Prof. Dr. Lavinia Heisenberg is a physicist who teaches and conducts research in the field of relativity with a focus on cosmology at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at ETH Zurich. In 2018, she became the second woman to receive the prestigious Gustav Hertz Prize of the German Physical Society. In addition to her love of physics, she is fascinated by becoming an astronaut. In 2022, she made it into ESA's selection program for the next mission and went through numerous testing phases.
It will be possible to look much deeper into the universe and to learn exciting things also from the former universe.
The European Space Agency, ESA has recently decided who will be part of the next space project. There were 25,000 applicants, of which five have been selected. You are one of those invited to the selection process. Do you personally know anyone who made it?
Yes, I know a woman who has moved on. She is one of the reserve astronauts, so she is not one of the five astronauts selected. In this new category of reserve astronauts, there are an additional 12 to 15 astronauts who would only be eligible for a certain mission. They don't have to give up their job and they can continue to do it. And then will get the special training for a certain mission. And then for the other five astronauts, it's their primary job.
How does such a selection process work, what do you have to be able to do as an astronaut in order to be considered at all?
The agencies demand quite a bit. And rightly so, because you will need all the skills. First of all, you have to pass the various cognitive tests. First of all, there are IQ tests: How do you deal with stressful situations? Can you multitask? Do you manage to be highly concentrated even when there are a lot of distraction parameters?
And only when you have done that are you given the tests in which you work together with one or more people. These are mainly about the ability to work in a team. And if you pass this second round, you are admitted to the medical tests.
One of the selected astronauts, Marco Alain Sieber, is from Switzerland. When will it really go up into the air for him?
After the astronauts are selected, they will first have two years of basic training and then special training for a mission. They will probably go on an open mission in two to three years.
There are two women among the five main astronauts selected. Do you think that's a good sign?
I have noticed very directly but also indirectly that there is now very strong political as well as internal pressure at ESA that more women should be there. Until now, there have only been two female astronauts in the history of ESA, and that is already a very small number. They now want to compensate for that.
ESA wants to know exactly who you are sitting across from them and what kind of personality you have.
ESA wants to know exactly who you are sitting across from them and what kind of personality you have.
You yourself applied for astronaut training. Of course, that's a big dream. Then the bubble burst. How do you deal with the disappointment?
When I didn't make it through the selection process, it hit me very, very hard, of course. And it took me a few weeks to get back on my feet. But then I found my way back into the situation very quickly and tried to start alternative projects with scientists from the field of materials science. We're trying to start an interdisciplinary effort to make the suits that the astronauts wear more biological. This, of course, has to meet certain conditions in terms of temperature and pressure and so on. And also how bacteria cultures spread in there.
And I believe that the topic of space exploration will also become increasingly important in our everyday lives. That a kind of space tourism will emerge. And I have learned from internal sources that there will probably be another ESA call for proposals in five or six years. So far, this has only taken place every 15 years. But I also think that the private efforts are helping agencies try to move forward faster.
If you consider that there are billions of galaxies, the thought is obvious that life can also exist elsewhere, i.e. not only on our planet. How can basic research help to shorten these paths to make contact or communicate with other life forms?
At ETH, the focus is very much on the exploration of exo-planets and on the question: Could conditions possibly prevail on these planets that would allow life or life similar to life on Earth? The problem is: even if you were to discover such a planet with our technology, it would take forever to get there. So if you could manipulate space and time yourself, you might be able to reach faster-than-light speeds.
After the first step on the moon, it's now the turn of Mars. What do you think of these developments? Will this be the salvation? After Climate Change, will transporting us all to Mars be the obvious solution?
I do think that this pressure is now becoming greater and greater, especially at the private level. That people like Elon Musk, are pushing it very, very hard to be the first on this planet and to take up new resources there. But you would have to put so much work and so much patience into it to turn that planet into a habitable planet. To manipulate the atmosphere, air and surface so that life would really be possible there. Yet we already have our planet here on Earth and it would take much less work to save the Earth. It is almost a bit contradictory that we then say: Okay, whatever happens on Earth, we don't really perceive that in our consciousness and we would rather conquer other planets and create new life there. I believe that we will take the same behavior with us and in several hundred years there will probably be exactly the same conditions on this planet as there are now on Earth. One should develop this consciousness for oneself in any case: How do we actually deal with the preservation of our earth? Or how do we live in everyday life? Are we aware of how we deal with resources? And what small contribution can we make?
You would have to put so much work into turning other planets into habitable planets. It would take much less work to save the earth.
You would have to put so much work into turning other planets into habitable planets. It would take much less work to save the earth.
Lavinia has the goal and the passion to become an astronaut. The physicist conducts research in the field of cosmology and has managed to be admitted to the ESA selection process and has undergone many tests at ESA for this purpose. Space exploration is her world. Lavinia fascinates with her goal orientation and passion. Someday we will surely see her as an astronaut in space. Until then, we follow her activities on earth.
