I was fortunate enough to meet British-born NASA Astronaut Piers Sellers on his visit to the National Space Centre (8th November 2011). He gave a great talk to a packed planetarium of secondary school children and teachers about his three space shuttle missions – including a talk through of a NASA shuttle launch, demonstrated using a toy shuttle.
As someone who has experience the psychological, emotional and physical demands of space travel I asked Piers whether he would volunteer for a (potentially one way) human mission to Mars. He said that he would volunteer to visit the Red Planet as it would be the chance of a lifetime.
Afterwards we took Piers to sample Leicester’s finest curries at the Feast India.
