{"id":991,"date":"2021-06-25T11:33:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T11:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/?p=991"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:37:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:37:28","slug":"the-competition-for-esas-next-astronauts-naomi-rowe-gurney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/2021\/06\/25\/the-competition-for-esas-next-astronauts-naomi-rowe-gurney\/","title":{"rendered":"The Competition for ESA’s Next Astronauts – Naomi Rowe-Gurney"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Applications for ESA’s next astronauts recently closed, and several Leicester scientists were among the 22,500 people who applied – PhD student Naomi Rowe-Gurney was featured in the Telegraph<\/a>, discussing her application.<\/em><\/strong>

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Planetary Scientist Naomi Rowe-Gurney was interviewed by Lizzie Roberts of the Telegraph newspaper,<\/a> as one of the ~2000 British applicants to follow in the footsteps of Major Tim Peake. Around a quarter of all applicants were women, up 16% compared to the last competition in 2008. Between 4 and 6 applicants will be selected from across Europe, but there may also be a reserve list of up to 20 lucky candidates.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Telegraph describes Naomi’s application:

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naomi Rowe-Gurney has waited 11 years to complete the application for her dream job \u2013 to become an astronaut. Aged 19, she was too young to apply for the last call by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2008. But now, aged 31 \u2013 with a PhD, years of experience and proficiency in Mandarin \u2013 she is one of 22,500 people who have applied to become one of the agency’s next cosmonauts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

“I would be so happy with the reserve list,” Ms Rowe-Gurney, who is in the final year of her PhD in Planetary Science at the University of Leicester, told The Telegraph. She would be making history if she did, as the first black gay woman to become a British ESA astronaut. “I would love to be a role model and show people who look like me that they can be anything they want,” she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


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Naomi Rowe-Gurney. Credit: Telegraph<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n


There are six stages to the recruitment process, which takes around 18 months, and the
successful candidates will not be announced until late next year. We wish Naomi, and all the applicants from Leicester, the very best of luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Applications for ESA’s next astronauts recently closed, and several Leicester scientists were among the 22,500 people who applied – PhD student Naomi Rowe-Gurney was featured in the Telegraph, discussing her application. Planetary Scientist Naomi Rowe-Gurney was interviewed by Lizzie Roberts of the Telegraph newspaper, as one of the ~2000 British applicants to follow in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graduates","category-profiles","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/256"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":994,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions\/994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}