Matthias J. Maurer

Our president is Matthias J. Maurer. His namesake, who worked as an astronaut for a long time on the International Space Station ISS, is probably better known throughout Germany. Incidentally, he had a copy of the famous Nebra Sky Disk (the oldest known depiction of the sky) with him, which is on display in the State Museum of Prehistory, which is based in Halle. In the autumn of this year, he brought the disk back. A second visit included a visit to the new planetarium in the Saale city, where the astronaut presented his book “Cosmic Kiss”, in which he reports on his time on the ISS, among other things. Our president made an effort to attend the event not only because of the similarity in names. There he was able to hand over “fan mail” to his namesake that had been sent to him in error. He also asked him about his attitude to international understanding, because promoting this is a goal firmly anchored in the Graf Luckner statutes. The astronaut answers this question as expected, saying that he obviously sees himself as an ambassador for peace and that we could all see ourselves as astronauts, because we are all basically astronauts and our spaceship is the Earth. What a fascinating perspective!

Of course there was an autograph in the book that was purchased, and a very special one at that, because the astronaut also has a “J” between his first and last name, which he does not use, contrary to our president’s habit. But he did use it for the autograph!