“The first man travelling to Mars has already been born"
It was a very special stop over in Italy, the last and only chance for ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli to talk about the mission highlights in his home country. Before the launch in mid-December, he wanted to explain by himself to the public - what is MagISStra?
On 7 November, Milan was the launch pad for Nespoli to report on every detail of his mission, including the intensive programme of science, technology and education that he will carry out not only for ESA, but also for the US, Japanese and Canadian space agencies.
The Italian space ambassador was enthusiastic about the future of space exploration. "The first man travelling to Mars has already been born", said Nespoli during his presentation.
The audience of some 300 media, invited guests and public at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci enjoyed Paolo taking part in a 3D show giving a unique view of the International Space Station (ISS) and his training. He will use ESA's novel 3D camera to produce new impressive images of the ISS.
"New generations present here today may become the astronauts of the future. And we are working hard to go further and to reach new destinations in our Solar System", said ESA Director of Human Spaceflight, Simonetta Di Pippo.
Paolo Nespoli will be the first Italian astronaut to spend six months in space, a challenge he is fully training for before embarking on the Soyuz rocket towards the ISS together with his crewmates Dmitri Kondratiev and Catherine Coleman.
Another record will be broken: it will be the first time two Italians stay aboard the Station at the same time. Next February, Paolo will receive an Italian crewmate for 12 days, when ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori arrives as part of the Space Shuttle STS-134 crew, delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
Follow MagISStra mission on Twitter and YouTube
When ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli is launched to the International Space Station, he will be looking forward to sharing his experiences online through Web 2.0. And there will be plenty of activities to talk about during Paolo's time on the Station from December 2010 to May 2011.
"It’s an honour to be the first European tweeting from space," said Paolo. "I have been following the Twitter channels of my fellow astronauts for years and now I’m excited to do it myself."
Paolo will not only follow previous ESA astronauts by tweeting and posting videos to YouTube, but he will also add photos to his tweets every now and then. He has promised to tweet almost daily and upload new videos weekly both in Italian and English.
We will also be able to watch him in action aboard the Station on ESA’s YouTube channel. Anyone can send questions to Paolo, who will reply through the video-sharing website as often as he can.
The special MagISStra mission Twitter channel twitter.com/astro_paolo was formally announced at the event in Milan.
All this and much more – soon on YouTube and Twitter. Come fly with Paolo!
