Children at a school Space Club were treated to a visit by a Russian cosmonaut.

Former mission control centre employee Alexander Martynov answered the questions of excited Oakworth Primary after-school Space Club children during a visit to their school last week.

The current head of foreign relations for the city of Korolev had earlier visited Greenhead High School pupils and the Star Centre, in Keighley, to talk about space and man’s mission to Mars.

He and his daughter, Anna, 16, the winner of an international space competition, were visiting as part of an exchange programme after some Keighley Guides had attended the Space Olympics, in Russia, earlier this year.

Mr Martynov spoke to children about space projects and told them that cockroaches were taken aboard spacecraft for experiments because they could survive for up to 40 days without food.

He also told them his team had found out that mosquitoes could survive outside the craft in space, which meant that living organisms could exist outside Earth and could be brought back to Earth.

Afterwards, he told the Keighley News: “The aim of our mission is to raise awareness and the interest of students in science technology. I took a lot of good questions from the pupils about missions to planet Mars and how it could be realised.

“It is important because I cannot imagine any branch of science or technology that does not apply the rules of flight into space.”

Mark Curtis, working for Space Connection funded by Yorkshire Forward, and Carol Vaughan, from Keighley Guides, had organised the trip.