Yesterday was my last day at work, party and everything. I did not think that it would be quite so hard. Or rather, I knew that it would be hard but knowing is one thing, living it is another.
It feels weird leaving ones nest, as I call it, and at the same time it feels right. In some ways it is not different from when I left home for uni. In most ways it is exactly the same thing, the only thing being different, when all the details like space and time are shed, is how I see and relate to the events around me.
It feels weird because it is a strange mix of the things that I made to fill my life and of the people, each very special and unique, that quite spontaneously and of their own accord filled it even more in ways in which things never could.
I was asked if there are any earlier pictures of me at DLR...well here is one:
Back in days... in Köln....as a PhD Student who had decided that space transportation systems are THE enablers of all space activities.
But this is not a post intended for reminiscence. It is a thank you post and a forward-looking one.
Thank you to all those that pushed me forward not by pushing but just by serving my infinite curiosity and my enthusiam with chances.
The chance for a PhD, the chance to do testing at a testbench, the chance to build up a group and bring people together, the
chance to pose questions and find and provide answers, to guide and be
guided.....the chance to find solutions in scientific research, the chance to address high-level concerns and again bring even more people together to help decision makers provide the right answers, the chance to question standards and indicate alternative routes, and to then follow these other roads to success and shared joy and pride, the chance to grow and discover through hard work and dedication,....the list is truly endless,....
I, for one thing, I am looking forward to my next destination and even more to the road thereto.
I went to visit my PhD supervisor today - my second PhD - to inform him that I will not be able to continue as my road to ESA will no longer allow me to find the time to do what I had embared upon a few years ago (back then when I had but my group and research in Lampoldshausen): exoplanets and SOFIA.
I entered his office with a heavy heart as I felt that I had to part from something that I did not want to part from. I left happy having discovered a whole new level of interation with him: not student and professor, but rather two people interested in making a seemless chain of innovation in space a reality.
Chances.
With great power - the power of giving and receiving chances - comes great responsibility.
