Astronauts visit GTC

On 23 June 2011 GTC was honoured by the exceptional visit of an impressive number of well-known astronauts, cosmonauts, and scientists as part of the STARMUS Festival event (see http://www.starmus.com/), celebrating the 50th aniversary of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin.

In the afternoon a live broadcast of a round-table discussion was organized from within the GTC telescope dome.

Visitors to the GTC included Neil Armstrong, Alexei Leonov, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, Richard Dawkins, George Smoot, Leslie Sage, Charlie Duke, Jill Tarter, Francisco Sánchez, Garik Israelian and, last but not least, Brian May.

The visit happened to coincide with commissioning activities of the CanariCam instrument, so the visitors were able to see from the GTC control room a movie of the Moon one of them had walked on, but this time at the invisible mid-infrared wavelengths. Undoubtedly a memorable event for all!

Round table live broadcast with the telescope in the background

Visitors in the GTC control room, with from front to back: Jill Tarter, Jim Lovell, Alexei Leonov, Neil Armstrong and Francisco Sánchez.