Astronaut dream is a reality show for dancer
Merritt Moore joined a crew of hopefuls in a gruelling training scheme being aired on the BBC
MERRITT MOORE is not the only small child to dream of becoming an astronaut, ploughing through story books and learning the constellations from viewing the sky from her garden.
However, she may be the only one on the cusp of realising that dream via a career as a professional ballerina and Oxford physicist. Moore, now 29, is bidding to become the new Tim Peake after joining a crew of hopefuls in a gruelling astronaut training programme for the BBC.
The Harvard University graduate has danced with the English National Ballet, the Zurich Ballet Company and the Boston Ballet Company.
She is one of 12 selected for the BBC’s new elimination series, Astronauts: Have You Got What It Takes? Other contestants include a surgeon, a fighter pilot, a dentist who has climbed Everest, and an aerospace engineer.
The winner will gain the backing of Chris Hadfield, International Space Station Commander, when space agencies launch their next drive for new astronauts. Commander Hadfield, who puts the recruits through their physical and psychologicalgical paces during six episodes, said aid modern astronauts need to be e able to learn new skills quickly and get along with their crew mates. es.
In the first episode, Moore initially failed to impress mpress at a task where the contestants testants were asked to learn n to fly and hover a helicopter. opter. She was also droppeded out of a bleep-test, a measureeasure of sprinting and endurance, early on.n. “That was really tough ugh for me,” she said. “I I mean, the last time I ran was to try to catch the bus or plane. Like, sprinting rinting isn’t part of my regime.”me.” Dr Kevin Fong, a former medical adviser for Nasa, who is also rating the candidates,c said: “Being an astronaut places extreme demands on the human body. You need to be in thet peak of your physical fitness.” CommanderCommande Hadfield added:added “In order to be an astronaut you needne three things:things number one, youy need a healthy body; number two,t have a proven abilityabili to learn complicated things;t and the third, you wantw people who have proven ability to make good decisions when the consequences really matter.
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph ahead of the series, Moore described how she had always dreamed of becoming an astronaut as a child, when her mother would read her books about space and her father would take her to spot the constellations in the night sky.
“Reality and experience made me believe that dream was impossible,” she said.
“It’s not something that tends to come up at the career fair, and it just fell off my radar. Until I heard about this show.”
The first episode of Astronauts: Have You Got What It Takes? is broadcast tonight at 9pm on BBC Two.