As part of their ‘Space’ topic, pupils had the opportunity to have a Teams meet with Space Scientist Dr Gilles Baillet. This was an amazing opportunity to talk directly to someone who is currently working in this industry – Dr Gilles sent this resume about his career:

“I’m in the field for the past 15 years, sent multiple spacecrafts in space. Now I am responsible for In-Space Manufacturing (3d printing space systems directly in space) at the University of Glasgow but also work on planetary exploration (from Venus to Uranus) and small spacecrafts called CubeSats which is the speciality of Glasgow.

I am originally French from Britanny but moved in Glasgow 5 years. I’ve been working all over the world from Taiwan to NASA in California but I do believe Scotland is the best place for Space. We have fantastic engineers and innovators, especially in Glasgow which is the city outside of west coast California which manufactures the most  Spacecrafts in the World. And in Scotland we also have a unique capability to manufacture and launch our own rockets from Orkney and maybe soon from North Uist in the outer Hebrides. Finally, I would like to stretch that you do not need to be good in maths or science to be working in the Scottish space industry, people in the industry ranges from lawyers to managers.”

Since Dr Gilles was responsible for 3D printing in space, Calum Gillies kindly agreed to bring in his 3D printer (which is the same model as used in the space station) and the boys were able to print a ratchet tool from the template sent by Dr Gilles and which they have printed in space. The boys enjoyed learning about the 3D printer and also saw examples of what Calum had used it to produce. Finally, they were able to print an ‘airfix’ style kit of the rocket Apollo 5 which they put together for themselves.