarged solid rocket boosters due to the size and high orbit of the navigation satellite they are launching. So it will be a big one too ^^
Awesome, would love to have a chat with him and ask him how we can make space exploration interesting again. We need to go to the moon an beyond before 2030!
I think there's just one way to do that, to do more! We need an ambitious goal for what to do after the International Space Station. The current Director General for ESA is clear in that he want us to go back to the moon with the plan to build and scale a lunar base. I agree.
Anyways, it is events like the successful launch and landing of the Falcon Heavy that SpaceX did which really gets people excited. Not presentations held by astronauts.
Meeting these people is truly an honor! Unfortunately, I've never had the chance to directly talk to an astronaut but did get the chance to hear retired astronaut Chris Hadfield present a few months ago and he is a brilliant public speaker. I particularly enjoyed his account of a return to earth with one of Soyez teams which in his words was "barely survivable!".
I've been very lucky to meet a lot of astronauts due to my profession. You sure can tell that they are different to most people primarily thanks to their intense training and how the perspective they have had from space has shaped them in a way that no other humans have experienced.
I think it's truly amazing that some people indeed out their lives and health at stake for the sake of knowledge and understanding. Barely anyone on this planet would do it, so we should be really thankful to people like Nespoli. It's because of people like him we can understand and learn about specific things that we might not have learnt about otherwise...
You're absolutely right. To learn new things we have to go to new places. Only then can we challenge the "known" and explore the unknown.
Such an interesting article, thank you for sharing!Plus it's really cool that you work at the European Space Agency. I'll definitely follow steemSTEM, thank you for sharing, really.
EspressoBreak
Nice post, when will you go to space ?
Thanks! Before 2040 is my goal
Lucky you! It is an honor meeting people like him and asking them about their uncommon and priviledged profession. I guess you have an amazing job working with rather interesting people.
Would be an enormous pleasure to chat with any of the astronauts..
Wow! Meeting great people is usually rare or should I say a scarce commodity, Just as the economists would say. Congratulations @fredrikaa
Haha, yup they are one in 14 000 000 ^^.
I think I've met with 25 now, so that's a significant percentage of the astronauts still alive :)