Hello Steemit!
My name is Fredrik Aarrestad, a recently graduated economist from Norway currently working as a Young Graduate Trainee for the European Space Agency. I am also the co-founder of Spaceport Norway, and working in my spare time to help create and support new initiatives related to space-based innovation and education. I also had the experience of my life staying a full summer at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida as part of the International Space University.
I will share more of that incredible time in upcoming posts! Below you can see me in front of the "VAB" (Vehicle Assembly Building) where NASA rockets are prepared before launch. Here I got to see two launches during my stay!
2012: Me at the NASA Kennedy Space Center
For a long time, I have wanted to blog my space adventure. I would love to share the experiences I have had from meeting more than 25 astronauts and working with people from all the world's space agencies. As well as sharing the excitement I have for exploration in an age where new barriers are broken every month by new companies such as SpaceX. Furthermore, it is a dream of mine to help reignite an Apollo era level of enthusiasm for space exploration! I have therefore been trying to do outreach whenever possible. Whether it be visiting schools to give lectures about space, or giving presentations at conferences and other events.
2016: Me at the European Space Agency Headquarters in Paris where I currently go to work
While the idea of building a blog has been attractive, I have often felt discouraged by a number of reasons. How much effort will I have to put in to build a website that is good enough? Will I end up investing a lot of time only for nobody to read my blog? It was here that I finally came across the steemit platform! I sincerely hope that the steemit platform can allow me to do what I love, and share my passion for everything related to space, science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and education. As I intend to grow my presence here I have just transferred the weekly coinbase limit worth of STEEM to my account. I hope to continue increasing my STEEM Power and to vote up those who want to be part of my journey. 😊
From the bottom of my heart, I want to say that I am very grateful for every follow and every upvote. I view this as my attempt to do something I believe to be important, and thus every bit of support is truly appreciated. I truly believe the Steemit platform can be huge in incentivising more people to share quality content and inspire others. Therefore, I also hope to be of value to the growing steemit community and to be able, over time, to attract more people to the platform and contribute with quality content.
Thanks for listening this far! I will make sure to follow back and upvote as much as I can!
Fredrik / @fredrikaa
2017: Me at Spaceport Norway, a Space conference and exhibition I helped co-found