I am watching this video of Astronaut Abby right now and I just realized how similar it is what she is talking about to what my space career looks like. However there are some difference because I am german. I will explain later: She begins to talk about that she wanted to become an Astronaut since she was 5 years old, yes thats about me. I started playing moon landing in the kindergarden with my friends. I already knew all Moonwalker and the landing technique from space books for children I lent lent at the mobile libary bus that was stoping by the apartment of my parents at that time. Then she begins to talk about her first Shuttle launch. I live in Germany I never had the chance to see a shuttle launch! But due to my article writing for Raumfahrer.net and later beeing a spacetweep I had the chance to meet many interesting space people at DLR Köln-Porz + European Astronaut Centre (EAC) like astronauts or astro trainer, flight controller and that kind of people. ;) However that gave me the chance to fly to Baikonur to attend the launch of Maxim Suraev, Reid Wiseman and most notably Alexander Gerst a german Astronaut (why this is important I tell you later)! There of cause I met a lot of interesting people but I think most notably Romain Charles, he isnt an Astronaut but he was part of the Mars-500 Program so he already did a simmulated flight to Mars and back. And this is funny but the very same thing that happened to Abby and Luca Parmitano happened to me and Romain. However we met each other before and I hope I didnt react like Abby described her reaction. ;) But I know I still sometimes react like that and I for sure reacted like that when I first met Thomas Pesquet, André Kuipers and Paolo Nespoli the first time in 2012 at ILA 2012 SpaceTweetup. ;) Then she starts to talk about her passion and how other people saw her passion, especially her parents. Well here is the part that is quite different: I dont think my parents back then believed in my dreams when I was 14 years old just hanging on my PC following every step of the Thomas Reiter Mission and then all the following Shuttle/ISS missions. I think they always thought I am just playing PC and I better should go outside and play soccer or whatever other boys did in my age (I hate playing soccer myself!). Well but I know I also didnt have that strong goal back then. I always knew I wanted to do something with Human Spaceflight, but becoming in Astronaut was back then and still is to me something that unrealistic that could happen to me that I never voiced that dream, however of cause there is that dream. But I am realistic: I had some serious medical problems and I am german (we have much less Astronauts then the USA) so I thought well the 2nd best thing then becoming an Astronaut is sitting in the control room and being a Flight Controller! Well I thought then I think that is realistic enough! I like to become a Flight Controller! However, I wont say now if there will be ever the chance to become an Astronaut. ;) Well not having something that believes in your dreams can be very hard. I have some great grandparents that were always supporting me but I am not sure if they ever really understood what I like to become. ;) I first experienced that when I talked to Romain in Baikonur that I wanted to become a Flight Controller. He said to me: well then you will become one! He irritated me a lot because he was a professional and I always had my doubts. But then something changed. I realized how far I already had gone: I was standing in Baikonur as a Press talking to such a person and he takes me serious! Well then Abby talks about Act Big and taking risks. Well I was already standing in Kazakhstan I already spend the money to go there (well for me it was just a 2000€ thanks to Remco Timmermans and his organazation talents and a lot of friends at ESA!). Well since I was 14 years old when I founded the Raumfahrer.Net Chat I started to spread my passion about space with other I am writing a lot of stuff about ISS operations on twitter when my studies permits that! I think Abby is here much more successful however I had the chance to talk to student for about a year about space at the DLR_school_lab in Aachen thats btw. how I earned the money to go to Baikonur by spreading my passion about space to others. ;) Quite similar isnt it? ;) So I think I have to thank YAEZ featuring DLR_next here that I was able to do that and work for the DLR_school_lab! I think the rest what Abby says is also an inspiration for me, cause I dont have that support she has. I still face my own little problems I deal with at daily life I have to come over. But I now know that I will never give up! Like my big hero Gene Kranz said: Failure is not an option! But I met many other people that inspire me: Just last week I was in Munich and I had the chance to see my first real ISS control center apart from these small control rooms for ESA-BME + EUROCOM they have at EAC in Cologne and the small Engieering Control Center they have in Bremen at Astrium now Airbus Defence and Space and the Microgravity User Support Center at DLR in Cologne. But there I saw THE COL-CC the place where all ISS data that comes from Houston to Europe go through (even the russian data goes through that control room as far as I know). But I also met a lot of Flight controller, Tom Uhlig, André Krupke, Christian Ehrhardt, Bobby Gridley and many others and they almost welcomed me as a colleague. That was a new experince for me and a VERY gereat day! :) Well I know I still have a long way to go because I learned that day that I need to have a Masters degree so at least 7 more years for me until I can become a Flight Controller myself. In August I had the chance to talk to Andrea Boyd she is also a Flight Controller (EUROCOM) and her story how she became one also inspired me a lot! And of cause all Shenanigans Alex, Tim, Sam, Thomas, Andreas and Luca are inspiring me with their unique way of telling funny stories via the web and in person (when I had the lucky chance to meet some of them in person). They just refuse to be that classic Astronaut hero but being human (makes them even more heroic IMHO). There are also some Astronauts at ASE26 that inspired me. Most notably Paolo Nespoli, Sergej Volkov and Anton Shkaplerov. But there is one person I unfortunately so far never met in person but inspired me ever since I joined Twitter in June 2012 his name is Ed Van Cise and he is the current lead flight director of Expedition 41. He was one of my first followers on twitter. He is tweeting and posting here on Facebook a lot of interesing and funny stuff about ISS operations. There are many other people. All these great #spacetweeps great friends and great minds and the best group of people to go on an adventure with! I DO NOT like to miss you guys! :) All these people do inspire me, but I hope I also from time to time can help others inspire others, inform others, share my knowledge and passion with others. I cannot give back something to these people that inspired me, but I can and I alway will try my best to inspire others. I wont be successful everytime. I know my passion even in the space community is very special, very technical driven about lots of details others arent interested in, but thats ok I think. Thats me I am not mainstream. I am.... different and I want to be different!
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 00:58:45 +0000
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