Diabetes imposes, but does not prevent.This is what Josu Feijoó demonstrates, who will be the first diabetic to reach space.It will also do it to try a drug.
There is an American maximum that says Sky is the limit, heaven is the limit.Alavés Josu Feijoó, after touching with the fingertips the top of Everest, being the first diabetic to achieve it, put its limit even further, in space.
Thus, in thirteen months it will become the first Basque astronaut thanks to an expedition that will serve to try a medication that has achieved, in animals, eradicate type 1 diabetes that he suffers.
Feijoó participated yesterday in the inauguration of the Show Learn by doing: discovering the world of the planets that, organized by Max Center and El Regato school, will settle until the 27th in the Fabrile Shopping Center.
You are going to be the first Basque astronaut and also the first diabetic to go to space.I imagine that, from his position, he will see very necessary to bring astronomy to the little ones.
-Yes, and for this are very necessary actions and samples such as this one that will be until the 27th in Max Center.Unfortunately, these types of activities are very scarce and we need to give it a boost so that, soon, there is a second Basque astronaut that, I have to recognize, I would especially like it to be a woman.We must provide them with tools and information so that they can be prepared for such abstract knowledge as that of astronomy.
Within thirteen months, you will travel to space.What will that project consist of?
-It is a very beautiful project in which we will be able to do tests, in an investigation with the University of Geneva to find a cure for children's diabetes.The most beautiful thing about all this is that, when I started ten years ago, the intention was to test new insulinmanaged to eradicate type 1 diabetes, which I have.It is a very exciting project and we need a sample that shows that it works and this experience will be.I will try a drug that can end diabetes.
How are you preparing for this experience?
-I've been preparing for me and in this little more than a year that subtracts me I will spend many times through the centrifugator -I am the person who has passed through her, 14 occasions-, the hydrolab, flights in combat fighters at supersonic speedsTo make orbital turns and sessions with psychologists to work the concentration and being cold and calculators.All this, in addition to working the physicist.
And what is your day to day?
-I get up at five in the morning, make me a glucose control and Vasily Popov, the director, the day plan tells me.It is something that can vary and do it to see if you get alters, it is a test to see how you act before unforeseen events.
Has the mountain served a lot for this project?
-The mountain has prevented me from the vertigo, has given me many things and I can assure you that spending three nights with other people in a tent at the Himalayas Curte.Since I was little I wanted to threw Everest and be an astronaut because I am a very curious person.
He has been in NASA and is now in the Russian space agency.Are there many differences in the work methodology of both?
-The NASA controls more marketing issues and in Russia we work in a harder way.I am more comfortable with the Russians because the issues of resistance to takeoff work, the claustrophobia ... Notice how reduced a spacecraft that an astronaut cannot measure more than 1.70 meters.In the Russian space agency, routines and repetition of protocols are worked.
Is that lack of space in the ship is the inconvenience that fears most?
-Not at all.I can beTen days in an elevator that there are food (laughs).I have a lot of abstraction, I know where I am and, therefore, it does not influence me.
"I am preparing with the hydrolab, hunting flights at supersonic speeds, psychologists ..."
"The mountain has given me a lot; it can be said that spending three nights in a store at the Himalayas Curte"
"The Russian space agency works a lot, repeat the action protocols in each situation"