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dr. Alexander Gerst was born in Kuhn

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zl-- South a small town in rural South

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Central Germany he liked being close to

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nature and looking up at the night sky

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and his curiosity was piqued when his

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grandfather talked to people all over

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the world on his amateur radio one day

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he somehow managed to adjust his antenna

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such that it would actually broadcast to

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the moon and he gave me the microphone

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and let me speak a few words into the

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radio they would bounce back from the

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surface of the Moon and about two and a

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half seconds later I would hear my own

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words in the radio knowing as a

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six-year-old that they were just on the

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moon so it was impossible for me to

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grasp in the beginning Gerst started his

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exploration focused on this planet and

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earned a diploma in geophysics from the

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University of Karlsruhe in Germany while

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also getting his master's in earth

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sciences from Victoria University in New

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Zealand while working there developing

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new volcano monitoring techniques he

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made four scientific missions to study

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volcanoes in Antarctica while working on

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his doctorate in Natural Sciences at the

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Institute of geophysics

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at the University of Hamburg and during

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that time he made good on a promise to

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himself that he would make at least one

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sincere effort to become an astronaut he

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was selected for the astronaut corps by

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the European Space Agency in 2009

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finished his PhD the following year and

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has been focused ever since on his

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chance to be part of what he calls the

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first wave being the first well wave of

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explorers on the way out exploring the

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universe to moon asteroids Mars and

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beyond that is for me such an important