Will Rosemary Coogan be the first Briton to walk on the Moon?

Rosemary Kugon is surrounded by a team of people, which to push, pull, squeeze and squeeze him into a spacesuit.

It takes about 45 minutes to obtain a helmet carefully before dropping up top of his head.

The British astronaut is still going to go through its most difficult challenge – assessing whether he is ready for a spacewalk. The test will be in one of the world’s largest pools: NASA’s neutral bounce laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The pool-which is 12 meters deep (40 ft)-has a life-size replica of the International Space Station (ISS), and a “spacewalk” here is as close as it is found to imitate weightlessness on Earth.

“This is a big day,” says before the Rosemary Dive, which is going to last for more than six hours. “It is very physically intense – and it is very psychologically intense.”

But henna does not look very surprised. She smiles and waves because the stage she is standing is slowly launched in water.

As a astronaut, Dr. Rosemary Kugan’s dream was from an early age, she says. But it was a dream that seemed out of reach.

“On Career Day in school, you don’t meet astronauts,” says Rosemary. “You don’t meet those who have done it, you do not really get to hear their stories.”

So he decided to study stars instead, selected a career in astrophysics. But when the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it was looking for new recruitments to go into space, Rosemary applied and selected from over 22,000 people.

The ESA aims to obtain Rosemary at the International Space Station (ISS) by 2030. He will follow the footsteps of Britain Helen Sharman, who visited the Mir Space Station in Soviet in 1991, and Tim Peak which launched for ISS in 2015.

Rosemary has passed the last six months of training at Johnson Space Center. Along with the discovery of the submerged ISS, she can enter the parikrama lab in another life-shaped mock-up located in a huge hangar.

She takes us on the interconnected module tour of the lab. It seems very tight, especially in view of astronauts, usually spend several months on the board. But henna reminds us of great thoughts.

“This is a separate environment, but I think it helps to reduce that kind of relationship – that kind of clostophobia.”

Every aspect of going here is included in Rosemary’s training – including learning to use toilets on the ship.

“The lower part is the place where you put your solid garbage,” she says, pointing to a heat in a small cubical that looks that you can find in a very old camp. “And this funnel is actually associated with an air suction system, and this is where you put your liquid garbage.”

Female astronauts have the option to suppress their duration using drugs, but it can not choose.

“There is essentially a filter that you place on top of the cone that you urinate and it is to prevent any particle, any blood from entering the urine system.”

The urine needs to be kept separately because it is purified and used again as drinking water, she explains.

Back to the pool, divers are constantly adjusting the rift of rosemary in the water to make the experience possible as microgravity.

She rotates laborly, ensuring that it is always associated with a submerged structure using two hooks.

The grip from each hand is carefully chosen with bars outside each module. They are in exactly the same position as on the real thing, significant muscle memory if it is found to carry a spacewalk up to 200 miles (322 km) above the earth.

This is a slow and difficult task, which requires the strength and physical effort of the upper body in hot, heavy spacesutes.

“You do a lot of mental preparations – you really think through every movement,” Rosemary tells. “You have to be really efficient with your energy. You don’t want to do anything and feel that it was not quite correct and had to do it again.”

Rosemary is working to complete a list of maintenance for repairing and testing the space station along with another astronaut. Each of its steps is monitored by a team with a pool scene in a control room. They are in constant communication with her as she works through her actions.

Former space station commander Aki Space Station Commander of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is on hand for conscious advice. He has completed four spacewalks and says that it is a learning state for new astronauts.

“When we start for the first time, so much information is thrown on you, so many skills that are to learn and show you and display,” they say. “It’s baby steps, but they are moving forward – and I can see their excitement every time they come here and jump into the pool.”

Rosemary takes us to see a Saturn V -rocket, which took the Apollo astronauts on the moon in 1969. Over 50 years, NASA plans a adjacent return to the Lunar surface with its Artemis program. European astronauts will join later missions. With a required 35-year-old space career, Rosemary gets a chance to become the first Britain to run on the moon on May one day.

“It is incredibly exciting that we are going back to the moon, as humanity, and of course, somehow I can be a part of it, I will be completely happy. I would be happy. I think it’s absolutely thrilling,” she says.

After six severe hours under water, Rosemary is near the end of his spacewalk test – but then he was thrown a curve ball.

In the control room, we hear him a call out for a com -check with his astronaut partner that is working on the second part of the space station. But she met with silence.

On a video screen, we can see that he is sedent. Rosemary does not know this, but has been asked to pretend to lose consciousness. Rosemary’s job is to reach him, check his condition – and take him back to the airlock.

Under the water for so long, we can see how tired she is – but slowly and continuously working, she safely takes her to the airlock.

One of NASA’s spacewalk trainers who is assessing Rosemary, Jena Hanson says, “Rosemary has a champion endurance. She crushed it today.” “We are really happy where she is – she is doing amazing.”

The spacewalk is finally over. Rosemary’s platform is thrown out of the pool and the support team helps him to get him out of his suit. As her helmet has been removed, we can see that she is clearly very tired, but still smiling.

“It was a challenging, it was really, and a challenging defense,” she tells us, “but yes, it was a really pleasant day.”

Rosemary’s hard work is bringing him closer to his dream of going into space.

“It’s surprising,” Rosemary, “if I can do this for a real space station – where you can see outside and see the stars and see the earth at the same time – it will just cherry at the top.”