World Space Week Association and Space Generation Advisory Council jointly held a Tweet Up on October 10, 2015 to close out World Space Week 2015 and the 14th Space Generation Congress. At the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem, a panel of space experts from academica and industry discussed the importance of this year’s World Space Week theme – Discovery. Yoav Landsman, Google Lunar XPrize Israel, moderated the panel comprising of Victoria Alonsoperez, chair of Space Generation Advisory Council, Dennis Stone, president of World Space Week Association, Kendra Toole, Orbital Sciences and Professor Tsvi Piran, an Astrophysicist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They responded to questions tweeted by the international community as well as from the local audience at the Space Generation Congress.
The panelists talked about the economic, technological, social and cultural benefits of space exploration and discovery. Predictably, there was quite some interest in Mars exploration and the possibility of discovering life on Mars. And with the recent release of the popular movie, ‘The Martian’, the question of human exploration of Mars came to the fore. Opinions varied on the benefit of crewed exploration missions, but in the end everyone agreed that space is after all our next frontier and that at some point, we have to leave the planet. The panelists also offered advice to several space enthusiasts who were eager to know how to participate and contribute to the global space sector.
The entire event was live streamed but if you missed it, you can watch the video.