Toby Fealy's earliest memories include "building bicarb soda rockets that barely got off the ground".
Now 15, the precocious Far North Queenslander is likely to find himself swapping common household products for slightly more potent fuels before too long.
The Mareeba State High School student is one of just four young people chosen to attend a two-week camp at the United States Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama this year.
"It's surreal, truly surreal," Toby said.
"The space camp in Huntsville has full shuttle simulators, it's got suits, it's got industry professionals that are going to teach us a lot about what it would be like to work in the space industry."
Space race in the tropics
Toby found out about the scholarship while looking for work experience in the aerospace industry.
His successful application required him to identify a problem and design a solution to it.
"I'm definitely a tinkerer, taking things apart and not always putting them back together again, much to my mum's dismay," Toby said.
Hugely interested in all aspects of space science, he concedes "there's not that many places where you can scratch that itch" in his hometown, about an hour inland from Cairns.
But there are plenty of people hoping that will soon change.
Space Centre Australia, a private group proposing to build a spaceport and launch centre at Weipa, on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula, is optimistically hoping small launches will be able to take place there by 2026.
Project in early stages
Founder James Palmer believes in the long-term the Moon or Mars would be within reach of a Weipa spaceport.
"The idea with that location [near the equator] is you can undertake those sorts of missions," he told media at an industry forum in Cairns that was attended by delegates from NASA and the Australian Space Agency.
"I mean, it's going to take a long time to get to that point, but there's obviously quite a lot of ability there, where we can support even [NASA's] Artemis program in its current state going forward into the future."
There are still some hurdles before Space Centre Australia's plans can become reality.
Environmental assessments have begun and a geotechnical analysis of the site and flora and fauna surveys will follow.
A critical Indigenous land-use agreement with the Mokwiri traditional owner group is also yet to be reached.
Space Centre Australia has so far self-funded its project but Mr Palmer said federal government support was being sought.
Much of Cape York becomes impassable in the northern wet season, so infrastructure improvements would be required.
Mr Palmer says there is also the challenge of finding workers, "especially in that high-end technical area".
"I fully believe we can get it right and that we can be successful, but it's about taking the right amount of time and the right approach," he said.
