ZonaDocu - Rumbo a Marte

Space travel is currently experiencing a new boom. Astrophysicist Gernot Grömer is the founder of the Austrian Space Forum (ÖWF), an organisation that aims to promote space travel in Austria. The space enthusiasts are based in Innsbruck and have been working on a spacesuit simulator there for ten years. Gernot Grömer says: "It is by far the best simulation tool we can use to imitate the conditions under which people will one day live and work on Mars." This year's mission is called AMADEE-24 and is being carried out by the Austrian Space Fund in cooperation with the Armenian Space Agency in the Ararat region, whose landscape is said to be a geological twin of the red planet. For a month, analogue astronauts and a base team will simulate a stay on Mars. However, the ÖWF is not only researching for missions to Mars. Gernot Grömer is also leading the work on a nanosatellite that will locate space debris. Space may be infinite, but near-Earth orbits now seem like one big dumping ground. Last year, Elon Musk's latest satellite, Adler 2, was launched into space on a SpaceX rocket. Rocket engineer Stefan Brieschenk, who wants to make Europe independent of SpaceX, founded the Rocket Factory in 2018. Augsburg. Work is underway there and in Sweden on a rocket that will soon launch satellites into space from Europe in the most economical way possible.