A NASA astronaut with a stong connection to Captain Cook spent the day describing his space voyages to school children yesterday.

Dr Nicholas Patrick, who now lives in Houston, America, is one of the few British citizens to make it into space. In February last year he spent 13 days orbiting the earth as part of a five-man mission to the international space station.

The astronaut was born in Saltburn and lived at Ingleby Greenhow, just a stone’s throw away from Great Ayton in North Yorkshire, where Captain Cook grew up.

After qualifying as an astronaut, he went on to complete two space missions: the first with the Discovery space shuttle, the second, last year, on board the Endeavour. Both shuttles were named after ships captained by Cook on his exploratory voyages of the world’s oceans.

Yesterday Dr Patrick visited Roseberry Community Primary School in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, where he also spoke to children at Marwood CE Infant and Ingleby Greenhow CE Primary Schools.

“It’s an honour and a treat to come back to the place I’m from,” he said.

At the school he described to his space training to pupils. It had included living in a metal capsule for ten days at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and practising engineering work underwater in a 25 million litre pool.

He showed children photographs and videos taken on board the international space station, including astronauts getting into difficulty trying to eat scrambled eggs while weightless.

Dr Patrick’s voyage on board the Endeavour space shuttle involved adding a new room to the International Space Station with doomed bay windows that gives astronauts clear views of the earth. It was a particularly complex mission that involved three space walks to work on the outside of the room.

They completed 217 orbits of the earth before touching down at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Dr Patrick told pupils he had wanted to go into space from the age of five, after watching the Apollo moon landings. He encouraged them to have their own aspirations.

“It’s important to have a dream, a really interesting dream whether it’s being a doctor or an astronaut,” he told them.

“Even if you don’t go to the moon, you can get somewhere really, really interesting.”

Today (Thursday, November 24) Dr Patrick is due to receive an honorary degree from Teesside University.