Human Spaceflight at ESOF 2010, the Euroscience Open Forum.

ESOF, the international and multidisciplinary meeting dedicated to scientific research and innovation, will be held this year in Turin from 2 to 7 July. “Passion for Science” will be the key feature of this year’s ESOF: a passion that fuels the urge to understand and the desire to discover more. Leading scientists, researchers, science and technology communicators, innovators and members of the general public will meet at ESOF to discuss new discoveries and debate the direction that research is taking in the sciences, humanities and social sciences.

The “Ten years of human presence on the ISS” roundtable will start at 10:30 CEST on Wednesday 7 July and will be moderated by BBC Science reporter Jonathan Amos. Simonetta Di Pippo and Paolo Nespoli, together with Maria Antonietta Perino, will give an overview of the ISS status and outlook, and will discuss the importance of human presence in space from different perspectives.

The speakers will debate about the achievements of the last decade of scientific research in space as well as the next steps in space exploration and its consequences on human society. There will also be room to analyse in depth the impact of human spaceflight on the advancement of European scientific and technological knowledge, the overall achievements that humankind can aspire to in space and the science and technology required to produce high-quality results.

On occasion of this roundtable, press representatives are also invited to attend a press briefing on Tuesday 6 July from 15:30 to 16:00 CEST, at the Centro Congressi Lingotto (Via Nizza, 280, Turin).

Furthermore, ESOF conference is also complemented with the Science in the City Programme which hosts events within the city in order to bring scientific culture to the general public. On Tuesday 6 July at 21:00 CEST in the courtyard of Palazzo Carignano (Turin), Il Circolo dei Lettori in collaboration with Alba Zanini ( Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - INFN) and the Nuova Biblioteca Civica "Archimede" of Settimo Torinese, will host a debate among women involved in major scientific programmes. Simonetta Di Pippo, Maria Antonietta Perino, Luisa Cifarelli, president of the Società Italiana di Fisica involved also in experiments with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, and special guest 'ADA Yonah, Nobel Prize Chemistry 2000, will debate about the origin of the Universe, space exploration and the experiements involving the Large Hadron Collider. The meeting will be moderated by Rosa Brusin, Deputy Director of TG Leonardo.

Update: Pictures of this event are available now at the Director's corner multimedia gallery.