[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYJKtvbJmMM[/youtube]On a recent broadcast of the BBC program World Have Your Say entitled “South Sudan & Space,” Dr. Emily Rice, professor of Astrophysics at the College of Staten Island shared her thoughts on the Gaia satellite launch and why it is important to “push the edges of our knowledge” of space.
The Gaia satellite is the European Space Agency’s billion-star surveyor which launched from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Its mission is to study a billion suns and search for Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars.
In this segment, Dr. Rice and fellow astronomers defended the cost of space exploration during a time of recession.
