The gala at the Campoamor Theatre for the Princess of Asturias Awards 2026 was a solemn and moving ceremony, marked by the presence of the Royal Family, by Patti Smith’s a cappella performance during her remarks, and by the speeches of four of the eight laureates in this edition: Julian Barnes (Literature), Christina Koch (Concordia), Timothy Garton Ash (Social Sciences) and the American singer (Arts).
After the intervention of Ana Isabel Fernández, president of the Princess of Asturias Foundation, the turn came for the British writer Julian Barnes with a speech in which he mentioned Shakespeare, Renoir, Velázquez and Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Next to speak was the American astronaut Christina Koch, Princess of Asturias Award for Concordia.
The Princess of Asturias Jury recognized with this award the first woman to travel to the Moon with the Artemis II mission, which marked the successful return of humanity to lunar orbit, a historic milestone in space exploration. And it highlighted that she is an “inspiration for future generations,” especially women. Christina Koch began her speech by asserting that she received the award “humbly” and then recalled her first visit to Spain, where she found herself “crying in the middle of the street.”
Being an Astronaut: A Privilege
After describing the deaths of the seven astronauts as “the ultimate sacrifice,” she recounted that ten years later she received a call informing her that she could join the crew of a spacecraft. “I accepted that privilege fully aware of its universal nature. That day, in the street, I had realized that my heroes were the heroes of everyone, that the implications of human spaceflight go far beyond the borders of the country that launches the rocket.”
La astronuata Christina Koch.
“That is why, when my Artemis II crew began defining its core values, we adopted a motto that had its roots in what I had learned,” she added. “That motto was ‘A mission for all and by all’. We repeated it over and over, we incorporated it into the logo of our mission and into our interactions“.
Before the attentive gaze of her fellow astronauts Pedro Duque and Sara García Alonso, Christina Koch recalled how, being 400,000 kilometers away from Earth, during a video call with her husband, he told her how “down here, people were coming together, no matter where they came from, their political ideas, their education or their financial resources. I listened in disbelief, wiped away my tears and said: ‘That is what we have always wanted’.”
A Prize for All Humanity
The American ended her moving speech by stating that she wished the whole world would join her in accepting this Concordia Prize, “for having welcomed this mission into their hearts and for allowing it to unite them. For believing that all human beings share the same essence: the need to feel love.” And indeed, it took sending people around the Moon for the message to be convincing enough and for love to triumph“.
And she had a final message for our country, asserting that this recognition was “the second gift” Spain was giving her. “The first was simply caring for other human beings, and that gift took place on the most important stage: any street on planet Earth.”
