FUTURE space colonist Dr Niamh Shaw encouraged Limerick businesswomen to dream big and reach for the stars at a Network Ireland Limerick event this week.
Women in business from across the region heard how Dr Shaw has wanted to go to space since she was eight-years-old. But she did very little about it for a very long time and felt like “I was faking my life and wasn’t doing what I really wanted to do”.
In 2011 when she realised she wouldn’t become an astronaut, she decided to make her life an art experiment in exploring the pursuit of lifelong dreams, presenting her work in theatrical and other publicly engaged platforms.
She now plans to be a future space colonist, to contribute to human space exploration as an artist and communicator.
To prepare for it, she participated in a zero-gravity flight at Star City in Moscow and regularly visits Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan for human launches. She is an experienced analogue astronaut with over 20 EVA hours from Mars simulated missions in the Utah desert USA and the Negev desert in the Middle East.
She has now started her campaign to be among one of the eight artists that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa brings on the #DearMoon project, a private lunar mission with Elon Musk in 2023.
Her tips for making the impossible possible included; “Embrace failure, be curious and follow your nose, surround yourself with people better than you, be inspired by everything around you, see the bigger picture and be honest with yourself”.
“You can make the impossible possible. The more we zoom out, we can see the bigger picture,” she told Limerick businesswomen.
Valerie Murphy, President of Network Limerick, said, “Dr Shaw’s talk was absolutely inspirational. She has shown that it’s possible to reinvent yourself at any time and follow your dream.”
Network Ireland Limerick’s next event takes place on October 24 with Dr Stephen Kinsella.
