Portrait of Pablo Álvarez, the new Spanish astronaut: "They are not looking for geniuses, but people who do not fail"

• Special USA prepares its return to the Moon

The aeronautical engineer

(León, 1988) left the Airbus Getafe plant last Friday where he works as Project Manager for commercial aircraft and returned to his post yesterday as an

.

Neither his bosses nor his colleagues could have imagined that on Sunday he would take a plane to Paris and spend three days in seclusion "in a secret place" along with the other 16 selected for the astronaut corps of the European Space Agency (ESA), including The Leonese biotechnologist Sara García also appears.

"When the director of ESA, Josef Aschbacher, called me to invite me to Paris, I already knew that I would be part of the promotion [made up of five career astronauts, 11 reservists and the first astronaut with a disability]. But what

, he says during an interview in the building where he will continue to work until he moves to Cologne (Germany) on April 3 to begin his hard training as an ESA astronaut.

For 13 days he had to keep "an absolute secret" that he had been chosen for the astronaut corps and (almost) complied with it to the letter: "My sister found out from the press and I apologize, although the truth is that

Earlier I had to pretend nothing was wrong."

You won't be able to hug them in person until mid-December, when you go to visit them in León.

And it is that since his appointment was made public on Wednesday, he has not stopped.

Everyone wants to talk to him and he has hardly slept but it is not noticeable because he answers all questions without haste, with great enthusiasm and kindness: "

, says the engineer, who is going to take the vacation he had scheduled for the December bridge, to a place that he prefers not to reveal.

EL MUNDO accompanied him on Friday during his first morning of work after being chosen as an astronaut, although working, working, he worked little.

He had many calls and his colleagues wanted to congratulate him and have coffee with him.

Colleagues who did not know him also came up to greet him because 5,000 people work at this Madrid plant, the third largest Airbus plant in Europe.

Their usual day starts at 7:45 am and ends around 4:45 pm

, they eat in the complex's restaurant, in the outdoor area when the weather is good, and they travel quite frequently to the plants in Toulouse, Illescas and Puerto Real.

"We are going to miss him a lot," says Pablo's boss, Josefina Golmayo.

The head of the Airbus project management office describes him as "the ideal profile that any manager would want to have in his team."

Of his character, "his motivation, his team spirit and above all his humility" stand out.

She also mentions "his perseverance with him, his

with his colleagues and clients, as well as his extensive technical and project management knowledge."

We are going to miss him a lot... he is the ideal profile that any manager would like to have in his team

Josefina Golmayo, boss of Pablo Álvarez at Airbus

His work table is the essence of minimalism, it only has the base of the laptop and two screens, there are no papers or pens: "I think it is the most sober desk in all of Airbus," he jokes.

He doesn't have any photos, objects or plants either: "A cactus has come to die on me," she confesses between laughs.

He has all the ballots to become one of the most famous people in Spain, although he assures that he has not had time to think about it: "

. At ESA they have warned us and I think that the psychological profile of the chosen ones is very careful to face this".

He also thinks that

but it is increasingly open to more people and the requirements are now different. The risks are reducing and the spectrum of people who can travel to space is expanding. No They look for geniuses, but people who don't fail".

He considers himself an example.

He sent his application to ESA aspiring to the position of parastronaut, the first to be created for a person with a disability, since

although it has never prevented him from doing anything.

But they chose him to be a starter.

"I've done a lot of sport all my life. I can play soccer, I've run half marathons, triathlons, I love the mountains, going with my friends to the Picos de Europa and I've climbed quite high peaks, like Salcantay in Peru."

She also plays table tennis and loves cycling, a hobby that almost made it difficult for her to fulfill her dream: "In the middle of the selection process I fell off my bike going down La Camperona, which is a very complicated mountain pass in León and I I broke my clavicle.

"In the middle of the selection process I fell off my bike and broke my clavicle. I had surgery twice and now I have a titanium plate that will fly into space with me

He is from Barça - "at the age of four they operated on my foot in Barcelona and they took me to the Camp Nou" -;

His favorite dish is Galician octopus and when he is out of Spain he misses, "in addition to his friends and his family", cecina.

From Leon to space

He was born and raised in the city of León: "Like all of us there, we have the town of our parents where we spent the summer as a child. Sabugo, which has an inhabitant all year round and Garueña, 4 or 5; in summer it multiplies and we still arrive to 20 people".

As a child he

, although he stresses that throughout his life he has always been surrounded by "people who got better grades and were smarter."

His father works in a funeral company and his mother has worked as a cleaner and cook.

While his sister decided to be a teacher, he studied Aeronautical Engineering at the University of León, like reservist astronaut Sara García, but despite being the same age, they did not know each other: "

away. We will have crossed paths a thousand times but we have met during the selection process".

After graduating in León, he went to Poland to do a master's degree in Aerospace Engineering at the Warsaw Polytechnic.

"

It was a bit of a confusing time in my life because I wanted to continue outside of Spain and I threw resumes everywhere. The weirdest interview was for a radio telescope [ALMA] in the Atacama desert (Chile), which did not work out. I also tried a training program in Baikonur (Kazakhstan) but since it was a scholarship linked to the European Space Agency, they rejected me because I did not have a sufficient level of French. I also did another interview to work at Mitsubishi in Japan. You finish, you have the whole world open and you say, what do I want to do? But it was easier to start in Spain because I needed the money".

