The best adjective that could describe my working life as a substitute teacher is variation. On Wednesday, March 11, I had a whole new and unexpected experience at work.  I spent the day at the Norwegian Space Agency with the fourth class.

I knew neither about the Norwegian Space Agency nor about the awards ceremony that was to take place there.

That day I had the great pleasure of meeting the nine years old Shriya, who will soon have a satellite named after her in space.  Shriya (from Stavanger International School) was the winner of the drawing competition. The contest was for children between 6-11 years. They had to draw or paint their dream space. How did they envision the world’s space, stars, planets, rockets, astronauts, or maybe even aliens?

Not only that, Shriya is going to get her name on a real Galileo satellite, she is also going to travel with her family to the newly opened Spaceship Aurora at Andøya Space Center. A gift from the Norwegian Space Center. During the awards ceremony, she also got a model of a Galileo satellite that had her name on it. 

That day I felt like a student again, or maybe even the most curious kid in the class.
I learned about the European satellite system and how it is to be an astronaut. Did you know that six months is the most prolonged period an astronaut can be out in the space?
And do know why we send out astronauts? I thought it was mainly to explore the space, but I didn’t realize it was mostly to see how the human body reacts to being out there for so long. By sending astronauts out there, we gather knowledge, and that insight will again have an essential role in getting us to March.
And lucky me; that day, I also got the chance to see the top 30 selected pictures of the 516 submitted drawings.