Northern Ireland Science Festival February 2020

In February, as part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival, AstrobiologyOU presented a panel to discuss the impact space has had on society and how the relationship between the two will change in the future.

Nisha Ramkissoon, Thomas Cheney and Leslie Budd presented a panel chaired by Yiannis Tsamis which introduced the history of space and how space exploration has changed from the space race to the more collaborative environment we see today, the benefits of space exploration, and space governance for the new age of space exploration. 

In the discussion that followed, the team were asked if humanity has handled the technology well and for their thoughts on space tourism as well as what kind of things keep them up at night (the answer for which came from Nisha “meteorite impacts, the kind that killed the dinosaurs”).

It was a great event that has started many interesting conversations in the team.