What happens when you don’t give up your childhood dream of going to space? As a teenager, I decided I wanted to be an astronaut. Since then, I have tailored my career, my hobbies and my life experiences to achieving that goal. Be that learning to fly, becoming an analogue astronaut or working as an engineer on some of the world’s most complex engineering projects. In this talk, I will describe my journey to becoming a spacecraft engineer and my life as an aspiring astronaut. I will elaborate on the complex engineering challenges my teams and I face in the pursuit of the stars, whilst looking at some of the fascinating aerospace projects I have been involved with, from spaceplanes to hypersonic and electric aircraft, as well as explaining what happens when you lock 6 strangers in a bunker for 3 weeks without sunlight, caffeine or any outside contact... This talk will be led by the audience who will choose what they want to hear about from a list of somewhat misleadingly named topics. It will be suitable for all ages and experiences, and will stay at an accessible level of technical understanding - unless anyone asks a super nerdy question, in which case I reserve the right to let my geek flag fly…