Rush to join space race -- by Monday!

HEARING that the European Space Agency is looking to train people to become astronauts took me back almost 50 years to when I ‘almost’ became an astronaut. I was in my mid-20s and working as a test engineer at RAF Spadeadam in Cumberland on the first stage European Launcher Development Organisation vehicle test programme. I was excited when I saw this advert: ‘Have you got experience in the space business and would like to work in Germany? If so, give this number a call, reverse charges.’ I called and spoke to an American for several minutes, who asked for details about my experience. After a few questions, he asked me: ‘Can you start on Monday?’ Though I could not start that quickly, I soon began work at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, monitoring European Space Research

Organisation satellites. A meeting of all ESOC staff was hosted by director George Harris Jr, a Brit who had been recruited from Nasa. He spoke about the recent news of Nasa starting the Skylab programme to continue on from Apollo. He went on to say that Europe intended to set up a competitive programme. George finished with: ‘And, of course, we will be looking for candidates to become European astronauts. When I look around this room I see the nucleus of this group.’ There were a good number of highly qualified spacecraft engineers plus a number of other recruits like me. I often wondered whether when Neil Armstrong applied to join Nasa, he was asked: ‘Can you start on Monday?’