Claude Nicollier, forever known as the first Swiss man in space

Just 25 years ago, Vaud astronaut Claude Nicollier boarded the Space Shuttle Atlantis for the first of what would be four missions in space. We sat down to talk with Nicollier about this exciting experience ahead of a special commemorative event that will be held this week in his honor. Claude Nicollier, an EPFL professor since 2004, will always be known as Switzerland's first man in space. He took part in four US space shuttle missions in the 1990s; the first aboard the space shuttle Atlantis on an eight-day mission some 300 km above Earth. To mark the 25^th anniversary of that flight, which took place from July 31 to August 8, 1992, SwissApollo is holding a commemorative event at EPFL's SwissTech Convention Center on 3 November. We met with Nicollier - a modest man with a warm smile - to get a first-hand account of his amazing story. Can you tell us how your first space mission came about? "An astronaut's first space mission is like all important firsts in life: unforgettable. My first mission was the culmination of 14 years of training, starting the day when the European Space Agency selected me for the team. The Challenger disaster in 1986 delayed my flight for six years. Delays were also caused by the fact that I was the only non-American taking the full Space Shuttle Mission Specialist training - NASA had told me that I would take part only in mis­sions where the payload contained a substantial amount of ESA equipment. That was true for the Atlantis , which carried an Italian tethered satellite system and the EURECA satellite [European Retrievable Carrier, now on display at the Swiss Museum of Transport in Luzern]. What were the days leading up to the mission like?