Marcus Wandt

After eating my first ice cream of the season in the afternoon sunshine, I biked with the kids to Universeum to meet Sweden’s second astronaut, Marcus Wandt, who gave an inspiring talk about his experiences aboard the International Space Station earlier this year. Unlike those who have found his descriptions of space travel to be prosaic if not banal, I was touched by his image of how our planet in daylight appeared all alone against a dark void but how it, at night, suddenly seemed to be part of the larger cosmos.

As for space-related things, millions across the continental United States are just now getting ready to watch the total solar eclipse as it enters Texas at 1:27 pm and exits Maine at 3:35 pm. For us up here in Sweden, there will be no full solar eclipse until 2126 when Rawls & Me will presumably have been discontinued so perhaps one should instead swing by Spain in August 2026 when there is another chance.