Dr Rosemary Coogan graduated from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) astronaut training programme last year and is now training at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center as she prepares for launch
An astronaut hoping to become the first Brit on the moon has revealed secrets behind the intensive training schedule – including how to spend a penny beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
Dr Rosemary Coogan has degrees in physics and astronomy from Durham University and a PhD in astronomy from the University of Sussex. In 2022 she beat more than 22,500 other applicants to get on the European Space Agency ’s (ESA) astronaut training programme and graduated last year. Plans are in the works for her to visit the International Space Station by 2030, and in preparation has been training for the last six months at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center.
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This has involved simulation training inside a life-size replica of the International Space Station (ISS) in an attempt to get used to the claustrophobic environment.
She and the other astronauts have “orbited” the submerged ISS in the massive pool to prepare for space walks, as well as got to grips with the equipment on board – including the space toilet.
Dr Coogan, who could one day get to walk on the Moon, told the BBC : “At the careers day at school, you don’t tend to meet astronauts, you don’t get to meet people who’ve done it, you don’t really get to hear their stories.
“It’s incredibly exciting that we, as humanity, are going back to the Moon, and of course, any way that I could be a part of that, I would be absolutely delighted. I think it’s absolutely thrilling.
She added of the facilities she would be using on the ISS: “The lower part is where you put your solid waste and this funnel here is actually attached to an air suction system, and that is where you put your liquid waste.”
Female astronauts can take drugs to artificially suppress their periods while in space, but if they choose not to, a filter is used to prevent menstrual blood from entering the urine – which must be kept separate as it is treated to be re-used as drinking water.
Once Dr Coogan arrives on the ISS she would follow fellow Brits Helen Sharman, the first Briton in space in 1989, and Tim Peake, who went to the International Space Station in 2015. Born in Northern Ireland in 1991, Dr Coogan went to school in Brighton, East Sussex. As a child she was in the Sea Cadets and has served in the Royal Naval Reserve.
Dr Coogan said at her graduation last year: “We are often asked, ‘When was the moment you decided you wanted to become an astronaut? And I can’t speak for everyone, but for myself, and for a lot of us, it really has been something that has always been in our heads.
“I personally have always been fascinated in space. And now to find out that, as an astronaut, you can go there and you can do this fantastic science and bring that back, it’s everything come together.”