Scottish - Aviator | 1957 -
I can still remember them wheeling the black and white TV sets into our classroom at school so we could watch the men landing on the Moon, and that obviously had a huge impact. I later found out those people flying Apollo were ex-military test pilots, so I decided to join the Air Force and become a test pilot.
David Mackay
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I cannot wait to get up there and experience space travel for the first time. It will be a dream come true.
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I want to get to the moon. I want to go to Mars.
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I was a frustrated astronaut all my life. I grew up at a time when space seemed to have no boundaries, and lots of us presumed humans would be living on the moon and landing on Mars.
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When I was 12, I saw the Apollo moon landings, and I thought that was really fantastic and exciting and thought, 'That's what I want to do.'
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Not long after I got my test pilot qualification, I realised there was no manned space flight programme in the U.K., and there was unlikely to be one.
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I am not going to pretend that flying a spaceship will be as safe as getting in a 747 with four engines for a flight across the Atlantic.
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I would say if you do have ambitions, don't just wait around. Go out and make yourself as well-qualified as possible so you can take that rare opportunity when it comes along.
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I do have a bit of a fear of heights. But I don't get scared of heights when I am flying a plane.
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I was brought up in the north of Scotland, and where I lived was so lowly populated, it was used as a low-flying area by the Air Force, so lots of exciting aircraft used to fly over my village.
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By my mid-30s, I just thought, 'This is not going to happen. I am never going to become an astronaut in the U.K.'
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It's very sad that there's going to be a hiatus in manned space flight from the U.S. The Shuttle was a fantastic, hugely complex vehicle. It was inevitable it would come to an end, but this is the opportunity for the commercial world to get involved. As the Shuttle era ends, another window of opportunity opens.
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