As British astronaut Tim Peake continues to undergo a lengthy process of rehabilitation after six months on the International Space Station, the UAE Space Agency signs an agreement with Nasa to explore Mars, and thousands of previously unseen images from the Apollo moon missions are released, our imaginations once again turn to the magic of the universe around us and the need to know our place within it.

From Jules Verne to David Walliams, space has given literature new dimensions and broken down boundaries — after all, the less we know, the more opportunities we have to dream.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, one of only 214 people to have ever walked in space, knows better than anyone how to turn those dreams into a reality. Chris was an outstanding guest at this year’s Emirates Airline Festival and his aspirations as a child, ambitions as an adult and achievements as a professional were absolutely awe-inspiring.

From a farming family in Ontario, Colonel Hadfield decided aged nine that he would be an astronaut when he saw Neil Armstrong’s “... giant leap for mankind”. Forty-seven years later, he has written a host of material which not only describes some of his experiences (breaking into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposing of a live snake while piloting a plane and being temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft) but also a fictional depiction of a young boy afraid of the dark. When the lad watches the ground-breaking moon landing on TV, he realizes that space is the darkest dark there is — and the dark is beautiful and exciting, especially when you have big dreams to keep you company.

It is no wonder so many books have been written by astronauts; they are part of a unique and highly exclusive club that the rest of us can only imagine. Of course, there is heartbreak as well as romance. Buzz Aldrin’s autobiography, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon not only tells us of the utter elation he felt with the moon landing in 1969, but also of the depths that followed the highs as he slid down the ranks of the air force and eventually ended up as a car salesman. In keeping with the truly heroic attributes that make astronauts what they are, Aldrin now tells the story as a memoir of self-destruction and — victoriously — self-renewal.

While books by and about astronauts make for compelling reading, it is often the unknown that appeals most to a wider audience. The comic books of the 1950s that screamed the famous headlines: “It Came from Outer Space!” and “The Thing That Stole the Moon!” were classics in their day and brought life on Mars to millions of children around the world. The revolutionary take on extra-terrestrial literature with Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy breathed an irreverent breath into the fourth dimension, and Andy Weir’s The Martian introduced the story to movie-goers everywhere as a massive box office hit.

Tim Peake has shown us yet another space age through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram posts and even running the London Marathon on a stellar treadmill, but inspiration has always been at the heart of space travel.

“We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether they were made or just happened,” said Mark Twain. “Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.”

A sentiment expressed by history’s greatest writers for thousands of years before Tim Peake’s adventure, and one that will be echoed for many more to come.

Isobel Abulhoul OBE is the founder and festival director of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.