Meet Medway's Spaceman

KentOnline / KMTV

James Jefferson takes his space talk to hundreds of pupils every year.  Oliver Leader de Saxe reports.

Transcript

00:00Did you know that Kent has its very own astronaut?

00:04Meet James Jefferson, the Medway Spaceman,

00:07who's on a mission to inspire the children of Kent about the wonders of space,

00:11one lesson at a time.

00:13Outside of his day job, James visits schools across the county

00:17to teach children about space in an accessible way.

00:20Last year he visited 43 schools and this year he says he plans to visit even more.

00:26What inspires me is really seeing the children's faces

00:29when they walk in in my spacesuit, they absolutely love it.

00:33For me, what I get out of it is when they come up to me afterwards

00:37asking me space questions, saying,

00:40oh, whereabouts can I find out more about space?

00:43So really it's inspiring the next generation, yeah.

00:46In a sector that's predominantly male, James has made inclusivity key to his work.

00:51According to the last space sector census, women were significantly underrepresented,

00:56making up just 29% of the sector.

00:59But that's something that James is keen to change.

01:02One of the things that I really, really love doing

01:05is I ask for someone to come out, normally a girl,

01:10and I say to them, the whole world's watching you,

01:14what's going to be your first words to inspire women in space?

01:18So it kind of puts them on the spot.

01:20One of the things about space is for everybody.

01:24One of the main mantras of space is space is for all.

01:27I've had a few children that come up to me and their parents have said to me

01:32that you've really brought something out in them,

01:35whereas they've never been interested in something before.

01:38They've gone home and said, I want to know more about space,

01:41I want to know more about what James was talking about.

01:44One of the children who's been impacted by James' work is nine-year-old Seth,

01:48who has autism and ADHD.

01:50It was really nice to see, especially because it's a learning activity.

01:55So it's learning, and Seth really struggled with that at school,

02:01and to get focused on activities and to really get into things.

02:06And so to see him doing it off his own back, it was lovely to see.

02:11And I think it made going into school much easier

02:16because there was things he could be proud of that he'd done,

02:19even if he'd just done them at home, he could take them into school.

02:22Yeah, it's been lovely.

02:24As James shows, you don't really need a rocket to reach for the stars,

02:27just passion, a white space suit and a willingness to show kids

02:31that space is a lot more exciting than homework.

02:36Going forward, James hopes to inspire even more kids around Kent

02:39to get involved with space, and I've got to say, he's inspired me.

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