Dulwich College News, 3 June 2003

Boys in the Junior School were enthralled by the exploits of Per Wimmer, trainee astronaut, who came to their assembly today to tell them about his ambitions to travel in space.

Per is from Denmark but is currently training in Russia with the aim of being one of the first civilians to orbit the earth in a mission planned for 2005/06.

This ambition to visit space has been a long-standing one and he has four Masters’ degrees as well as three years ‘in-flight’ training under his belt. The boys were amused by film of Per and his colleagues practising weightlessness during one of their supersonic training flights – the superman impression especially delighted them – and he was inundated with questions ranging from how sick had he felt through to did the earth look very beautiful from space.

Judging from some of the more technical questions, the College has some budding astronauts of its own who were certainly inspired by Per’s ambition, thirst for knowledge and determination to push out the boundaries of discovery.