Norah Patten is about to boldly go where no one from Ireland has gone before
The aeronautical engineer from Ballina, Co Mayo, will be part of a three-woman crew on Virgin Galactic's spacecraft, due to launch next year.
She told the Irish Mirror: "Sometimes impossible dreams come true, if you put in the work."
Patriotic Patten is bringing something special from home with her on the landmark journey - an Irish memento to mark the ground-breaking moment in our history.
"Our Irish heritage, arts, music, culture is something I am very focused on including in the flight," she said.
"I won't announce what I'll be bringing until closer to the flight. But as a national first, the Irish piece represents an enormous opportunity. I don't know exactly how much room or how much stuff I'll be able to bring, but we're definitely looking at music, art, the cultural side."
The astronaut was talking after partnering with Aer Lingus for the next two years as she flies between home in Ireland and America ahead of the mission. Dr Patten said her interest in going to space was sparked after a school visit to a NASA space research centre in Cleveland, Ohio, at age 11.
"I went to St Oliver Plunkett's National School in Ballina and then to St Mary's secondary, an all-girls school, and I had Miss Ryan and then Miss Leonard in science, who were brilliant.
"I often say this was an impossible dream. I had the chance to visit NASA when I was in primary school and that was just a spark of interest that started as I grew up in Mayo in the '80s and '90s.
"Just having that opportunity to visit NASA, to see the wind tunnels, to get a little bit of an insight into space exploration, human space flight. I thought it was fascinating.
"That journey from age 11, all the way through and while it was an impossible dream, I think for me, I just loved space. It's been a very long journey to get to the point of announcing my space flight.
"It hasn't happened overnight, it's been most of my life progressing to get to this point."
Two practical lessons she has learned are: don't forget your space nappy, and go easy on the mayo.
Her time in what she calls the "Vomit Comet" - a specialised aircraft used to simulate zero-gravity conditions - means she has figured out what to eat, and what not to, to avoid severe motion sickness.
"I have it down to a fine art now, I'd eat a plain chicken wrap maybe two and a half hours before I fly and I'm perfect, I haven't gotten sick.
"If you don't eat, you're more likely to get sick. But not too much mayonnaise - I made that mistake once and it will not be made again.
"There's all these calculations - even down to the adult nappy, a maximum absorbency garment called a MAG.
"You actually wear those on space flights. There are no toilets on the spacecraft."
One of Patten's passions is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and encouraging young girls into the industry.
"It's so special when you see that impact, little girls saying you are a role model.
"Sometimes I get recognised out, with little kids coming up, and they're like: 'Oh, there's Norah. 'Norah's going to space, and she's from Ireland, she's from Mayo...'.
"It's to show them that sometimes big, impossible dream's do come true if you put in the groundwork.
"I get fan mail, it's really special to get letters from little kids. An Post are brilliant, I've had letters delivered to 'Norah Patten, Astronaut, Ballina', and they do make their way to my parents' home, which is just so lovely."
Aer Lingus announced its partnership with Dr Patten this week, pledging its support through a two-year partnership, ensuring she can travel between her home in Ireland and North America - the hub of her research preparation.
In advance of her spaceflight, Norah is undergoing intensive training and conducting advanced research at the National Research Council in Canada, working alongside International Institute for Astronautical Sciences researchers, Dr Shawna Pandya and Kellie Gerardi, who will join her on her space flight.
Her preparation has included spacesuit testing and evaluation, microgravity research, as well as undertaking high-G flights designed to experience gravitational force.
Lynne Embleton, Aer Lingus CEO, said: "At Aer Lingus, our mission is to connect people, places, and possibilities and Dr Norah Patten's extraordinary journey to become the first Irish person in space. is the perfect embodiment of that spirit.
