An evening with astronaut Tony Antonelli
Even though space seems out of reach and unfamiliar to most people, it is always fascinating how astronauts could travel up into the midst of nothingness. On Tuesday, I went to an event organised by Pint of Science "An Evening with Astronaut Tony Antonelli", where Tony shared his experiences on his missions and life in space.
The event started off with Dr. Catherine Walsh's talk on astronomy and planetary discovery. Dr. Walsh is a University Academic Fellow at the University of Leeds in the School of Physics and Astronomy, she introduced the Astronomer's Toolkit, and how scientists utilise tools such as Very Large Telescope (VLT) and DiRAC to understand more about the cosmic world. This is an informative and interesting warm-up for people like me who had no previous knowledge about cosmology.
Following from Catherine was Tony Antonelli, a former NASA astronaut who piloted both the Space Shuttles Discovery and Atlantis. Tony has logged a total of 24 days in space. He is also the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal and various service awards. Tony represented The International Space School Educational Trust (ISSET), which is a UK charity that works to make space education accessible to all students by working with a number of high profile space agencies.
Do you know it takes $14 million to train one astronaut? Tony shared a lot of fun facts about space discovery and life as an astronaut. For example, space rockets meet high speed at 17500mph, which is 25 times the speed of sound. Also, the size of the Earth opens possibilities for space discovery and if the size is any bigger, gravity would be too big for rockets to fly!
During the talk, Tony shared a lot of photos of the Earth from space, as well as videos of his Atlantis Mission. I sat in amazement seeing life in weightlessness, moreover the magnificent view of space from the perspective of an astronaut. (Surprise: The Earth is not flat!) It makes me appreciate the world we live in and how advanced technology has become allowing us to discover the unknown. As an engineering student, it is thrilling to see the structure and operation of a spacecraft. I am truly proud of engineers and astronomers putting their knowledge together, contributing to aerospace development. The astronauts' perseverance to endure lengthy preparation and training are also highly respected.
This was an especially intriguing night for me. There were curious kids and elders, as well as university students like me. Speakers did a great job at delivering speeches in a lively and humorous manner, keeping everyone engaged. I genuinely learned a lot about space exploration and enjoyed every moment of the session. As Tony said, "Astronauts are just ordinary people. We are all astronauts travelling through space on Spaceship Earth." These words from Tony resonated with me. All sorts of people were in the room that day; teachers, students, engineers. But listening to Tony helped each and every one of us realise that regardless of how we are in the moment, dreams are not impossible.