Czech Science Academy awards U.S. astronaut Feustel

The medal was previously given to another two U.S. astronauts with Czech roots, John Blaha and Eugene Cernan.

Feustel, 45, whose wife Indira has Czech roots, arrived in Prague last Friday. He will tour Czech towns with his lectures and debates on space exploration for almost two weeks.

Feustel, 45, will also become a guarantor of the programme prepared by the U.S. embassy and the AV to seek young talented scientists called "Young Ambassadors of Science and Technology."

Feustel is an icon who connects scientific aspects with popularisation of science, AV President Jiri Drahos told reporters.

The project is to provoke young people´s interest in technical and natural sciences. Selected firms will also participate in it.

Feustel said the project should enable talented students to work in top U.S. laboratories.

Feustel took a Czech flag and the legendary Czech Mole (Krtecek) cartoon figure, originally created by artist Zdenek Miler, to the space within the last mission of the U.S. Endeavour space shuttle to the International Space Station (ISS), launched on May 16.

Today, Feustel gave the flag from the space mission to Drahos and thanked him for support to his stay in the Czech Republic.

Feustel´s wife Indira said the idea of taking the popular Mole to the mission was to draw attention of children and the youth to space exploration.

Though the space shuttles´ flights were terminated and the NASA staff and the astronauts´ team will be slimming, Feustel said he would like to keep working with NASA in the future.

He plans to join a 60-member team of astronauts who will fly aboard Russian spacecraft to the ISS before the United States develops its own spacecraft.

A space trip will change the life of every participant, Feustel said, adding that he realised in the space how fragile and beautiful the Earth is.

Looking at the continents from a space shuttle when state borders are no longer visible he realised the importance of the effort to end all wars and conflicts in the world and keep peace, Feustel said.

In 2009, Feustel took a Czech flag and a copy of the Pisne kosmicke (Cosmic Songs), a book of poems by prominent Czech 19th-century writer Jan Neruda, to the space during the mission of the Atlantis space shuttle that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope.

After his return, he donated the book to the AV's Astronomical Institute in Prague. He also gave lectures in Czech towns.

Another U.S astronaut, Cernan of Czechoslovak origin, visited the Czech Republic in the past. He is the last man to walk on the Moon in 1972. He took a Czechoslovak flag to his space trip that he then gave to the Astronomical Institute. It is displayed on the largest Czech telescope in the astronomical centre of Ondrejov, central Bohemia.

Author: ČTK
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