Astronauts to lecture and movies to be screened during Israel Space Week

Space Week events running through February 2 in memory of Israel's sole astronaut Ilan Ramon.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
ASTRONAUT ILAN RAMON IN NASA PORTRAIT 370 (photo credit: REUTERS/NASA NASA)
ASTRONAUT ILAN RAMON IN NASA PORTRAIT 370
(photo credit: REUTERS/NASA NASA)
Israel Space Week began on Sunday with various events, such as school lectures by US astronauts.
Additional events included an invitation-only photographic exhibition on space at the Tel Aviv port, the showing of films at the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Cinematheques, family activities and sightings of the stars.
The events will continue until February 2 in memory of Israel’s first and so far only astronaut, the late Columbia shuttle Col.
Ilan Ramon.
Most of the events, held in cooperation with the Science, Technology and Space Ministry and the Education Ministry, are open free to the public.
School pupils will be exposed to subjects they ordinarily do not hear about – including tiny satellites, space mining, electro- optics, technologies for researching migrating birds and the search for planets.
Some 4,800 classrooms with 150,000 pupils around the country will be the site of special lessons.
In addition, an educational conference on space will be held in Tel Aviv, with 300 teachers participating.
The Tel Aviv photographic exhibition will include photographs taken by Bezalel School of Art students.
Participants will, for the first time, be able to try out Google Glass spectacles to view interactive astronomical phenomenon and to wear a virtual reality helmet called Oculus Rift.
Among the lecturers, in a number of public places, will be Anna Lee Fisher of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency, who arrived specially for Israel’s Space Week.
They will discuss the International Space Station and life in space.
The Israel Space Agency and Ynet’s Facebook pages will be accessible for those interested in sending questions, online, to the astronauts.
The Jerusalem Cinematheque will screen the movie Apollo 13, accompanied by a lecture on space, and the Tel Aviv Cinematheque will show the new movie Gravity, along with a lecture on the development of the modern space suit.
For more information (in Hebrew), see www.most.gov.il.