My short fame with ESA

ESA, the European Space Agency, was recruiting new Astronauts in May 2008 again - finally after more than a decade. I was waiting for this opportunity for years now.
This was the first European wide selection, until 1998 each country was selecting it's own Astronaut corps

The first step was to get a flight medical examination, almost 10000 passed that step, with flight medical you could apply for the online application.
That was about 15 pages of general, professional and personal questions.

8413 applicants passed the requirements for the online application - click here for more information

About 900 were invited to participate in the first round of psychological testing, this was a very intense test in Hamburg - try yourself

192 were invited to the second round of psychological testing at ESA's Astronaut Center in Cologne - this was unfortunately my last round - no reasons given :(
but it was worth the try and I'm proud to have made it so far.

45 went on to the next step - a week of more medical testing, 20 were chosen for the last set of interviews in Paris and in the end there were 6 new Astronauts left :)
Congratulations to all of you.


see more on ESA's webpage or ESA's Astronaut Selection