There is no place like home.
Queen Elizabeth II reminded a group of schoolchildren studying space exploration of the importance of returning to Earth as she recalled in a video call about the first person who made the journey – Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
The monarch, who invited Gargarin to Buckingham Palace shortly after his historic flight in 1961, was asked what the progressive astronaut looked like, according to details of the call released. with the palace on Friday.
“Russian,” she replied with a smile as her audience mocked. “He didn’t speak English. It was very interesting, and I think it was the first one that was very interesting. ”
Space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who hosted the session to mark British Science Week, said it must be awesome to be the first in space and not know what would happen.
“Well, yes, and if you could come back,” replied the queen. “That’s very important.”
Wednesday’s call came from students from Thomas Jones Primary School in west London in a difficult week for the queen, after the royal family was ravaged by allegations of racism and insensitivity brought by Prince Harry and Meghan on them.
But despite the controversy, the queen went on with her work, as she has done for decades. Scientists from the London Museum of Science briefed her on NASA’s Mars Perseverance mission and considered finding fragments from a meteorite earlier in the week in England.
The group carried a set of Mars Perseverance rover face masks, sent from NASA headquarters to Windsor Castle. Professor Caroline Smith of the Natural History Museum requested that one of the masks be given to Prince Philip, the queen’s husband, because of his longstanding interest in science. and space exploration.
The 99-year-old prince is recovering in a London hospital after undergoing a heart transplant.