More than thirty years after Dirk Frimout and fifteen years after Frank De Winne’s last flight, Belgium will be able to be proud of having sent a third man into space.
As a reminder, the Namurois, a 36-year-old multi-graduate engineer and neuroscience researcher, was selected from nearly 23,000 candidates before being selected with a handful of other candidates.
A lot of pride for him but also for Belgium. Because our country, as small as it is, has never hidden its space ambitions and it has done everything to achieve them.
Belgium has in fact given itself the means to reach its star thanks to its scientists and its companies, which have never considered it inaccessible. All supported by a government which did not hesitate to increase its space budget to 325 million euros per year.
Because regardless of the detractors who believe that it makes no sense to invest in the stars when we are struggling to make ends meet, the conquest of space concerns us all and the stakes are considerable.
The benefits we get are so omnipresent in our daily lives that we no longer even notice them. Television, telephony, medical innovations…but more importantly, space exploration and scientific research are essential weapons for understanding and becoming aware of the challenges of climate change. This conquest of space is thus Earth’s best ally. Moreover, its monitoring and protection already largely involves space: 26 of the 50 essential climatic variables which describe the climate can only be observed from space. Whether it is rising temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions or even ocean levels. Then finally, space also sends us something else that affects young and old alike: dreams.
