Briton Takes Off For Space Station As Nasa Faces Funding Crisis

Nasa astronaunt Nicholas Patrick. Photograph: Tony Kyriacou / Rex Features

From The Telegraph:

Nicholas Patrick's mission to international space station comes as Barack Obama announces cuts to US space programme.

As a schoolboy in Yorkshire watching the first moon landings on television, Nicholas Patrick could only dream of following the pioneers of Apollo into space.

Inspired by their achievements, he moved to America to achieve his childhood ambition of becoming an astronaut. On Sunday, when the shuttle Endeavour blasts off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, Patrick will embark on one of the greatest adventures ever undertaken by one of the handful of Britons to reach orbit in an American spacecraft.

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