Bremen, May 6, 2019. ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer taught class this morning at the Ökumenisches Gymnasium in Bremen-Oberneuland as part of the cooperation between the school and the Bremen-based space company OHB SE. Around 40 students in grades 6 to 10 from the school’s STEM profile got the opportunity to have their questions answered by a real astronaut.
The cooperation between the school and OHB SE has been in place since August 2018. Supporting the aerospace profile the school offers for tenth-graders, OHB has active engineers teach class to provide the students with content originating from practical experience. This strategy is designed to arouse the students' interest in the aerospace industry and to secure young talent for the company in the long term.
Matthias Maurer spent a good one and a half hours at the school answering questions - and there were many questions. The students wanted to know everything from the course of astronaut training to the benefits of human space flight for mankind. They also asked about the astronaut's dream destination. "The dream destination is, of course, the moon, all my astronaut colleagues would probably say that," admits Maurer frankly. "But of course I am also looking forward to the ISS. I love science and doing experiments on the ISS is something very special".
The astronaut also advised the students not to be discouraged by setbacks. After all the selection procedures, Maurer was one of the last ten remaining candidates, but initially he was not selected as an astronaut and only later nominated.
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