800 YEARS IN SPACE AT UNIPD
Padua, 6-9 Sept

In the beginning of September we were busy in Italy, more precisely Padua! In fact, we were involved with the University of Padova in the organization of a congress to celebrate 800 years of Space research at in this Italian academic hub. The program of meetings was very dense: a mix of lectures, seminars and social events. Over the course of the congress days we met with key players in the aerospace field, among which the president of the Italian Space Agency, Giorgio Saccoccia; the president of INAF, Marco Tavani; representatives of ESA and CISAS. Local political authorities were also present at the events, which were organized thanks to a technical-scientific committee chaired by Prof. Sofia Pavanello, close EuroMoonMars collaborator.

Lunex EuroMoonMars team with Paduan colleagues in front of Galileo's cathedra and Lunex Banner

The lectures were held entirely at Palazzo Bo. On the first day in particular we were in the Aula Magna: what a thrill to be in the same room where Galileo Galilei once taught his students! The second and third days of the conference, instead, took place in the Aula Nievo. Lectures at the congress included several talks by our CEO, Prof. Bernard Foing. With a lecture entitled "25 Years of Research Projects on Space Data, Instruments and Astronautics," Prof Foing was among the speakers at the opening of the conference. He also gave a talk on the "ArtMoonMars" program. In fact, in addition to Science, there was also room for art: during the days of the congress, a copy of the MoonGallery was exhibited at Galleria Cavour in Padua. We had the privilege of visiting the exhibition with two MoonGallery artists, Ronald Vles and Mary Kuiper! During the congress, several research results from EuroMoonMars and collaborators were shown to the audience. A number of students presented their results, from participants in the high-altitude campaign in Chile (LICA-UDA-EMM Campaign) to those at EMMPOL isolation campaigns in Poland. Speeches included a very interesting presentation by our long-time collaborator Prof. Sarah Baatout via video-connection.

Prof B. Foing presenting EuroMoonMars results in the Aula Magna at UniPd

T. Giacon (EMMPOL 7) presenting his results in the session dedicated to students' ideas and research projects

Beside the lectures, the conference in Padua was an extremely productive time to meet new potential collaborators. We attended many of social events in the evenings. On the first day we were guests of the Rotary Club, where we enjoyed an interesting lecture by Stefano Polato, the chef responsible for preparing meals for Italian astronauts. A major evening event was the Conference at the Hall of Giants entitled "From Space Shuttle to the future Moon and Mars exploration," with astronauts Luca Parmitano (live streaming from JSC, Houston) and Maurizio Cheli. The following evening's social event at the Specola was also very interesting. Here Dr. David Williams, Head of Space Science Data Coordinated Archive at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, shared the peculiar story of "The Apollo Moon Trees" project, whose seeds were donated on the same evening to the Botanical Garden of Padua. We had the pleasure of interviewing him about the project while we were in Padua, check out the full interview here!