Geoffrey Van Hecke, a graduate in Business Management and Sustainable Development, began his literary career at the age of sixteen with the publication of his first novel. Specializing in space exploration, he is particularly interested in the relationship with time in his writings. Today, he is tasked by Weyrich Publishing to promote the MARS collection, supported by the ESA (European Space Agency). In collaboration with partners such as the University of Namur, the Institute of Astrophysics of Liège, the Nuclear Energy Study Center, and the Euro Space Center, he is heavily involved, both nationally and internationally, in scientific outreach. Outside of writing, he works as an insurance broker and is active in politics
What inspired you to start writing at the age of sixteen and how has your creative journey evolved over time?
I always wanted to share stories and knowledge. My first writings were about angels in fantasy books. But since always, I interest myself a lot about astronomy. I asked myself how could I interest other people to my passion. After many researches and partnerships with ESA and astrophysical Institute, lucky meetings as well, I was ready to switch and to write on it, with 3 books about space exploration till now. Since some monthes I write also as scientifical journalist for Athena and Tota Pulchra.
Can you tell us about your novel and how you incorporated the theme of the relationship with time in your works?
Time is short for humans and animals. He is quick and put a lot of pressure on us during our daily life. But this is at the scale of Earth. If we look to the Universe, time becomes a distance. We are talking in light-years. We would need millions of years just to move inside our own galaxy, with the actual technology. The relationship with time is so completely different at the universal scale. And we know we could potentially modify it with gravity and speed. In theory. When we talk about space exploration, at the end, the final objective is to meet another intelligent life. But aliens have the same problem than us : Distance. So when we talk about time, we have to consider that there are many possibilities to talk about it. One thing is sure. On Earth, life is short and we have to enjoy it.
What is your main goal in promoting the MARS collection and how do you collaborate with ESA and other institutions?
Curiosity. Do we really want to stay ignorant? Humans are explorers, we need to know what is around us. And after the Moon, the next step is clearly Mars. The advantage with space exploration is that the challenges we have to face help us in our daily life. Many things we are using today were developed for Apollo for example. Cosmos is huge, we have to progress step by step. Mars will be one of this step before exploring other solar systems. ESA and the other institutions like the astrophysical institute of Liège or the University of Namur, also sometimes other ones like the Vatican observatory, help me to get more informations, to understand what are the next steps before reaching the goals. For examples, about the new telescopes, the new space missions, the new objectives, what we recently discovered and so on.
How do you manage to balance your writing career with your work as an insurance mediator and your political involvement?
Actually, I never have the impression to work. I try to remain flexible and to do what I need when I need. Each day is very different. One thing is sure, I never write if I don’t have any inspiration, I never force myself to write. But when I have an opportunity to get new informations for my writings I go directly. Same when I need to deal with a client or to meet people during events.
What challenges and opportunities do you see in the field of scientific communication, and how do you hope to influence the public through your work?
I love that question. First of all let’s go back in time, in 1972 when Apollo 17 is ending. At that time, people didn’t understand anymore the benefits of space exploration, especially sending humans in the cosmos. It’s a bit sad, Apollo 17 was a successful mission that help us to understand many things. Without this stop, no doubts we would be already on Mars. My job consists in explaining in a funnier way, with simple words, why space exploration is so useful for us. Why we need to develop our knowledge, including for our daily life.Space offers us today jobs, discoveries, opportunities, and clearly new dreams. Everyone loves to watch a sky full of stars, but who knows a lot of them are actually galaxies. We are a little dust lost in the Universe. We don’t have the right to stay like this.Let’s take two examples. ISS is today a beautiful laboratory. James Webb space exploration, which costed 10 billions $, help us to understand so many things about the physical rules we are depending from. Also maybe about the research of life.If the number of people interested by space exploration is growing, the sector will receive more money to finance the research, it’s as simple as that. With new discoveries, new opportunities, new dreams.
