Per Aspera Ad Astra: From Peru to Space

This week has been crazy. I arrived from Korea on Sunday, had dinner with a family friend of mine at Paris, took the TGV to Strasbourg on Monday morning , checked in at the hotel, took the tram to ISU and registered.

Although there were no classes on Tuesday, we had introductory sessions with the faculty & the administrative staff. After that I started to look for an apartment which was quite urgent since staying at a hotel was destroying my budget (I didn’t find a place at the local hostel). Alas, I arrived too late. Almost all apartments were taken. Lucky for me I had been in contact with a Teaching Associate who had left her place a couple of weeks before.

The impressive Strasbourg’s cathedral. Source: Manuel Antonio Cuba.

It is a nice place two blocks away from Krimmerie station, which is perfect since it only takes me 15 minutes to go to ISU station at Campus d’Illkirch.

My recommendation for future students that come from a SSP: start looking for a place through www.appartager.com. You may find a cheap place to stay for a month until you find a better option. Unfortunately hostels are always full and they won’t let you stay for a long period of time, so don’t count on them.

Regarding classes, I really enjoyed the lectures on International Liability Regime and Space Law Liability with Dr. Philippe Achilleas. At the end of the week we had a workshop on Liability Law that helped us understand how complex Space Law is (and it was a lot of fun, at least for me).

We also had to choose our Team Project. For me it was pretty clear that I would go for Team Project Oceans. Analogs was too technical for my liking while Oceans will let me explore the sustainability of the seas for industrial activities. I hope I will be able to work on fisheries, a topic I enjoy a lot since Peru is one of the main exporters of fish meal in the world.

During the First Plenary Event at IAC 2009, the heads of each one of the agencies made a brief presentation on their agencies goals and accomplishments.

One the most interesting presentations was made by Madhavan Nair, the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. Among other things he talked about the direct application of space technologies to make life easier to the Indian people.

One clear example is the Village Resource Center, where rural communities have access to a plethora of services like tele-medicine, tele-education, e-government, among others.

Tele-education in India. Source: ISRO

With a population of 1.1+ billion, a GDP per capita of 2 900 USD (in comparison, Peru’s GDP is 8 500 USD) and population growth of, approximately, 1.55 % per year, it is quite obvious that the Indian government needs all the tools at hand to improve the quality of life of Indians. *

* All figures were obtained from the CIA World Fact Book.