Blast into Space Week for free fun and learning

The Israeli public is welcomed to take up an interest in space in Hebrew Arabic and English during national space week.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Updated: JANUARY 24, 2018 05:19
Mars as seen from Hubble telescope (photo credit: REUTERS)
Mars as seen from Hubble telescope
(photo credit: REUTERS)
More than 20 free events open to the general public will take place throughout the country to mark the annual Israel Space Week from January 28 through February 1, the Science and Technology Ministry has announced.
The main event will take place throughout the week at a special site at Tel Aviv’s Eretz Israel Museum to mark 70 years of Israeli innovation. An “escape room” complex will resemble the expected future in the field of space, during which participants will be exposed to Israeli space projects. The exhibition also includes a display of Israeli achievements in the field, as well as planetarium and lectures by astronauts. To attend, one must register in advance via www.space.gov.il.
Experimental activities throughout the country will include the launching of rockets and spacecraft; workshops and models of the solar system; lectures on satellites and space suits; shows, presentations and lectures on Israeli space projects; and observations of stars through telescopes.
The participating locations will be the Davidson Institute in Rehovot; Beit Yatziv in Beersheba; the MadaTech National Museum at the old Technion building in Haifa; the Youth Center for Science, ORT Braude, Karmiel; the Science-Oriented Youth Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Givat Ram Campus; Al-Qasemi College, Baka al-Gharbiya; Kadima Mada Campus, Nahariya; and Jerusalem’s Bloomfield Science Museum.
An astronauts’ panel at Tel Aviv University will be held in English from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. (one must register in advance at the above website). It will include NASA astronaut Don Thomas, a physicist who had dreamed of being an astronaut all his life and fulfilled his ambition after three delays from NASA; French space astronaut Jean-Jacques Fabier, a French astronaut with a PhD in engineering who is currently working on the French Atomic Energy Commission; NASA astronaut Michael Barrett, who spent more than half a year outside Earth and is currently working on the Mars mission; and NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn, who is director of medical operations at the International Space Station and has become a star on social networks.
Star and planet observations using advanced telescopes will be held in cooperation with the Israel Astronomical Society at the Givatayim Observatory; the Space Center Tapuah Pais, Taiba; The Druse Space Center named for Ilan Ramon in Yarka, the Al-Qasemi College; and the Ilan Ramon Center at Ben-Gurion University.
Meanwhile, the ministry and its space agency have organized this year’s Ilan Ramon International Space Conference for professionals on Monday and Tuesday, January 29 and 30, starting at 8:00 a.m. in Smolarsh Hall at Tel Aviv University. Conducted in English, it will be held in memory of the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died in the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster. One must register in advance at libio@most.gov.il.