Many of the astronaut candidates' résumés gave a thousand turns to mine and I am not ashamed to say it... there were exceptional and humble people

So he spent two years in Madrid at Atos (Airbus subcontractor), then three years in Bristol, and then seven months at the French multinational Safran.

"Then Airbus called me to work in the United Kingdom on the development of the ExoMars Martian

", whose launch has been postponed again due to the war in Ukraine, as ESA has cut off collaboration with the Russians with whom it was carrying out this mission whose takeoff it is scheduled for 2028". In fact, he worked with Roscosmos, the Russian agency, in the development of a heater with radioactive plutonium that helps the robotic vehicle survive the cold nights of Mars. He assures that he carries this robot in his soul :

.

In March 2020

"My moving bags were blocked for three months at the border. I had time to get a very small apartment in the Lavapiés neighborhood I had just started, imagine, you get a new job and it was a roller coaster. When they said, 'how will people who live in a 30-meter apartment, alone, without a terrace'...well that was me".

When they said, 'how will the people who live in a 30-meter apartment be, alone, without a terrace'...well, that was me during the confinement

His mother has not been amused that he wants to be an astronaut: "My father encouraged me a lot although now he has become more afraid. My mother was very afraid from the beginning although she is already assimilating it. She found out on TV that it had come out the call and I didn't want him to see it because I knew I was going to apply. One day I asked him to take some photos of me, and the next day, when we were at a neighbor's birthday party, he said, 'Don't you want the photos to introduce yourself? to astronaut?'

I answered yes, and she told me, "If I know, I won't take it out of you."

The path to becoming an astronaut

The selection process, which has been attended by 1,300 Spaniards, has had six phases.

The first was the filtering of resumes, which was the most difficult since it ruled out 90% of the applications.

"Of the initial 22,500, they were left with 1,350 who went to phase 2, which was a psychometric test in Germany that lasted 11 hours in which they looked at absolutely everything. We passed about 450 to the social skills phase: how do you work as a team, a first interview, psychological profile. Then the medical tests, which are super exhaustive but are very different from what we see in the movies. There is no torture," he jokes.

López has been impressed by the number of "exceptional and very humble people" he has met in the selection process, but above all people with a lot of passion: "Many CVs gave a thousand turns to mine and I am not ashamed to say it," he adds .

I think that the ESA has caught above all the people whose eyes shine when we talk about space

The engineer doesn't have a partner right now and when we tell him that he's probably going to flirt more now, he responds with a smile and "I don't have much time."

Don't exaggerate.

and he will have to learn German and Russian (he already knows English, French and Polish, although the latter is "a bit rusty").

He will have a year of basic training, another in the agencies of all the countries with a module on the International Space Station, and once he is assigned a mission, another two years of specific training focused on operations or experiments that he has to do in space. .

Before 2026 it will not be able to fly into space and with luck, in 2025 NASA astronauts will land on Artemis 1. In principle, ESA has three seats for the Artemis program and although it states that it would like to go to the Moon, it is cautious and remembers that "they are not going to send anyone to Artemisa without first having gone to the ISS. If there is something certain in this business, it is that you always have to be prepared for the unexpected, have a waist and be flexible."

If there is something certain in this business, it is that you always have to be prepared for the unexpected, have a waist and be flexible.

Aren't you afraid of getting on a spaceship?

"It feels a bit scary but it has to be a fear that you can turn into respect for the rocket in order to be as well prepared as possible for any eventuality to reduce the risks to a minimum."

Pedro Duque, his reference

During his training as an astronaut, he will have the support of Pedro Duque, whom he considers his benchmark: "Without him, I would not have studied aeronautics, he has written to me from day one."

What advice has he given you: "What he has told us is that we will talk calmly because there is a lot of advice to give."

He is excited about the displays of affection and the messages he has received these days from many children: "Hopefully we can awaken that spark in them so they can study any scientific career."

The engineer considers that

is very satisfied with what has been achieved during the ESA Interministerial Summit in Paris held on November 22 and 23 with the member countries to agree on the budgets and projects of the next few years: "Spain has returned with two astronauts but we have achieved a lot of industrial and scientific projects.

He has not yet spoken with the Kings but in the middle of the interview the president of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, calls him.

We asked him about his city's candidacy to host the headquarters of the future Spanish Space Agency, for which some twenty locations have submitted: "If we, the people of Leon, have something, it is that we carry the flag of León wherever we go, I hope they take the most appropriate venue, but

, he admits.

"I have many lifelong friends who have studied engineering, medicine, etc. Last year, 18 of us got together on New Year's Eve and looking at the photo we took, I realized that none of them live in León because there are no opportunities for young despite the fact that we have a great university and they train us. I have super-bright friends who would love to come back if there were opportunities. I would also like to come back when all this adventure is over," he acknowledges.

He assures that he also feels very European: "

It is always said that as in Spain you do not live anywhere, it is true but you live differently and you have to know how to enjoy it ".

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