Are there any Portuguese astronauts

Answer 1

No, not yet. But Portugal has a longstanding, historical interest in knowledge of the night sky, and of the heavenly bodies. That interest was formalized in 1290, with the founding of the first Portuguese University. One of the early unversity's courses of study was astronomy. For astronomy always has had great use value, for this fishing and seafaring nation. And, indeed, sailors and navigators were skilled at successful, intrepid navigation by checking the position of the sun in the daytime sky, and the stars in the night and early morning skies. Portugal is a small country of southwestern Europe. It's bounded on the south and west by water, to the north and east by Spain. So optimal use of human and natural resources always has been a priority to the Portuguese, be they among the ruled or the rulers. In the space age, that means directing human and Natural Resources into technology, over human space flight. In a way, that may be said to be consistent with the nation's seafaring accomplishments of previous centuries. For one reason for the Portuguese worldwide successes was precisely their concentration on the technology of navigating. And the Portuguese opt for opportunities in technology, over human space flight, at the European Space Agency, of which the Republic is a member state. Membership gives nationals a chance for one of two early training opportunities. Both are intended for recent graduates of a four year degree program. The ESA pays all costs in the young graduate trainee program. The appropriate country pays all the costs in the Spanish and Portuguese trainee program. Portugal and Spain each tend to send 30 students through each program, each year. Regardless of the program, actual training always is held in one of the four main ESA establishments, at Paris, France; Darmstadt, Germany; Frascati, Italy; or Noordwijk, Netherlands. At the establishments, training concentrates on engineering and science as applied to the exploration and travel of outer space. Thus, traineeships are available in earth observation, human space flight, mission control operations, navigation, space science, and telecommunications. In fact, Portugal launched its own satellite, the P-Sat 1, on September 26, 1993. To this day, the satellite continues its collecting of images and relaying of communications. And, in another application of technology, Portugal is one of the nations that has been involved in nuclear fusion, as opposed to nuclear fission, research over the past 50 years. Together with counterparts in Sweden and the United Kingdom, Portuguese researchers may have solved one of the major challenges to human space travel. For the three respective research teams released a statement, in November 2008, about overcoming the deadly exposure to space radiation on human flights to Mars. Their research indicates that a space craft may be able to travel within a force field that would protect astronauts from the lethal damage to human tissue by solar wind radiation. The coil could be operated from the space craft's own solar cells, at a charge of 1-2 kilowatts of power 2-3 hours each day of the flight.