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Norah says the training is extremely hands on and that she’s
looking forward to getting back.

“Now that I have the first foot on the ladder I can continue
training with them over the next few years. When the
opportunity came up to do the training with PoSSUM I INTERVIEW
jumped at it because I realised I had done the academic
study and the academic side of what I need to do over the
past 15 years. I realised I really needed to do more hands on
stuff. That’s why when PoSSUM came up it was the perfect
match because it was a lot of hands on training coupled with
book learning.”

On the overall experience she said: “They sit us in an actual
simulator and they have a pilot that pilots a sub-orbital
spaceflight. So we’re sitting in that simulator in a pressurised SpaceX
suit and we get to take measurements and experience what
it would be like in an actual sub-orbital spaceflight.“ So sure of herself and her aspirations, Norah made a bet with
one of her friends in first year of secondary school. The friend
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the bet one pound that Norah would change her mind about
spacecraft follows a flight path of less than one orbit. wanting to do something space related by the time they got
to Leaving Cert.
“The idea is to couple that with the experience we had in the
aerobatic aircraft where we had a 4G load on us and we can “I was just a normal kid like anyone else. I just had this
say if it was that difficult to move and to work in the obsession with space and I wasn’t willing to let that go. I
pressurised suit, how much more difficult would it be under often show a picture in a lot of my talks of us in first year in
the 4G load.” secondary school. I had a bet with one of the girls in my class
because she reckoned by the time we got to Leaving Cert I
Obsession With Space would have changed my mind in terms of wanting to do
Obtaining a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering, Dr. Patten something space related. We had our one pound bet, I said
never gave up on her childhood dreams to venture into no this is what I want to do.”
space. She has spent her entire life working towards her
goals, involving herself in numerous space related “We debated whether we’d have a one pound or five pound
professional development programmes. Now a faculty bet and we settled on one pound because we were both
member at the International Space University, Norah broke,” Norah admitted with a chuckle.
remembers back to when it all began. “The first time I got a Neil Armstrong’s Irish Connection
spark of interest was when I was 11 and I got to visit NASA in Former NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to
Cleveland, Ohio. We were on a family holiday,” said Norah. walk on the moon in 1969 as part of the Apollo 11 moon
landing mission, had Irish roots to which he was proud of.
“I had lots of different relations over there on my mother’s He once told David Moore, the head of Astronomy Ireland,
side and on my father’s side. We were over visiting them and that he was descended from a family of cattle rustlers in
Fermanagh. Upon his death in 2012 there were numerous
we were doing the usual tourist spots. It was that visit that tributes made to him across Ireland and Northern Ireland.
opened my eyes to what was happening.

“When I was fifteen I went to Kennedy Space Centre in “I have always been on the lookout for different things I could
Florida and that was really the moment I got to see the get involved in. I did the Outback Summer School in 2008
rockets and different things like that. I knew from that and from that I then presented a conference paper at the IAC
moment that was the thing I really wanted to do.” (International Astronautical Congress) conference in
Scotland. That’s a huge space conference. It takes place every
SpaceX year and it moves around every year. In 2010 I did the Space
Studies Programme at the International Space University
The world’s most powerful rocket was launched into orbit
from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in February by Elon over in Strasbourg in France. I have stayed involved with
Musk’s SpaceX. Millions watched breathlessly as the Falcon them ever since as part of their space programme. I’m still
Heavy rocket soared into space carrying a cherry-red Tesla continuing on with it while continuing PoSSUM.”
Roadster as cargo.
In 2013 Norah was involved in ‘The Only Way is Up’ project
Out of the three reusable cores of Falcon Heavy, two of the
boosters were filmed landing upright, simultaneously at which saw four Transition Year students from St. Nessan’s
their designated landing areas, while the core booster was Community School in Limerick create Ireland’s first student
lost in the water as it crashed upon returning to Earth. experiment that was sent to the International Space Station
(ISS).

The Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport 13