Profile

Hi! I’m Floris, a medical doctor from the Netherlands. I’m 32 years old and I love to travel, dive and dance. As expedition doctor I worked in a lot of different places all over the world.

ESA wanted me to do research in Antarctica because the living conditions here are the closest to a space trip you can get on earth. I do 6 experiments that are all related to long duration space missions (to the Moon & beyond!)

I had a lot of training as preparation for my year in the cold. This picture was taken in the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. Of course I hope to fly in space for real later!!

It takes a while before I can go out, I have to wear a special polar suit, boots, 2 hats, 2-3 pairs of gloves and a ski mask to protect myself against the cold.

On my free days I help our mechanic to collect snow to make drinking water.

Every month I take CT-scans to see how our bones and muscles are developping. I take blood samples and analyze them in a very fancy machine called a Flowcytometer, it uses 2 laser beams to look at all the different blood cells.

I often check my crew how their hearts and bodies are responding to the low level of oxygen here.

Me working as an expedition doctor in Belize, Central America.

In Nepal I visited schools & orphanages to check children who didn’t have access to healthcare. And when I heard some of them wanted to become a doctor too, I showed them the basics ;-).

ESA is supporting ‘I’m an Astronaut!’ to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education. We believe that there are great opportunities for people with a STEM passion, in Space and on the ground!