Our Meeting With NASA Astronaut: Coincidence Or Destiny?
On Friday, June 19th 2014, we had dinner with two very interesting fellows from Bakri Cono Marine, Philippe Guenat (chairman of the technical advisory board) and Michael Lopez-Alegria (member of the advisory board).
Bakri Cono, as a company, is completely devoted to using alternative energy sources like solar and hybrid systems on their boats. They are driven to be pioneers of mixed energy marine transportation and with that in mind, they have launched a 65ft solar power catamaran and 60ft sailing catamaran.
Philippe is Swiss by birth with a family history in ship building on Lake Geneva. He is a man extrodinaire, an energetic and gregarious character with a passion not only for building gorgeous, quality boats, but also for how to best harness green energy on boats.
Michael Lopez-Alegria has an illustrious history with the US navy and NASA as Naval Aviator, NASA astronaut and a long list of other accomplishments. He holds three NASA records: longest spaceflight (215 days); most number of Extravehicular Activities (10) and cumulative EVA time (67 hours 40 minutes)…yup, a real live astronaut with all kinds of records in Space Aviation!
It so happens that the next day, June 20th, 2014, it was “Moon Day”, and 45 years ago to the day, “with one small step…one giant leap”, Neil Armstrong made history, becoming the first person to set foot on the moon. Not only were Americans moved by the extraordinary events of this day but indeed, all of mankind. With this in mind, I had to wonder: was this a coincidence or perhaps destiny?
Michael regaled us with his personal experiences in space and the future of flights to space at the dinner table while our Swiss host, Philippe enthusiastically extolled the virtues of green energy and boating. This is perhaps a boat building company to watch in the future!
