Katherine Lawrie, 22, has an unusual ambition: she wants to be a Nasa mission controller. Thanks to her upbringing in the Isle of Man, she could well achieve it.
As a young girl she spent hours gazing at brilliant night skies from her remote home in the heart of the island. As a high-school student in 2004 she won a place at a Nasa summer camp in Houston through a competition organised by a Manx space company, Mansat.
She had to design a hypothetical mission to Mars, and stayed with Chris Stott, a Manxman who owns Mansat and is married to an American astronaut, Nicole.
Duly inspired, she obtained a degree in physics with astronomy from Nottingham and is about to start a PhD in astronomy at Leicester. The Isle of Man government paid her tuition fees, and Tim Craine, the island’s director of space commerce, gave her a summer job.
Mrs Stott, who is about to spend four months on board the International Space Station, gives her every encouragement.
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“She shows it’s feasible, that [space travel] is not something that happens to unbelievable people on the other side of the world,” she says. “If it’s something you’re determined to do, and what your passion is, you can achieve anything.”