Local good practice initiative

On June 25, 2024, the fourth edition of the youth science festival HELLO, SPACE | Bulgaria Calling! took place.

Festival visitors (2000+) had the opportunity to enjoy over 50 interactive stands, 15+ workshops, 15+ intriguing lectures, demonstrations by the special forces of the Bulgarian Army, and many other captivating space activities. For the first time on our stage, we had a real NASA astronaut from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Axiom Space – Michael López-Alegría, an American former NASA astronaut and current chief astronaut at Axiom Space. He holds the NASA record with 10 spacewalks, totaling 67 hours and 40 minutes spent outside a spacecraft. 🚀

The main goal of the festival is to ignite the imagination of children and young people, inspiring them to look towards Space, the Moon, Mars, and beyond, as well as to pursue the path towards a Nobel Prize and other great achievements in the STEAM fields.

About HELLO, SPACE | Bulgaria Speaks

The festival aims to excite and inspire youth imagination, dreams, and perspectives towards higher, deeper, and farther horizons beyond the visible daily life. Not least, the festival promotes pursuing careers and development in the STEAM sciences to generate innovative solutions for future challenges.

The initiative encourages Bulgarian youth to pursue development in the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.

The festival offers diverse activities such as:

– A lecture program in the Tedx format by Bulgarian and international scientists and experts
– Interactive stands where visitors can experience the most attractive developments and technologies
– Scientific workshops
– Outdoor demonstrations

Over the past three years, the number of visitors to “HELLO, SPACE | Bulgaria Speaks” has exceeded 4,500 people, and the reached audience through traditional, online media, and live broadcasts on NASA TV is over 23 million people worldwide.

The main program of the event includes numerous scientific workshops, interactive exhibitions, impressive demonstrations, and talks with scientists from various fields of science.

Key moments from past editions of the festival:

– Live connection with astronaut Michael López-Alegría, former NASA astronaut, and current chief astronaut at AXIOM SPACE
– Direct connection with the International Space Station
– Personal address to the festival visitors by Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator
– The long-awaited talk with Dr. Swati Mohan (American aerospace engineer, head of operations for guidance and control of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission), where 10 students received answers to their space questions directly from her.
– Conversation with the first female astronaut – Anna Fisher
– Demonstrations by the special forces of Bulgaria
– Virtual tour of CERN, followed by a Q&A session between the CERN team, students, and young scientists.
– Captivating experiment on “basic teleportation,” based on the polarization of light quanta with the participation of Assoc. Prof. Lachezar Georgiev, Institute for Nuclear Research, QUASAR project. The children ask: When and where will we teleport?
– Conversation with Gregory “Box” Johnson – famous F-16 test pilot for Lockheed Martin, former NASA astronaut, and former president of the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space.
– Telescopic observations of the Sun — Department of Astronomy at the Faculty of Physics, Sofia University

For more information about HELLO, SPACE | Bulgaria Speaks and upcoming editions, you can find it HERE.