Pupils have 'lift off' for Irish astronaut project

Schoolchildren today took the first small step towards launching an Irish astronaut into space within the next 20 years.

President Mary McAleese welcomed NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Brian Duffy on their information mission to Dublin, as national job training body FAS worked to tighten links with the US space programme.

John Cahill, manager of the science and engineering project at FAS, said one of the main hopes for the space programme was to ensure that Irish people moved forward in the new technology and science field.

“The intention is to have an Irish astronaut in space,” Mr Cahill said. “That is what the Irish Government want.

“If we can build on this link, we have three astronauts, and a former chief executive in NASA here, these people don’t come without an interest.

“Brian Duffy and Scott Kelly bring an Irish American influence into it. If first generation Irish Americans can do it then why can’t Irish people?” Mr Cahill said.

The NASA astronauts were at the job and education Opportunities Fair in Dublin’s Croke Park where they talked to adults and schoolchildren about their five Space Shuttle missions.

The astronauts will be part of the US Space Shuttle’s return flight next May. Missions were suspended after the devastating deaths of the seven-crew members of the US shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003.

FAS has been building a science and space programme in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, and the Kennedy Space Centre in the US since 2003.

It is currently operating four projects including graduate internships, apprenticeships and schoolchildren visits.

Mr Cahill said the programmes were aimed at interesting schoolchildren in science and urge graduates to move towards research in engineering and new technology.

Many graduates have gained internships with NASA and companies relating to the US space programme through the FAS initiative.

Interest in the field is rapidly growing with more than 10,000 entries from primary school pupils for FAS’s Science Challenge – a limited 15-place visit to the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida later this year.

Mr Cahill said it was the “dream” to ensure that more graduates went on into the science research field.

“The Irish graduate technicians that we are sending out are as good or better than the American ones, and I don’t mean that in a condescending way,” he said.

The FAS manager said the majority of new technology research was still carried out in the United States.

“The idea is to create linkages to research and engineering and new technology ideas to grow them, and give them the opportunity to move forward,” he said.

Mr Cahill said Irish graduates were still “lacking in confidence”.