World's astronauts, scientists, technicians meet for annual space congress

More than 2,000 astronauts, engineers and scientists are currently rubbing shoulders at the Prague Congress Centre, for the annual International Astronautical Congress. The meeting, being held here for the first time since 1977, covers subjects as diverse as the future of the International Space Station and whether there’s life on Mars.

Photo: CTK

The 61st annual International Astronautical Congress brings together anyone who’s anyone in the space business, from the heads of the U.S., Russian, European, Chinese and Indian space agencies to the UN official in charge of Outer Space Affairs. That’s a scientist responsible for promoting the peaceful use of space...and not, as a British newspaper claimed last weekend, someone nominated by the U.N. to communicate with alien visitors.

Most of the ideas and technology being discussed here in Prague are in fact far from science fiction, and have major implications for the way all of us lead our lives back here on Earth. Joe Carroll designs experimental space tethering systems – space cables that can be dozens or even hundreds of kilometres long - for NASA:

Photo: CTK

“There are so many applications that your daily life depends on directly and indirectly that if you subtract that, you would not recognise your life. Space is integrated into your lifestyle in dozens of ways you don’t know. GPS, crop monitoring, weather prediction. I mean, in the beginning, meteorologists had no idea what pictures from space would do for them. They thought it was totally useless, they knew what they were doing, they were used to getting laughed at for not predicting correctly. Pictures from space have revolutionised meterology, turned it into a real science.”

The theme of this year’s congress is ‘space for human benefit and exploration’. More and more countries around the world want to get in on the act – one of several hundred seminars will evaluate India’s recent mission to the Moon, the fourth country to plant its flag there. Space exploration has become not just a matter of prestige for newcomers like China and India, but a matter of economic and practical necessity. Shri Ramakrishnan is from the Indian Space Research Organisation:

“If you want to keep the country in technology, science and development, if you want to keep the same pace and interest the younger generation, space is an arena which really excites. You go to any school or college and talk about space travel, that’s something much more exciting than talking about mundane technologies. So from that angle, we feel that keeping this exploration is very important for the country’s growth, and also for the international recognition and international cooperation.”

Photo: CTK

And for the Czech Republic there’s a special poignancy in hosting this conference; the last to be held in Prague was in 1977, in the depths of the Cold War. A year later a Czech cosmonaut – Vladimir Remek – became the first non-American or non-Soviet citizen to go into space, on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He is now a Communist MEP – and remains the only Czech ever to leave the Earth’s orbit. Czech scientists and firms, however, are very much involved in the technology and science being applied today in space.

www.iac2010.cz/en