AstroLinda dreams of space and flies with NASA to Alabama

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TORINO. The name of his Twitter account, “AstroLinda”, says it all. Linda Raimondo is just 20 years old. Aspiring cosmonaut born in Almese, a town of 6,000 souls in the province of Turin, she is a physics student at the University of the Piedmontese capital. A life similar to that of many of her peers only in appearance. After being awarded an ESA (European Space Agency) competition for a project on the recovery of samples from the Moon and asteroids and their subsequent return to Earth using alternatively a small shuttle, Linda was chosen by NASA, which will allow her to cultivate the dream of space travel by forming in one of the most iconic places in the world world astronautics, the “Marshall Space Flight Center” in Alabama. Today she is in Turin to participate as a speaker at the «Visionary Days», an event that at the Officine Grandi Riparazioni will involve 1,500 young people under 35 in a 10-hour hackathon to answer the question: «What forms for our planet?».

As soon as she returned from the US, where the University of Alabama made her an office available for a year to carry out her projects developed in Europe, she still has the adrenaline of the American experience on her. “Over there – he says – it’s another world”. “It took me a week to see how abysmal the differences with Italy are.

In the US, giving the floor to the children, making them work on concrete projects and considering their opinions is routine administration. In our country, however, this type of approach seems science fiction. There are still too many cultural barriers that prevent us from expressing ourselves. It is an old continent in every sense ».

She, who since 2018 is also the face of scientific disclosure for very young people on Rai Gulp, says she wants to be a source of inspiration. «I would like to motivate the boys, to push them to throw themselves into the things they believe in without feeling defeated at the start. Only in this way can you get what you want ».

His greatest aspiration is to be able to get up there, among the stars. “The astronaut – continues Linda – is the symbol of exploration par excellence, it is the figure that most of all embodies that thirst for knowledge and that innate curiosity that will allow our species to become multi-planetary. It would be a dream if I were one of the first people to set foot on another planet ».

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