The German astronaut Ernst Messerschmid was received at the University of Navarra in a session in which he recounted the complexity of carrying out experiments at mission statement and his experience aboard the STS - 61 - A shuttle.

Professor Messerschmid was selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to carry out one of its missions. He never considered the option of becoming an astronaut, but it seemed to him a "great opportunity to achieve social improvements". He assures that, in addition to passing the training, one of the main characteristics to achieve it is "having an I can do it attitude ".

Ernst Messerschmid was trained with two and a half years of training before his launch into space. He confessed that on his launch he "felt nervous as 5% of the shuttle is infrastructure, while the remaining 95% is made up of explosives, which he had to sit on."

The shuttle was traveling at 28,000 km per hour and 400 km above the Earth. The goal was to get a micro-gravity status to conduct the 70 experiments the astronauts were tasked with. "Their biggest difficulty was the pressure of having to execute the experiments successfully in space," says Messerschmid. These are very expensive investments and involve 100 professors who have been designing these projects for years. From this mission statement findings such as the problem of climate change on Earth were discovered.

Your life on a space shuttle

Messerschmid explained the sensations he experienced in space. Astronauts wear a 100-kilogram suit that acclimatizes the body to -150 ºC (the part in the shade) and 150 ºC (the part exposed to the sun). "You lose a lot of fluid and you look 10 years younger because all the wrinkles disappear." Bone mass is also reduced and astronauts are exposed to accelerated aging. For this reason, they need 2 hours a day of training.

The most important lesson Enrst Messerschmid took away was to reflect that this is a new and totally unknown environment where everything is yet to be discovered. One of his main motivations was "to try to improve humanity".