A Belfast-born astrophysicist is preparing for her first mission to space as an ESA astronaut.
Dr Rosemary Coogan has been training to be an astronaut since she was selected by the European Space Agency for their class of 2022.
It is expected her first mission will be to the International Space Station before 2030.
Dr Coogan was speaking to young space enthusiasts at a Science Week event in Dundalk, Co Louth today.
She is one of five new astronauts who were selected from 22,500 applications and has been training for about 2 and a half years.
Currently based in Germany, Dr Coogan was born in Belfast but moved to England at a young age where she completed her studies.
She also studied in France and Germany.
"I spent a lot of time in Belfast. I still have family here. I used to come back for all the school holidays. I have a lot of really good memories," she said.
Dr Coogan said she always loved science but was drawn to space by "the immensity of it".
"The pull of space, the immensity of it, the incredible beauty, all the questions it raised looking into the sky at night, that pulled me to it," she said.
The ESA does not have regular recruitment, so Rosemary said the opportunity just came for her at the right time when she had completed her pHD and was in her early 30s.
"It has been a childhood dream to become an astronaut and I feel incredibly lucky that I have been selected for this opportunity," she said.
Her short-term goal is getting to the International Space Station in the coming years, but after that her career prospects are out of this world.
"We're talking about the ISS as the first mission. But post ISS, there's going to be more stations going around the earth. There's huge interest in commercial stations.
"We're going back around the moon, that's starting again already from next year with the first crewed mission going around the moon and of course well beyond that as well so there's a hugely long career to look forward to."
She said her goal is to be ready for whatever comes, either in space or on the ground.
Dr Coogan told the audience today about her intensive training with the European Space Agency, which included centrifuge training, survival training and, of course, learning how to spacewalk.
"It's generally a very demanding training but we are very well supported in all aspects of it."
She spent seven months in NASA learning how to spacewalk, in what she said was the most amazing but most challenging training so far.
"These are very, very heavy suits. In a 1G environment you feel that. They're very tough to move in, they're pressurised, it takes a lot of physical and mental strength."
Dr Coogan completed 11 underwater dives, each six hours in duration for this training.
"They can only happen every few weeks as the body needs time to recover as well, and you need to start preparing for your next missions," she said.
The event was organised by Dr Niamh Shaw, a scientist and space communicator.
She said it was a huge coup to have someone like Dr Rosemary Coogan taking part.
"Given the fact she is the latest cohort of astronauts recruited by the ESA, everyone is looking to the moon and the likelihood of us seeing Rosemary's footsteps on the moon is very high," she said.
Dr Shaw runs Town Scientist, which is a community science initiative which brings science events to communities around Ireland.
This was just one of the events taking place during Science Week, which runs until next Sunday, 16 November.
