Astronaut Major Tim Peake calls GOSH control

Astronaut Tim Peake has talked to patients at Great Ormond Street Hospital about their shared experience of living in isolation.

Major Peake, 44, who is four months into his six-month stay on the International Space Station, made a phone call from space to tell the young patients about his scientific work.

Among those he chatted with was five-year-old Maddison Webb, who received his long-distance call in her isolation room at the hospital, where she is recovering after a bone marrow transplant to treat acute lymphocyte leukaemia.

She discovered that she and Major Peake had many similarities, including needing restricted diets.

Her mother Stephanie, from Basildon, said: “Maddison has been in isolation at GOSH for five and a half weeks now and so she was very excited to speak to space from her room. She has just started on a special diet of milkshakes and packaged food which she doesn’t like very much. Tim Peake must have to eat different foods and have protein shakes and so I’m hoping it will encourage her to drink them.”