It takes the "right stuff" to withstand cosmic bursts of camera light and meteoric bombardments of questions, but Tim Peake is orbit-ready and passed the test of facing the massed media on Monday morning.
As Britain's first official, government-backed astronaut, his selection for a mission in late 2015 marks a pivotal moment.
Science Minister David Willetts regards the £16m to secure Tim Peake's ticket as money well spent.
While Nasa wraps its astronauts in the rhetoric of fabled explorers - lots of "celestial destiny" and "bold endeavour" - the British take is far more mundane: the press release announcing Tim Peake's mission is mainly about British industry and jobs.
Scientists are warning that the level of the sea may rise by slightly more than previously forecast - but they also say that the very worst predictions look much less likely.
Near the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano, the carbon dioxide monitors stand amid one of the world's remotest huddles of scientific instruments. To reach them you have to leave the steamy Hawaii coast and climb through barren lava-fields.
At the top, above 11,000ft, the air is thin and the sun piercing. During my visit, I watched rain clouds boiling in the valleys below me. Charles David Keeling chose this otherworldly spot because the air up here is neither industrial nor pristine; it is "well-mixed" which means it can serve as a useful guide to changes in the atmosphere.
"It smells like a dead body," the customs officer told me, as we opened a crate of smuggled ivory in the cargo terminal at Bangkok airport earlier this year.
The pieces of tusk were so numerous that a total of 79 elephants had been slaughtered to yield this haul destined for the remorseless markets of China.
Twenty years ago when scientists at Cern created the first page for the World Wide Web no one could have imagined how easily it would transform the ability of humankind to have conversations around the globe.
Nor could they have predicted that a web-based debate would have explored the apparently outlandish idea of volunteers travelling on a one-way ticket to Mars and setting up a colony with no prospect of return - all on live television.
As the days lengthen with the approach of spring, the northernmost reaches of Scandinavia are about to witness the annual migration of huge herds of reindeer.
After spending the winter inland in Finnmark, Europe's last great wilderness, the animals are moved to pastures near the coast for the summer.
What is wrong with extinction? I realise this question is the conservation equivalent of a landmine - or an elephant trap. And that it is likely to ruffle a lot of fur.
But I ask because I am merely wondering whether we sometimes forget a grim reality of the story of life on Earth - that extinction has always been with us.
From being a totally unimaginable feature of the deep ocean throughout most of human history to being shown live on global television earlier this week, hydrothermal vents have never been so well understood.
Now back on dry land after broadcasting on the latest work on the research ship James Cook in the Cayman Trough, I'm still picking up messages from people amazed at getting such an extraordinary vision of the reality of the deep sea.
A grim saga of ignorance and incompetence that allowed a vicious storm to kill more than 300 people is remembered in dozens of coastal communities today.
A huge surge of water swept down the North Sea on 31 January 1953, pulverising the east and south-east coasts of England in an onslaught with powerful echoes even now.
Britain could be the best place in the world to pioneer eight key areas of science - everything from robotic cars to synthetic organisms to strange new materials.
Or the country that fostered the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions could succumb to the all-too-familiar affliction of coming up with astonishing inventions only to see others walk off with the profits.
Graphene is a waste of money, a very senior British professor told me last year during a conversation about government funding for science.
It might be useful to a few applications, he complained, but graphene will never be revolutionary: the technology is too limited - it is interesting but not a game changer.
The question most people have about the threat of stormy weather and more flooding is the one the scientists find hardest to answer: how bad is it going to be?
The fact is that the science of understanding why rain falls, and where and when, and how it then soaks into the ground or spills into the streets, is extremely challenging.
A few members of the team that attempted to search for life in Antarctica's Lake Ellsworth are already beginning a long, sad and disappointed journey home.
The rest will be gone, along with all the equipment, the stores and a union jack, in a few weeks' time, leaving no trace of this daring mission to reach beneath the ice.
Searching for life in the hidden waters of Lake Ellsworth was one of the most ambitious British science projects of recent years, so this failure in the drilling programme will come as a huge blow.
The team knew that the risks were high, but the idea of exploring an ancient and mysterious body of water isolated for hundreds of thousands of years had inspired passion and determination.
Twenty years ago David visited the secret lab at Los Alamos that created the nuclear bomb and he's been fascinated by science and scientists ever since. His reports on research have taken him as far afield as the Antarctic ice-sheet, the Amazon rainforest and the depths of the Gulf of Mexico.
Since joining the BBC back in 1983, David has covered Northern Ireland, defence, Europe and world affairs. He is the author of three books.
His favourite memories include reporting from East Berlin during the fall of the Wall and exploring the tunnels of the Large Hadron Collider on a bike.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~23~RS~)
