Matera's Revival Brings It To The Cutting Edge Of Space Tech

"The President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, today visited the Matera space hub, one of the most important centres in southern Italy for research, development and technology transfer, as well as one of the most advanced space facilities in Europe. Welcoming the Head of State delegation were the President and General Director of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Roberto Battiston and Anna Sirica, together with the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Leonardo, Giovanni De Gennaro and Alessandro Profumo."

Matera went from forgotten ghost town to space hub with state of the art facilities?

Impressive. 

Memories Of The Tour de France: Nencini Champion Of 1960

With Fabio Aru in second place and doing well at the Tour de France (no shame in that given Chris Froome is the leader), let's go back into history and meet the forgotten champion Gastone Nencini. Here's a a story about Nencini who was quite the character.



The pic above features two riders - Roger Riviere and Nencini - decked in the national colours of France and Italy who both died young and tragically.

Articles Of Interest: Hydrogen Buses And Space Technology

Dear me, I hadn't realized June went by without a post! I blame the Russians.

Anyway...

Here are a couple of articles I spotted:

"...German and Italian public transportation companies are coming together in order to help develop new fuel cell buses in Europe. This is part of a larger European Union initiative that aims to cut down on urban emissions and improve the overall air quality of European cities. The German and Italian companies are seeking to develop 63 new fuel cell vehicles, which will serve as public transit solutions in major urban areas.

And....

"...Alessio Fanfani and his team at the D-Orbit mission are big on space but also concerned with sustainability. Dozens of companies are launching hundreds of missions into space in the next decades, and D-Orbit wants to help make space free of debris. 

A NASA stat says that hundreds of thousands of debris chunks are in Earth orbit, ranging in size from 1 to 10 centimeters. Objects in orbit at 36,000 kilometers, for example, might take thousands of years to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. Their project D-Sat is a satellite designed to perform its mission and then pull itself out of orbit. The team is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund a set of in-orbit experiments.

The self decommissioning is one feature of the D-Sat but the main mission is sending and receiving MAMES data, messages sent from Earth. When natural disasters strike and threaten remote areas the team hopes that the satellites can take emergency messages and send them to public safety officials."

I checked their Gofundme page. Unfortunately they did not achieve their goals half reached half their goal. Hopefully they don't give up.