The European Space Agency is recruiting a new generation of non-aggressive, empathetic astronauts. Louise Eccles meets the applicants.
Every morning before work Dr Jackie Bell swims 20 lengths of her local swimming pool without stopping, often cheered on by the lifeguards. Four years ago, at the age of 28, she could barely doggy-paddle without sinking, but staff have watched her master a pretty swift front crawl. The 32-year-old scientist still does not particularly enjoy swimming, but was motivated to learn by one goal — becoming an astronaut. During weightlessness training astronauts must spend up to eight hours a day underwater.
"I won't be entering the Olympics any time soon, but I got a personal best today," Bell tells me, grinning over Zoom, speaking from her home in south London. "No one in my family can swim, so we never went swimming, but I knew there would be a call-out soon for astronauts so I have really pushed myself."
She is one of 1,979 British scientists, pilots and doctors who have applied to become an astronaut with the European Space Agency (Esa). Of those, 560 are women, all hoping to become Britain's second woman in space, after Helen Sharman, who flew to the Mir space station in 1991 on a Soviet-British mission.
Bell was too young to apply during Esa's last round of recruitment in 2008, when the British Army helicopter pilot Tim Peake was chosen, but the space agency is now recruiting between four and six professional astronauts, plus 20 reserves. There is a good chance that whoever is selected will one day make a mission to the moon. There is a somewhat slimmer chance that they'll make it to Mars.
The industry is woefully underrepresented by women. Only 11 per cent of space travellers have been female, and of the ten people currently on board the International Space Station and China's Tiangong space station, only one — the American Megan McArthur, 49, is a woman. But change is afoot. Under pressure not to send more cohorts of almost entirely white men into space, Esa pledged that diversity would be at the heart of its recruitment efforts. It even felt the need to state on its website that it "strongly encourages people of all genders to apply". It had hoped to attract 50 per cent women but, instead, 24 per cent of the 22,589 people who applied were female (28 per cent among UK applicants), an improvement on the 16 per cent in 2008.
Esa will announce in the next few weeks who has made it through to the psychometric assessments, the second of six stages, with the final selection made in late 2022. The job vacancy states that applicants should be gregarious, non-aggressive and have empathy and emotional stability, to cope with the long periods living in extremely close proximity to their fellow astronauts.
It is immediately obvious that Bell is wonderfully gregarious and, by the end of our interview, my cheeks ache from laughing and smiling along with her. However, her humour disguises a seriousness and single-minded determination to reach space. She was the first in her family to go to university and won a scholarship to study maths at the Liverpool University before studying a PhD in theoretical particle physics. Now a senior teaching fellow at Imperial College London, every hobby she undertakes, whether it is running three times a week or learning to fly a helicopter, is done with her astronautical goal in mind. Twice a week she has been taking lessons in Russian, one of the two official languages spoken on board the International Space Station. She has been learning for three years and is proficient.
"Honestly, it's such a tough language to learn but I can have a conversation in Russian now," she says.
Speaking in an unmistakable Liverpudlian accent, she tells me she has wanted to be an astronaut since watching the BBC sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf with her father, a pipe engineer who left school at 14. "I absolutely loved watching Dave Lister, a Scouser in space," she says. "At school I would tell people I wanted to be an astronaut and they would say, 'Get real, you can't go to space.' But I've never let go of it. Looking back at your planet from space, travelling to somewhere you have wanted to be for your whole life, I think you would never be able to beat that feeling.
"For people to see a working-class woman, a Scouser in space, I think that could have a good effect inspiring others who have been told they won't make it."
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) is confident, even brazen, about the chances of a Briton succeeding, despite having no official role in the selection process. "We think the next British astronaut who flies with the European Space Agency is going to come through this call," says Libby Jackson, head of human exploration at the agency. "We have made the point to the European Space Agency that diversity is important, optics are important, so we can inspire others. Astronauts are a very visible part of the space sector." Would she like to see positive discrimination to ensure a minimum number of women and people from minority ethnic backgrounds are selected? Jackson, who used to work at mission control for the International Space Station, pauses to choose her words carefully. "You have to choose astronauts on merit, but I do hope that whoever comes through this selection process better reflects society."
Perhaps the sheer amount of cash that Britain has pumped into Esa is partly behind Britain's confidence of success. More than 30 countries contribute financially to Esa. The UK is a founding member and is the fourth biggest funder behind France, Germany and Italy, investing £374 million ($724 million) every year into its research and innovation programmes. The UK's membership is not affected by Brexit as Esa is not an EU organisation.
Applicants must have a minimum of a master's degree in natural sciences, medicine, engineering, mathematics or a degree as a test pilot with at least three years of professional experience after graduation. They must be 50 or under, healthy and medically fit — I am told that running 5km three times a week should be sufficient.
However, the "soft skills" list is rather more exhaustive. Candidates should demonstrate leadership abilities, teamwork, good logic, foreign language aptitude, memory retention, technical prowess and, crucially, timely decision-making. If you have watched The Martian or Apollo 13, you will understand why.
The salary is about £55,000 to £87,000 ($106,500 to $168,500) after tax, and for that candidates are reminded that "being an astronaut is extremely demanding on the body and mind". They will be exposed to radiation in orbit and experience physiological changes such as loss of bone and muscle mass while in space. The job description says it will require irregular working hours and relocation to Cologne, Germany, where Esa is based, but also long absences from home, family and regular social life while they train in the US, Canada and Russia. It's not the job for anyone wanting work-life balance.
With the average age of an astronaut being 34, are women less likely to apply if they are thinking of having a family, are pregnant or have young children?
