The Mission - from rocketbuilder to space tourist

Every month, we invite an expert to give a lecture on his or her field of expertise. This speaker explains one or more aspects of astronomy, meteorology, and/or space exploration and makes them accessible to a broader audience.

In this richly illustrated lecture, astronomer and author Lucas Ellerbroek takes the audience on a journey through more than a century of space exploration history. He covers not only rockets, astronauts, and famous missions, but—more importantly—the people who shaped space exploration, both the well-known and the forgotten.

Drawing on stories from his new book, De Missie (The Mission), Ellerbroek shares accounts of the dreamers, engineers, scientists, and astronauts who each pursued their own unique mission. He discusses Jules Verne and his vision of a voyage to the Moon, the pioneers of rocket engineering, the individuals behind the first space telescopes, and George Scoon—the ESA engineer who designed the Huygens probe that landed on Saturn’s moon, Titan. He also recounts his personal encounters with figures from the world of space exploration, including early space tourist Richard Garriott and Dutch astronaut André Kuipers.

Through historical imagery, personal anecdotes, and scientific insights, Ellerbroek reveals how space exploration emerged from a blend of curiosity, ambition, imagination, and a touch of audacity—and explains why space continues to captivate us to this day.

About the speaker

Lucas Ellerbroek (1984) is an astronomer and author. He earned his PhD from the University of Amsterdam and, in 2014, authored Planetenjagers (Planet Hunters), a book about the search for planets and life in the universe. Nowadays, he writes for NRC about current events in the cosmos and frequently appears in the media to interpret new discoveries in astronomy and space exploration. His new book, De Missie – van raketbouwer tot ruimtetoerist (The Mission – From Rocket Builder to Space Tourist), is set to be published in late October 2026; for this work, he spent years speaking with scientists, engineers, astronauts, and various other key figures and participants in the field of space exploration.