Pope Benedict XVI made a live video link up with astronauts currently in residence
at the International Space Station on Saturday, marking the last mission of the Shuttle
Endeavour. 12 astronauts were present in the space station, including Italian Colonel
Roberto Vittori, who has carried a silver medal gifted by Pope to the station.
“The
space station is a way of keeping human beings in space while we wait for our technology
and the political will to start advance to the point where we can start travelling
with some ease to the moon and to the other planets”, says Br Guy J. Consolmagno S.J.,
one of the astronomers at the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo. “The big experiment
that we have going on is that we have had people living there continuously for ten
years”.
Though admitting to having been ‘too afraid of heights’ as a child
to ever contemplate becoming an astronaut, Br. Guy told Emer McCarthy he would now
‘jump at the chance’ to experience life in space and reveals his own personal encounter
with one of the astronauts on board the station: Listen