Alexander Gerst
Alexander Gerst ( May 3, 1976 in Künzelsau ) is a German geophysicist and member of the European Astronaut Corps.
Background, education and scientific career
Alexander Gerst grew up in Künzelsau. He laid in 1995 at the Technical High School in Öhringen the Abitur. After that he first made civilian service at DRC and then traveled for a year as a backpacker different countries. Strongly impressed by the volcanoes of New Zealand, he began to study geophysics, and received at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology diploma. He also studied Earth Sciences, Wellington, New Zealand, and received in 2005 a Master of Science. 2006 he was a summer scholarship from the German Centre for Aerospace. Says that it his interest in space travel was awakened by his grandfather, who sent as a radio amateur signals to the moon.
In 2007, the Gerst - Bernd Rendel Prize of the German Research Foundation ( DFG) for outstanding young geophysicists.
In May 2010 he received his doctorate at the University of Hamburg with a research on eruption dynamics of the Antarctic volcano Mount Erebus.
Spaceman activity
Alexander Gerst sat in the selection of ESA 8407 against other candidates by being the only German among six new astronauts, and was presented to the public on May 20, 2009. In early September, he began his training at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne and was appointed on November 22, 2010 after completion of basic training in an official ceremony in the EAC as an astronaut.
On September 18, 2011, ESA Gersts for a space flight announced nomination. It is planned that Alexander Gerst flies along with the Russians Maxim Surajew and the Americans Reid Wiseman to the International Space Station in May 2014. As a Flight Engineer of ISS Expeditions 40 and 41 he is to remain six months in space. Gerst would thus according to Thomas Reiter Hans Schlegel of the third German astronaut on the ISS. His mission is called Blue Dot, after photo pale blue dot, which from a distance shows the Earth as a " pale blue dot ".