WATCH – Off the Earth For the Earth, Astronaut Nicole Stott inspires South Africa’s youth

Astronaut, aquanaut, artist and author, Nicole Stott was a guest of the Sakhikamva Foundation and Living Maths at Skyhawk Aviation’s hangar, Lanseria, hosted by Mike Gough with 120 learners in attendance to tell her story of an aviation inspired career with NASA.

Her trip to South Africa was entitled the “Space Tour” as an outreach programme Sakhikamva undertakes to develop aviation awareness and skills development in the aerospace industry for the country’s youth.

“My experience in space started on Earth, flying and wanting to fly, then joining NASA as an engineer before being selected as an astronaut”, she told me. Her two missions on the ISS, one of three months and one of two weeks, saw her participating in a spacewalk, flying Space Shuttle Discovery home for the last time and sending the first live tweet from space. She’s also the first person to paint with watercolour in space.

Nicole spoke to Smoke on Go about going from a PPL to the International Space Station…….