Above and Beyond

A new venture will teach us more about keeping people in space for longer

Above and Beyond images © ESA - S. Corvaja

Luca Parmitano at the Johnson Space Center

The ‘Beyond’ expedition will take place in 2019

We’ve got some out of this world news to kick things off this month… Top Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano has announced that he will be returning to space next year as part of a new mission called ‘Beyond’. He shared the news at an event at the European Space Agency’s ESRIN facility at Frascati near Rome. The 42-year-old Italian is no stranger to extraterrestrial travel, having spent 166 days in space during his first mission, ‘Volare’, in 2013. The ‘Beyond’ expedition will take place in 2019 as part of Expedition 60/61 with Parmitano, Andrew Morgan of NASA and Alexander Skvortsov of Roscosmos. Research undertaken on the mission will contribute to keeping humans safe on longer exploratory journeys, as well as developing knowledge to allow humans – and robots – to explore lunar and Martian surfaces. “What we do in orbit is not for the astronauts or for the International Space Station programme”, says Parmitano. “It is for everybody. It is for Earth, it is for humanity, and it is the only path for us to learn what we need in terms of science and technology in order to go beyond.”

Five reasons to visit Italy at Christmas

Image © Getty Images

1 Where better to be at Christmas than in a festive high-altitude town known for its fantastic traditional outdoor market and with the stunning Dolomites as a picturesque seasonal backdrop? Bolzano, in Italy’s Trentino- Alto Adige region, really comes into its own at this time of year with Italy’s most famous Christmas market, which sees the piazze and streets filled with arts and crafts, sweets and chocolate, and plenty of vin brulé to fuel the merriment. This year the market runs from November the 22nd to January the 6th.