"SPACE AND GOD": SCIENCE AND FAITH MEET

The event will be held on Friday 21 June at the Antonianum Auditorium in Rome. This year’s event, the second edition, is part of the X International Symposium of University Lecturers “Cultures facing God – challenges, research, perspectives – from the Mediterranean to the world”. The meeting will be attended by Colonel Roberto Vittori, test pilot of the Italian Air Force and ESA astronaut, and Major Walter Villadei, aeronautical engineer recently qualified as a cosmonaut at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Russia. The event takes place at a time of great focus by the Armed Forces on outer space, and in particular on the sector of human spaceflight, in which the Italian Air Force has specific responsibilities and boasts consolidated expertise, recognised internationally. Indeed, on 28 May, Major Luca Parmitano, test pilot of the Italian Air Force and ESA astronaut, launched on the ‘Volare’ mission, aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, for a long-duration mission to the International Space Station. Major Luca Parmitano is the first of the new generation of ESA astronauts to have been assigned to a mission on the ISS, and will be followed in the Italian space adventure by Captain Samantha Cristoforetti, also an Italian Air Force pilot, who has already been assigned to the Exp.42/43 mission in 2014. Event poster