"They shouldn't see it as a barrier," Jackson says. "Even if they are pregnant during the application process, that's not a problem. There are many, many people with children, both genders, who've been into space." The Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, 44, has a four-year-old daughter and a baby son and is preparing to return to the International Space Station next year.
One reason for fewer female applicants is that girls are traditionally less likely to study Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), Jackson says, something they should be encouraged to do from an early age. "We are still living in a time where society keeps trying to say that girls and boys should be doing different things," she says. "I get really cross when I see space clothing still marketed specifically for boys and not girls."
Among the applicants is Tessa Naran, 35, a pilot, who was flying around the world for the airline Norwegian in B787 Dreamliners based out of London Gatwick until she was made redundant during the pandemic because of Covid-19 restrictions. Our interview has to be postponed while she is away with the Royal Air Force reserves and then later wing-walking — performing stunts on the wings of a biplane mid-air — for charity.
Her passion for space began when she was six. "My dad had been to a lecture by Helen Sharman and he brought home this pack of freeze-dried Neapolitan space ice cream. When I found out people got to float around in space doing scientific experiments, I said, 'That's where I want to be when I'm older.' My Dad taught me to always look up at the sky. There's so much more than just what's going on here on Earth."
The daughter of two teachers, Naran gained a master's degree in astrophysics at Manchester University. She then spent five years working as a close protection officer for everyone from television celebrities to the ultra-wealthy and international royalty while she saved for a deposit to train to be a commercial airline pilot, which costs more than £100,000 ($193,000). At the time, most astronauts were pilots. Determined to raise the money as quickly as possible, she often worked 20-hour shifts and skateboarded around London to save money on bus and train fares. "Every pound counted," she says.
She later gained a job at Monarch Airlines and then Norwegian. "I absolutely love my job as a pilot, but always in my mind is that I want to get higher, especially when you're flying at night and you see an aurora or the International Space Station. Being a pilot has always felt like it was second best to being an astronaut."
Asked how her partner, Gabby, feels about the risks involved with space travel, Naran calls her over to the sofa, where she is talking to me over Zoom. Gabby, 32, who is studying nursing, says: "You have to go for your dream. There is risk in everything we do. She has been preparing for this her whole life and I hope Tessa can break the boundaries."
At school Naran was mocked by classmates, who called her Space Cadet for saying she wanted to be an astronaut. The teachers were worse. "One female teacher at a careers event annihilated me for saying I wanted to be an astronaut and told me it was a man's job." Naran says as a pilot she has also had to deal with racism, homophobia and sexism. Female pilots make up about 5 per cent of all pilots globally. She hopes that, if she can become an astronaut, she will be a role model for others.
"There aren't many visible mixed-heritage role models in aerospace. It would mean so much to me to be selected and be someone who kids can say, 'Oh, that person looks like me, and they can do it.'"
Travelling in space sounds a bit like extreme camping. The cabin crew have sleeping bags that can be strapped to the wall to keep them from floating around. Going to the lavatory involves air currents and foot restraints. Most of the food is dehydrated in packages and cans.
"I'm not one for camping, I'm more of a glamping sort of person," Naomi Rowe-Gurney, another applicant, laughs when I bring this up. "I hate bugs and dirt, but spaceships are void of bugs and dirt, so it's the perfect camping, 100 per cent indoors. I am so in for that."
Like many of her fellow applicants, the 31-year-old has a CV so impressive that I wonder how Esa will choose between 22,000 outrageous overachievers. Rowe-Gurney, 31, speaks Mandarin and taught physics in China. She is about to complete a PhD in planetary sciences at Leicester University, specialising in the atmospheres of the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, after which she will move to Washington to start a new job at Nasa working on the launch of the £7 billion ($13.5 billion) James Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most powerful space telescope yet. She will be joined by her wife, Lydia Neary, 30, a dog behaviourist, and their goldendoodle, Pungyoh.
As we speak over a video call, she sits in front of a framed painting of her two favourite planets. "We are so incredibly small, you know," Rowe-Gurney says. "When you look up at the stars and think about what that means, it blows my mind every time. I believe there are a lot of worlds out there with life on but they come and go very quickly in terms of the universe."
She says it "never occurred to me to be an astronaut when I was a child because you didn't see anyone in space who looked like me".
"In the physics and astronomy building at university there was only me and one other guy that were black and he left after two years, so it was just me for a while. It was at university that I first thought, 'Maybe I could be an astronaut,' because I started to see more African-Americans joining Nasa."
Whoever makes it into space will be required to carry out hundreds of experiments, which could range from trying to grow food in microgravity through to medical research. Astronauts have also been examining whether the way astronauts recycle their waste products into water, oxygen, food and other materials could help people on Earth create a circular economy.
Dr Emma King, 43, an environmentalist who has applied to be an astronaut, has a PhD in cosmology and is about to embark on a master's in space engineering, specialising in closed-loop environmental systems. She believes passionately that research carried out in space can help in the fight against climate change.
"If you are going to live in a spaceship, you have to recycle every single thing and live the most sustainable life possible, you have no choice. My hope is that the findings from that can help us back on Earth," she says.
King, who founded an outdoor activity centre where she lives in Staffordshire, has long dreamt of being the first woman on Mars and believes this will be her last chance to become an astronaut after not making it to the assessment stage when she applied as a 30-year-old. She recently discovered a letter she had written to herself, aged 16 in 1994, to be opened in 2010, which began: "Hopefully I'll be on the moon when you read this."
Twenty-seven years after King wrote her letter, no woman has yet stepped on the moon. But it will not be long and it could be her. One small step for a woman, another giant leap for mankind.
Written by: Louise Eccles
© The Times of London