Will this woman be the first Briton to walk on the Moon?
4 hours ago
Rebecca Morelle
BBC News science team
Reporting from Houston, Texas
Alison Francis
Kevin Church/BBC
Rosemary Coogan is surrounded by a team of people pushing, pulling, squishing and squeezing her into a spacesuit.
It takes about 45 minutes to get all her gear on before a helmet is carefully lowered over her head.
The British astronaut is about to undergo her toughest challenge yet – assessing whether she is ready for a spacewalk. The test will take place in one of the largest pools in the world: Nasa's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The pool – which is 12m deep (40ft) – contains a life-sized replica of the International Space Station (ISS), and a "spacewalk" here is as close as it gets to mimicking weightlessness on Earth.
Kevin Church/BBC
Dr Rosemary Coogan graduated as a European Space Agency astronaut in 2024
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxyv3z710do