Working alongside the US Marines in Quantico, Virginia, near Washington DC in 2010, I had a chance to participate in an accelerated free fall (AFF) skydiving course that overlooked the awe-inspiring Cape Canaveral space centre. The catch? It was a thousand-mile roadtrip to Titusville, Florida.

Beginning with ground school, the dramatic journey to becoming a licensed skydiver would see me jumping out of a twin-turboprop Super King Air aircraft at 17,500 ft with the iconic Kennedy Space Centre in the background, and see me experiencing a parachute malfunction at 3,000 ft!