L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Continued from page 4 In order to return to the Moon and go to Mars, we must know how to s urvive an d w ork in those worlds. This is where the Space Station comes in." The logo he chose for the mission summarizes it well: the Earth and ISS are reflected on the visor of a space helmet. In the distance, the Moon, ready for Humanity to return, with the Orion spacecraft and exploration rovers. Further on, Mars, the red planet, currently s tudied by satellites like ExoMars and Mars Express. "The Moon - Parmitano adds - can be reached in the next few years, so I feel like a possi- ble candidate. Much less for a Martian mission: we are far from an interplanetary journey." But even the Moon has been unreachable for millennia. When the world saw Arm- strong's footprint on the Moon's surface and listened to the iconic commentary to that legendary adventure — an adventure that changed forever the way we see the Earth, that made us under- stand everything is possible, even touching the Moon — the Colonel of the Italian Air Force wasn't even born. Parmitano is 42 years old and has been away from his Paternò, 18 km from Catania, for a long time. He lives in Houston with his w ife K athy and his tw o daughters Sara and Maia, aged 12 and 9, who said goodbye to him with a touching, proud hug. But Sicily is in the heart. On Twitter —563.000 followers before departure — when the launch was just three days away, he said goodbye with emotion to Andrea Camilleri, one of the most authoritative literary voices in contemporary Italy, with over a hundred books translated in 37 countries: "Despite being here in the desert, under this blinding white sun - he wrote - the news of the end (and the beginning) of your journey reaches me, among a thous and thoughts that go through my head, while I think of my own veery journey." Tito Stagno, who turned 89 last January, lived that first inter- stellar adventure. "I was born in 1930, like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins," the journalist from Cagliar and the Italian voice of the Moon Land- ing, tells proudly to L'Italo- A mericano. F rom Rome, he commented the most important event in human history, describ- ing to the country that magical night of July, in 1969. Even his "He touched! He touched lunar soil!" entered history and the memory of many Italians, in its own way. "It was an exceptional night - he tells L'Italo-Americano - the event that impressed people's imagination the most. I had pre- pared myself diligently, much more than usual. I remember the atmosphere in the studio of Via Teulada. I was used to that stu- dio, but on that day, there was such an atmosphere of profes- sionalism, something I had never experienced b efore. We all worked together, we all gave each other a hand, it was a test of solidarity, just like that of the men who went up in space, and had the help and solidarity of the people in H ous ton, at Cape Kennedy. We offered almost 30 uninterrupted hours of excep- tional television." We ask him if Americans w ill return to the M oon, as announced also by the White House. "Yes, they will go back - Stagno tells us - but the Chinese are getting there, too, and they want to create colonies, live there and use that very precious fuel, helium-3. With just 40 tons of helium-3, we'd have electrici- ty for year on Earth. The first to take it to Earth will have the monopoly on electricity." Stagno personally met the Apollo 11 astronauts when they came to Italy at the end of '69. "They visited the Pope and then went to the Quirinale, where we met. There was a reception in their honor and we chatted about the way I had recounted their adventure to Italians." N ot everyone know s that Michael Collins was born in Rome on October 31, 1930. His father was on duty at the US Embassy in the capital. In via Tevere, at number 16, there is a plaque commemorating the birth of the N A S A hero: " In this house Michael Collins, intrepid astronaut of the Apollo 11 mis- sion - First man on the Moon, was born. Rome, proud of this son of hers, placed in perennial memory." Collins couldn't walk on the Moon, because he had the duty to bring his companions home, but during the 21 hours Arm- strong and Aldrin spent on the M oon, the Italian-A merican astronaut made several trips around our satellite (one every 47 minutes). He, who had already estab- lished in 1966, during his first space trip on Gemini 10, the record of dis tance from the Earth's surface, was the first in history to fly over the hidden side of the Moon alone, without the possibility of communicating neither w ith N A S A M is s ion Control, nor with his mission colleagues. So alone he was, in fact, he had said to himself "I am the mos t lonely man s ince Adam's times." In the many television inter- views shown in recent weeks, the 89-year-old Italian-American says he didn't think much of it, no more than a man at the mercy of the sea, under a starry sky. But when he looked at the Earth, a luminous dot in the midst of a black universe, "I thought clear- ly: how small and fragile our planet is. And today, after 50 years, I think we have not yet understood how much." A far- sighted warning, result not only of a unique observation point of view, but of a lucid, rigorous and impeccable training. The Italians who followed on TV the launch of the Soyuz with Parmitano on board, were lucky enough to hear the exceptional comments of Walter Villadei, a 44-year-old cosmonaut, who explains how important it is for Italy to focus on young people and on their education: "Space programs last decades. If we don't raise generations of bril- liant minds, passionate about technology, mathematics, sci- ence — the Italian Air Force Lieutenant Colonel tells L' Italo- A mericano - w e could have problems in the future. Being successful as a country comes from the education and training of young people. Five out of eight Italian astronauts come from the Italian Air Force, which shows the quality of the type of training and preparation we receive, as well as of the important role of Italy, the only Europ ean country to have a direct bilateral collaboration with the United States in the Human Space Flight sector, and third most relevant country with- in the European Space Agency." "The presence of an Italian astronaut on the 50th anniver- sary of the Moon landing - he explains later to L'Italo-Ameri- cano - offers the opportunity to remember Italy's great skills in this field. We shouldn't forget that 50 years ago, while two giants like the US and the Soviet Union were competing for pri- macy in Space exploration, Italy als o held an extraordinary record: in the Space race, it was the third country in the world to design, build and launch a satel- lite, the San Marco 1, on the 15th December, 1964, thanks to the work of a team led by Gen- eral Luigi Broglio of the Italian Air Force. We have always been forerunners when it came to Space, we always had a leading role." Italy, a protagonist yesterday, but with a great potential for the future. Villadei continues: "The highly prized technological com- petence of our country means that a good 40% of the IS S comes from Italian research, assembly and realization pro- jects. Knowing how to build habitable pressurized structures us eful for the S pace S tation today, for cis -lunar s tations tomorrow or even for settle- ments on the Moon or Mars will allow us to play a leading role in the future, also thanks to the institutional and political atten- tion given currently to these pro- jects." Beyond is the twelfth mission involving one or more Italian astronauts, and the tenth on the ISS. In just over a quarter of a century, seven Italians have trav- eled in Space: Franco Malerba in 1992, Maurizio Cheli in 1996, Umberto Guidoni in 1996 and 2001, Roberto Vittori in 2002, 2005 and 2011, Paolo Nespoli in 2007, 2010 and 2017, Samantha Cristoforetti in 2014 and Luca Parmitano. Between 1969 and 1972, 12 men landed on the Moon. "I am proud to be here and I am excited to start the Beyond mission, thanks to the support of ES A , of the Italian S pace Agency and of all those who will follow our activities. Thanks Italy." This is what Parmitano said, once he got on board of the ISS, after taking off from the majes- tic ramp number 1, the same used by Jurij Gagarin in 1961. It was "a magnificent flight," he told his wife and daughters, that took place on a 52 meters high rocket, loaded with 200 tons of fuel ("A bit like sitting on a half- atomic bomb," to quote Paolo Nespoli). When it took off, after being "shot" up at 28.800 km per hour, it shook the earth until it was 8 km high up in the sky. The first press conference with Parmitano, live from the Space Station, is scheduled for July 29 at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in M ilan. Updates on the Beyond mission at http://lucaparmitano.esa.int/. Parmitano, here pictured before taking off, will become head of the mission in the Fall . Ph. ESA - S. Corvaja

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