Spain's first astronaut named science minister

Spain's first astronaut Pedro Duque will be named minister of science by the new Socialist government, a party source told AFP on Wednesday.

The 55-year-old aeronautical engineer became the first Spaniard to travel to space in 1998 when he took part in a nine-day mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery after training in Russia and the United States.

He returned to space in 2003 as part of an International Space Station (ISS) mission.

As science minister, he will also be in charge of promoting innovation and overseeing Spain's universities.

Duque graduated from Madrid's Polytechnic University in 1986 and was selected six years later to take part in a European Space Agency programme for future astronauts.

In recent years, he became a staunch critic of practices such as homeopathy and denounced the steep cuts to scientific research put in place by the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy, which was ousted last week.

"In the middle of a crisis, society must act wisely to avoid mortgaging its future," Duque wrote in an opinion piece published in top-selling newspaper El Pais.

Duque is not the first former astronaut to become a minister in a national government. Canadian premier Justin Trudeau named ex-astronaut Marc Garneau as his transport minister when he came to power in 2015.

dbh/ds/nla

ISS A/S

Related Links
The latest information about the Commercial Satellite Industry

Tweet

Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly

paypal only

SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once

credit card or paypal

ESA selects three new mission concepts for study
Paris (ESA) May 08, 2018
A high-energy survey of the early Universe, an infrared observatory to study the formation of stars, planets and galaxies, and a Venus orbiter are to be considered for ESA's fifth medium class mission in its Cosmic Vision science programme, with a planned launch date in 2032. The three candidates, the Transient High Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (Theseus), the SPace Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (Spica), and the EnVision mission to Venus were selected from 25 proposals ... read more