Future Martians

SpaceXpage is all about sharing everything about SpaceX, NASA and Elon Musk's dream of visiting Mars in our lifetimes. Many people are excited about the idea of mankind exploring the solar system and beyond. Some of us might be thinking of saving up for a commercial ticket to Mars. But there are also a few who have started preparing to become the first astronauts to make it to the red planet. This second blog in a series about Future Martians features Linda Raimondo.

Linda Raimondo

My name is Linda Raimondo, I'm a physics student at the university of Turin, Italy, and I've always been a very big passionate about astronomy, cosmology and space sciences in general and my biggest dream is the one of becoming an astronaut some day.
I don't know how this passion was born, I just think that it is in my DNA. When I was 4 years old, I asked my dad to bring me to the Moon and when he replied me that he couldn't bring me there because it was impossible, I started crying so bad. Therefore, for making me stop, he told me that he couldn't bring me to the Moon that night because our car was too old and tired, but he promised me that when he would have changed the car, buying a new one, he would have taken me to the Moon. I don't know why, but he still has the same car after all this time, and I truly think that I need to become an astronaut before he changes his car... 🤣🤣

Walking the Science Path

I've always tried to be active in science fields and for this reason I started organizing my first events of public speaking with Italian astronauts at the age of 16. In the past 3 years, I won two contests by the European Space Agency and with one of them I got the opportunity to travel to Alabama at the Marshall Space Flight Center of NASA, visiting the offices, talking to experts that work there and taking part to a Space Camp experience. With the winning idea I also won an office for one year at the University of Huntsville, Alabama, to develop the idea a way better and work with nasa's experts. It was one of the best experiences of my whole life, also because the Marshall Space Flight Center is a NASA center reserved only to people that work there, it's not a touristic destination such as the Kennedy Space Center and if it wasn't for that project, I would never have had the chance to go there.

 

Linda and Walt Cunningham (Apollo 7) at ESA

Analog mission in Iceland

In 2019 I took part in an astronaut analog mission in Iceland, in the same places where Apollo astronauts trained before going to the Moon. It was an awesome experience and it was amazing to think that many years before, also Neil Armstrong and his colleagues trained there. We learned speleology, geology and astrobiology. We visited the same lavatubes that we could find on the Moon or on Mars and even though it was very very cold, it was great. And of course, the Icelandic views are something nobody in the world should miss. 

Linda and her fellow aspiring astronauts in Iceland

 

Science communicator

Today I'm a science communicator and a public speaker for Italian television and I published my first book. I think that communicating science is very important, because is the only way to make people aware of what it's going on in the world where we live. 

I try to do my best inspiring kids to follow their dreams, because dreams are the first step to reach great goals.I speak Italian, English and Spanish and I would like to learn as many languages as I can, because I love to communicate and connect to other people from all over the world, knowing different cultures and different traditions, and I think that languages are a good tool to make it.

 

Linda is also a public speaker at science events