"Her determination proves that with ambition, dedication, and the ability to dream big, anything is possible," Embleton said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
5 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Watch: Fireball lights up night sky in Japan
A flashing fireball dashed across the skies of western Japan, shocking residents and dazzling stargazers, though experts said it was a natural phenomenon and not an alien invasion. Videos and photos emerged online of the extremely bright ball of light visible for hundreds of kilometres shortly after 11pm (3pm Irish time) local time yesterday. "A white light I had never seen before came down from above, and it became so bright that I could clearly see the shapes of the houses around us," Yoshihiko Hamahata, who was driving in Miyazaki Prefecture, told NHK. "It seemed like daylight. For a moment, I didn't know what had happened and was very surprised," he told the public broadcaster. Toshihisa Maeda, head of Sendai Space Museum in the Kagoshima region in southwestern Japan, said that it was a fireball, an exceptionally bright meteor. "It seemed to have gone into the Pacific," he added. "People reported feeling the air vibrate," he said. "It was as bright as the Moon." Objects causing fireball events can exceed one metre in size, according to NASA. Fireballs that explode in the atmosphere are technically referred to as bolides, although the terms fireballs and bolides are often used interchangeably.
Irish Examiner
14 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Nasa's Webb telescope finds a new tiny moon around Uranus
The Webb Space Telescope has spotted a new tiny moon orbiting Uranus. The new member of the lunar gang, announced on Tuesday by Nasa, appears to be just six miles wide. It was spotted by the telescope's near-infrared camera during observations in February. Scientists think it hid for so long — even eluding the Voyager 2 spacecraft during its flyby about 40 years ago — because of its faintness and small size. Uranus has 28 known moons that are named after characters from Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. About half are smaller and orbit the planet at closer range. This newest addition, still nameless, ups the planet's total moon count to 29.
Irish Independent
16 hours ago
- Irish Independent
How pig feasts and ‘magic' mushrooms reveal Newgrange's strange similarity to Stonehenge
'The pigs were deliberately fattened on acorns in oak forests for a period prior to being slaughtered at Newgrange, mainly during midwinter feasting conducted around 2,600 to 2,450BC,' said Dr Neil Carlin, a UCD archaeologist who took part in the research along with others from Ireland, the UK and Canada, and whose work has been published in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 'It also shows very strong links with places like Stonehenge where very similar solstice-related pig feasting was happening at the same time,' Dr Carlin said. It was surprising, he added, to find such strong evidence that the winter feasting at Newgrange and Stonehenge were taking place at exactly the same time and in a very similar manner. We don't know whether the feasting went on for a day, a week or more The researchers believe the Newgrange feasts would have involved groups of people gathering at the entrance to the sealed tomb, perhaps to pay homage to their ancestors. This view is based on the quantity of materials present, the nature of the radiocarbon dates recovered from the animal bones and the size of the timber and earthen monuments constructed at the time. 'This may have been 100 or maybe 1,000 people – we can't tell, and we also don't know whether the ceremonies and feasting went on for a day, a week or more,' said Dr Fiona Beglane, archaeologist at the Atlantic Technological University, Sligo, and a lead author. 'We think that it may have involved larger numbers of people for several days over at least a few decades. 'There may have been a formal religious ceremony, perhaps including ritual slaughter of the animals, followed by depositing offerings of pork joints to the ancestors, and then the feasting.' The researchers found grooved-ware pottery in the area outside the tomb – a pottery type that has been linked to the storage of food and drink and the making and consuming of alcoholic drinks. 'Based on the presence of grooved ware, they were probably drinking alcohol, maybe mead – which is made from honey – or beer-type drinks, made from grain, or maybe fruit wines,' Dr Beglane said. 'They may also have used hallucinogenic mushrooms or poisonous plants to induce states of altered consciousness.' The archaeologists believe midwinter feasting at Newgrange continued for centuries after the tomb was closed, even when the sun lighting up the burial chamber was no longer visible. The Newgrange results highlight an especially intense use of acorns Dr Eric Guiry, an archaeologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, and a lead author of the research, studies the diets and behaviour of the people of Newgrange. It was interesting, he noted, that the archaeological findings from Newgrange showed how little pig husbandry practices in Ireland had changed over the centuries. 'In some of the earliest Irish writings, such as law texts, pigs are strongly linked to acorn feeding,' Dr Guiry said. 'The Newgrange results highlight an especially intense use of acorns –underscoring the deep antiquity of the connection between pigs, people and forests in Ireland.'
