UK’s next ISS astronaut already has sights set on epic Mars voyage as Elon Musk plans Red Planet colony by 2050

THE next British astronaut to board the International Space Station is keen to go to the Moon, Mars and beyond – if assigned the mission.

Rosemary Coogan, 33, is expected to be sent to the orbital outpost sometime after 2026, once she has completed two more years of mission training.

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Coogan graduated from her European Space Agency (ESA) training in April of this year, when she was hailed “among the best” in her class of astronauts.

Asked if she would ever join Elon Musk and other partners to the Moon, Mars and beyond, Coogan told The Sun: “Yeah, absolutely.

“We are already going back to the Moon. The Artemis missions have started and the European service module is actually powering the Orion spacecraft that is taking astronauts back to the Moon.

“We’ve had a really successful Artemis 1 [mission] which was uncrewed and the Artemis 2 is due to be flying in the next year or so.

“I know that my focus now is to go to the International Space Station, but beyond that, Europe is going back to the Moon and of course one day to Mars with everything we’ve learned from the Moon as well.”

Nasa’s Artemis 2, the first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years, is currently scheduled to launch in September 2025.

Plans to build permanent habitation on the Moon will be a critical stepping stone in getting humans to Mars.

Astro-entrepreneur and founder of SpaceX, Musk, hopes to set up a sustainable human colony on the Red Planet by 2050 – with flights beginning as early as 2029 aboard his next-gen Starship rocket.

Coogan’s ambition is an embodiment of the UK government’s efforts to carve an in-road in the global space industry.

Last year, the UK space Agency inked a deal with Axiom Space to plan an all-Brit mission to space, headed by astronaut Tim Peake.

Though the UK’s new secretary of state for science and technology, Peter Kyle, has remained tight-lipped regarding the mission’s progress.

Kyle, who was appointed the role at the beginning of the month, told The Sun at Farnborough International Airshow: “Because of the nature of the launch and the circumstances that surround a launch, it means it’s very hard to plan [a timeline].

“All I can say is that I’m as excited about it as the rest of the country is.”

Because of the economic straits our country is in we can’t just do business as usual, we’re gonna have to innovate our way out of the challenges our country faces

Peter Kyle, UK secretary of state for science and technology

Kyle said the potential success of an all-Brit mission “fires every single patriotic gene in my body because it’ll be a huge moment of national pride and it’ll be a moment where I think we can excite the nation again over science”.

And Coogan, who dreamt of space as a child before becoming an astrophysicist-turned-astronaut, “represents” this “amazing future”, according to Kyle, the MP for Hove and Portslade.

He likens the moment to the US’ Apollo 7, Nasa’s first crewed flight in the Apollo programme.

“Nobody thought Apollo 7 would start spawning all these different industries, all these different technologies that many of us take for granted now, that were never intended to be part of the mission but have come out of it,” said Kyle.

The Apollo programme is largely considered to have birthed smartphones and the personal computer, thanks to Nasa’s efforts to miniaturise technology.

It’s this do-or-die attitude that Kyle believes can lift the UK’s economy into brighter pastures.

“Because of the economic straits our country is in we can’t just do business as usual, we’re gonna have to innovate our way out of the challenges our country faces,” he concluded.

“We’ve got this new opportunity now, and for Britain to be in the driving seat of it.”