When on October the 2nd, ESA’s technical heart opened its door to a public of space lovers of any age, we were there too.
It is never easy to prepare for such an event, and there are times beforehand when we were all so busy that it was really hard to find the time to prepare it. Then when we did find the time what was hard was to actually think about what was the right way to prepare it. How do we want to talk about Clean Space? What is the best way to explain what we do, and more importantly why do we do it?
The day arrived, and flied. Hundreds of people passed by and stopped at our stand sincerely curious and interested. Maybe hooked by the videos of the debris hunter e.Deorbit and clean space presented by ESA or by the posters, more likely by the beautiful drawings we displayed:
Credit: Marianne Tricot/Ecole Estienne Paris/ESA
The illustration is a piece of the work from a very talented scientific illustrator: Marianne Tricot. She created an impressive art project telling the Clean Space story.
Maybe, because of those drawings, some of the visitors were getting to know about Clean Space for the first time. This programme works to make space activities more environmentally friendly.
Many of those who stopped by had never ending questions so specific and detailed that they made us understand how much they care about the subject. Other questions came from the name of the programme, Clean Space, or from the two presentations that our team gave during the day. All those inquiries highlighted the interest for the environment protection. Through their own care, they made us, if possible, care even more.
During that day we had the chance to present the programme with two talks: the room was full both times and the audience looked captured and asked very good questions!
Michel van Pelt from the ESA Concurrent Design Facility team and working on Clean Space activities told all about how to catch a satellite. Watch his talk here:
Luisa Innocenti, head of Clean Space, told the story of Clean Space and what was the drive that lead to its creation and that still leads its activities. Her goal was to introduce Clean Space in such a way that you could understand the importance of cleaning space activities, not only on Earth but in space. Her talk ‘The Clean Way is the only way’ is available here:
As said it is never easy to prepare such a day. What to say? How to say it? What to show? But at the end of the day, even if we were tired, we were truly glad: meaning had been added to our daily job (a visitor even said: “And I thought I liked my job, now I only want to do yours”) and we were grateful for the enthusiasm that people had brought in with them. We are not yet ready to think about the 2017 edition, even though we have just been communicated the date: 8 October 2017 ! but we know we will be there when the time comes and we’ll be happy to share once again the public our fantastic job.
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