In 1992, Dirk Frimout became a national celebrity as the first Belgian in space. Aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, he orbited earth 143 times for a total of 214 hours in space. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of this event, Dirk Frimout invited the astronauts who accompanied him on Shuttle mission STS-45 for a weeklong visit to Belgium. Among them will be Michael Foale, Kathryn Sullivan and Charles Bolden, who was Frimouts commander on STS-45 and is currently chief of NASA.
The Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel could not let this opportunity pass and will be joining forces to organize the ‘Space Day 2012’ on September 25. In the afternoon, 1400 students from secondary schools all over Belgium engaged in a Q&A session with the astronauts. Afterwards, the astronauts were the special guests at the official opening of the academic year at the VUB.
The space travelers were split up in three parallel round table discussions, each covering a different subject:
- Engineering of space flight
CAT scans, freeze-dried food, water purification filters, image processing software,… The list of practical applications of space research goes on for a while. It’s undeniable that research into space flight has inspired some of the greatest innovations of the last decennia. Joining the panel are prof. Clement Hiel of the VUB, who was a researcher at NASA during STS-45 and Christophe Meerts, ULB alumnus and engineer at ESA.
Panel: Brian Duffy, Byron Lichtenberg and Clement Hiel and Christophe Meerts
Moderated by: Prof. Herman Deconinck, dean of the VKI faculty and Frank Dubois
- Astronomy & earth observation
It’s not a coincidence STS-45 was dubbed ‘a mission to planet Earth’. The Space Shuttle carried ATLAS-1, short for ‘Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science-1’. ATLAS-1 carried instruments that studied the Earth’s atmosphere, solar radiation, space plasma physics and ultraviolet astronomy. Many of the crew are experts in the field of astronomy and earth observation.
Panel: Kathryn Sullivan, Charles Chappell, Michael Lampton
Moderated by : Pierre-François Coheur and Lionel Siess
- Manned space exploration
Few stories appeal as much to the imagination as the story of manned space flight. Prolonged space travel however, remains inhibited by the limits of the human body and mind. How feasible are manned space stations, a moon base or a flight to Mars?
Panel: Dirk Frimout, David Leestma, Michael Foale
Moderated by: Nathalie Pattyn and Maurice Hinsenkamp
- Charles Bolden
A lot of people had questions for Charles Bolden as the commander of STS-45 and current head of NASA. Mr. Bolden spent 15 minutes in each parallel session to join in the discussion.
This text is extracted from: http://www.vub.ac.be/spaceweek/