From April 23 to 26, 2024, a delegation of 15 students from our Club visited Germany as part of an educational mission to German and European space facilities. The delegation was accompanied by Ms. P. Bassiakou and Mr. X. Rafios. 

The first stop on our program was the German Aerospace Center in Cologne. There we had the opportunity to penetrate into the depths of the German Aerospace Society. We were greeted at the entrance by a Soyuz capsule that had been used in 2014 to bring European astronauts back to earth from the International Space Station-ISS. We toured the mission control center and the space biology center, where experiments and tests are carried out on the effects of life in space on humans. There we even worked in a solar oven and experienced for the first time the true power of the sun and light. The experience was unprecedented for everyone!

During our stay in Cologne we did not miss to visit the great monuments and sights of the region: the huge and masterly cathedral, the Botanical Garden, the Chocolate Museum, and the Ludwig Museum of Fine Arts. Our next stop was the city of Frankfurt, where we were guided from the old medieval town to the new, skyscraper-filled banking center. Our final "space" destination was Darmstadt and in particular the ESA European Space Mission Center. This is the center from which the European satellites are controlled. The highly impressive tour included satellites, missions, test models, and the control center. 
We were thus reminded again of Neil Armstrong's quote, "the mysterious arouses curiosity and curiosity is the basis of man's desire to understand".