One benefit of working at the European Space Agency is the frequent encounters with Astronauts. Although meeting them in the hallway has become fairly common, these people are still superheroes in the minds of most people working here and thus it is always a nice experience. Going to space is, after all, a dream for most of us working in the sector and the media that most of us consume, Astronauts are like our reality stars.
So it was really cool when for the last day of my work before taking holiday, to have one of the most popular European Astronauts come by to hold a lecture for young students in Paris.
Thomas Pesquet official Astronaut photo
Thomas Pesquet is a French Astronaut who spent roughly 8 months at the International Space Station from November 2016 to June 2017 as a part of Expedition 50 and Expedition 51. Thomas Pesquet is also fairly young astronaut at 39 years of age, and with more than 750 000 followers on his Twitter account, Thomas has done a lot of great outreach both to young people and space enthusiasts around the world. Indeed, few astronauts have caught the public's attention, at least in Europe, more than him much thanks to his mission also involving a lot of educational material. This means that a lot of European pupils and students, as well as their parents, have been exposed to Thomas. The Proxima mission Thomas carried out included no less than 50 science experiments, some of which were also shared with students live from the International Space Station for them to also observe and engage. These have included coding challenges, watching crystals grow in microgravity, math demonstrations related to his own fitness and nutricion tests, etc.
With the European Space Agency's headquarters being located in Paris, the French Astronaut is, of course, extra popular here. It was therefore no surprise to find the room filled up with eager young students when I took some time off from my work to go see his presentation.
The ESA Headquarters hosts a giant conference room used for meetings of all the 22 Member states. The same room was used for Thomas's presentation and filled with Parisian youngsters.
Me holding up a brochure detailing and explaining Thomas's mission. Notice the back of my laptop with the amazing @steemSTEM sticker in the background ;)
Afterwards, the visitors flocked to take a picture with their hero. The kid in me sure wanted to push aside the young ones to secure a spot next to Thomas, but I managed to resist my urge!
Anyways, it was a nice little treat and gave some extra vibe to the day. It also served as a good reminder of how lucky I am to be the place where I am, seeing how meeting an astronaut and getting to be inside the headquarters meant so much to the students. And while I have no plans of applying to become an astronaut myself, the idea did emerge that it would be pretty cool. I mean, who wouldn't want to float around in weightlessness playing the saxophone whilst looking down at our beautiful planet such as Thomas have?
Thomas with his Saxophone onboard the International Space Station
Unfortunately, I never found the opportunity to take a picture with Thomas, as he had to hurry on to a new meeting and stopping for a picture would leave him needing to do the same for everyone. But I'll sure save that for next time!
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I was expecting a sort of Reddit AMA style interview!
The pic of him and the sax cracks me
Up!
Haha, me too :) I hope he made good use of it, knowing the price pr cubic decimetre of brining cargo to the Space Station :P
Apart from being an astronaut, he plays the saxophone too? I love this.
He does! He also has a black belt in Judo! So an active guy :)
That's so cool though ! I've been following his pictures on his twitter when he was in space, I can't imagine what it's like to meet him in real life.
They are amazing! I also watched all of them. His Flickr profile is really cool :)
Jealous!
haha :P
Good post
thanks!
This is wonderful, @fredrikaa. At least you saw him and that's something. I know you'll be able to take a photo with him someday except you choose no to.
He also plays the saxophone, I love this guy. I love music!!
hi through your artical i first time come to know about Astronaut Thomas Pesquet.before this he was unknown for me
Hi, I found some acronyms/abbreviations in this post. This is how they expand:
Interesting bot.
Beware an off-topic comment...
Every time I see your laptop on a picture, this reminds me that I still haven't received my stickers :(
By the way, there is a potential window to go into CMS soon (February). Interested (still trying to trade a CERN visit with an ESA visit :p )?
That's so true, Astronauts are like our reality stars... that's a nice instrument to know how to play
Nice post ,i love this :)
Wow. So nice!
It would be a dream come true to know some astronaut or any other famous person in the scientific area, you should feel pleased to work in the space agency and share with so many masterminds :)
Hello, great work, i liked your post and reward it with upvote.
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True fact. Nice one