InScience Experiments: Day 1

The official opening of the festival then took place in the Vereeniging. A sold-out hall witnessed a special program about experimental science film. The Opening Night started with three botanical silent films from the first half of the last century, which were served with a live soundtrack by the Nijmegen multi-instrumentalist Mart Boumans. Then the latest film by the Dutch grandmaster Joost Rekveld was screened, and there was room for the work of the promising talents Robert Seidel and Nefo Zhang. The encounter between science and avant-garde film turned out to be a successful experiment.

That evening there were two more film screenings in LUX, of course with in-depth Talks. Visitors to Viking were welcomed with a plate of astronaut food, which took some getting used to as an earthling. There was the opportunity to ask Rodrigo Coutinho de Almeida (European Space Agency) some questions, which was eagerly used. For example, people asked if we could grow vegetables on Mars. An interesting question, because we do not yet know whether the soil on Mars is suitable for this. And what’s it like to eat without gravity? Not easy, that’s why astronauts are trained in this.