The astronaut who took one giant leap for Manx-kind

A retired NASA astronaut has said her experiences had made her realise that people living on Earth were crewmates and needed to look after the planet together.

Nicole Stott spent 104 days in space across two missions, performed a spacewalk, and became the first person to speak Manx as well as paint in watercolours in space.

As part of her training, she spent 18 days as an aquanaut living in an undersea habitat.

Stott has recently contributed to a special collection of stamps put together by the Isle of Man Post Office, providing a series of essays to accompany a set to images straddling both space and deep sea.

She said, following both experiences, her perception of life back on Earth and the need to protect the planet had been heightened. Stott said being in space "does make you look at Earth differently".

"I always had an appreciation for our planet – I don't know that on a daily basis I was thinking about the fact that I live on a planet in space – and when I got to space, looking out the window, there's no denying that, right?

"You're like, holy moly, we live on a planet in space."

It was "grounding", she said, "to make that connection to our planetary home".

American-born Stott is married to Manxman Chris Stott, who is a leader in the satellite industry.

Her experiences working closely with others both in space and deep underwater had highlighted the need for people to work together to look after the planet.

She said: "I really feel like we need to remind ourselves of how important it is to be crewmates on our planetary spaceship too.

"To take care of it, to understand our relationship with it, and yeah, to be crewmates not passengers."

Stott said the images chosen for the From the Oceans to the Stars stamp set deliberately had a "very otherworldly feel".

"I wanted to do that purposely because I think that helps us make connections to things we might not have raised our awareness to that are around us," she said.

She said the collection was "really meant to get us thinking about our place on this ocean planet in space, and how everything is interconnected - from the deepest part of the ocean to the farthest reaches of our universe - it's all connected in some way."

However, she said "What I like to think, though, is that you don't need to leave the planet to appreciate it.

"We're in this really beautiful place on the Isle of Man.

"Everywhere you look, in every direction, there's something awesome and wonderful to take in.

"I think if we open our hearts and our minds to that, it'll ground us again, too, in this reality of living on a planet in space."