Hetty Helsmoortel - Mission 2026

According to average life expectancy, she is now statistically somewhere in the middle. Urgent time to take stock. Ever since the day she could read, her existence has been filled with science and curiosity. Collecting stones, drawing robots, or trying to build the most stable sandcastles on the beach of Ostend. But does science remain that faithful ally in the second half of her life? What if she gets a diagnosis in a while at 75 for which there is no treatment yet? Will she be angry then, because maybe too much dawdling happened somewhere in 2026? Or just grateful for the things that did move forward? And does her childlike enthusiasm about the increasingly distant exploration of space in 2026 — with the moon at the forefront — remain intact? Even if that moon might have become a place by then where we have gone to look for as many dreams as raw materials? In ‘Missie 2026’ (Mission 2026), Hetty’s hope, humor, and wonder come together again. She looks at the most striking scientific events of 2026 in her own way. For the sixth time in a row, she wants to send everyone back into the world with appetite and a head full of new insights.