Let's launch our local Astronaut!

Dear friends,

Thank you to so many who have met our dear friend, Tom Carew, and asked about how we can all support him in his current astronaut training programme. Your Chepstow children know him from his Career Week talk to Year 1 last term, and he looks forward to presenting in more depth to KS2 at Chepstow House in the Autumn (to which all space-loving KS1s are of course invited).

Tom grew up right down the road from our school, just off Lancaster Road, and from very humble beginnings, has worked incredibly hard for everything he's achieved. It's taken many weeks for me to convince him to let me set up this fund for him, as he's uncomfortable asking for anything he feels he hasn't earned. But I really hope that my fellow Chepstow parents will join me in recognising the impact that this exceptional young man will have as he pursues his future career in astronautics.

Tom's one request is that any families that are able to lend their support are warmly welcomed to join him to tour (and experiment in) his biotech laboratory, BisonBiotech, which he founded and runs in Bristol, or perhaps for your children to spend the day with him exploring the Science Museum in London, or even a let him plan a science playdate (in my kitchen or yours!) with professional lab equipment, for your children and friends. He is passionate about inspiring young children to become future scientists.

Tom was working at The Scripps Research lab in California, developing a vaccine against COVID-19 and HIV when he applied to the IIAS Scientist Astronaut program. The IIAS program was founded by former NASA astronauts to train the next generation of scientists to conduct research on commercial spaceflight vehicles in the coming years. He was selected from an extremely large pool of young scientists from around the world to undergo training.

IIAS was started as the International Space Station, which currently hosts nearly all scientific space research, is scheduled to be decommissioned later this decade. Several commercial entities (Space X, Virgin Galactic, Axiom, Blue Origin, et al.) are poised to replace and expand science research operations in space. In addition to their commercially available seats, all of these companies are designing laboratory facilities within their spacecraft for research crew members to carry out experiments. The number of scientists and engineers required to crew these commercial space missions, however, greatly exceeds the number of astronaut candidates currently in training with NASA and ESA.

Tom and his six selected colleagues from around the world will soon be highly qualified to help fill this shortfall as astronaut candidates with the IIAS Scientist Astronaut program. And for Tom this is all while also earning his PhD developing new antibiotics for Earth & Space Medicine with the University of Southampton, and collaborating with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, run by the Ministry of Defence.

Sadly, the intense training and tuition fees required by the IIAS program are only partially funded, even for the seven candidates selected from the global applicants.

Tom has already passed his high G-force flight training, orbital mechanics exam, and intravehicular

activity (IVA) simulation training with the IIAS - all of which your children enjoyed immensely while watching his training videos!

His core program to complete his career training will include the additional modules in the coming months and/or years, as funding allows:

 BIO104 – Advanced Egress and Post-Landing space Suit Evaluation (October 2022)

 EVA102 – Operational Space Medicine (TBA)

 Spaceflight physiology (TBA)

 EVA105 – Fundamentals of Underwater Analog EVA (October 2022)

 OPS102 – Spacecraft Egress and Rescue Operations (October 2022)

Tom is also currently undertaking several extracurricular training courses to further qualify him to take on key roles (ie medical, which he is nearing) in the spaceflight setting, such as his PADI rescue diver course (for performing EVA missions) and advanced Russian language lessons (for working with cosmonaut scientists).

All contributions to Tom’s continued training with the IIAS program will directly fund his course tuition fees and flights to the IIAS international research facilities.

Please do understand that any amount would be received by Tom with heartfelt thanks and utmost integrity in its use.

Much love and optimism for our childrens' world from your friends,

Rachel and Marc HW