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Leads: Professor Hugh Hill (ISU) and Dr. Hervé Cadiou (University of Strasbourg)
Astrobiology is the interdisciplinary study of life in the universe and touches on some of the most profound questions in both science and philosophy. How and when did life on Earth emerge from a ‘pool of organic molecules’? Is there life on Mars, extant or extinct? Could other bodies in the solar system harbor life, e.g. Enceladus, Titan and Europa? Do intelligent civilizations exist elsewhere in our galaxy? All of these questions – and many more – will be addressed in ISU’s 7th annual Astrobiology Elective (April 11-21, 2023).
The Elective will welcome some of the finest Astrobiologists in the world, e.g. Dr. Christopher P. McKay (NASA Ames Research Center), Dr. Frances Westall (Director Emeritus of the CNRS Exobiology Group, Orléans) and Dr. Joseph A. Nuth, III (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).
The program will highlight current and future astrobiology missions, e.g. Martian rovers such as Perseverance and its successors. The Elective will consist of presentations, roundtable discussions, workshops, and a field trip devoted to collecting and analyzing magnetotactic bacteria.
The single deliverable will be a group White Paper, of which there will be four offered. In the past, they have included topics such as, “The potential of the Canadian Arctic for Astrobiology research”, and “Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Biomarker for the Astrobiology Community”.
A tiny piece of the Orgueil Meteorite, a carbonaceous chondrite, which fell near the city of Toulouse, France, in 1864. Chemists at the time realized that it was rich in organic compounds such as glycine (C₂H₅NO₂) and beta-alanine (C3H7NO2). Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) extracted an interior sample shortly after the meteorite was recovered using sterile techniques and concluded that it contained no evidence of life despite its impressive list of organic compounds.
Tuition fees: 2000€ (US$2200), which includes the course fee and all course materials.
Registration will be complete through the payment of a 500Euro deposit to the ISU Finance Unit before 14 March 2023. The payment of the remaining fees is due no later than 28 March 2023.
Leads: Professor Nicolas Peter (ISU) and Professor Walter Peeters (ISU)
During the NewSpace elective teams of participants will submit at the end of the elective a short business plan for a project at their choice.
The first week will be dedicated by experts informing the participants on business plan principles, business canvas and essential financial calculations to be included in a business plan. Experts from different equity investor categories will discuss with the participants on the approaches of business angels and venture capitalists and give useful info on how investors evaluate business plans and do due diligence. In parallel, the participants will work further on a concept of their choice.
The second week will be mainly dedicated to coaching on how to present a business plan slide deck with the help of experts from a local incubator. In this period, also analysts of equity investors will be invited to explain how they evaluate business plans. To the extent possible, representatives of a successful start-up will share their experiences.
On the last day, the teams will present their proposal in front of a professional jury which will evaluate the different proposals and give feedback on the strengths and weaknesses.
Preferred participation: in order to ensure a smooth flow preference will be given to the participation of external teams of 4-5 persons each. They will go through the same process as the master students except for the academic evaluation part (as the elective is an integral part of the academic process).
Tuition fees: 2000€ (US$2200), which includes the course fee and all course materials.
Registration will be complete through the payment of a 500Euro deposit to the ISU Finance Unit before 14 March 2023. The payment of the remaining fees is due no later than 28 March 2023.
Leads: Professor Virginia Wotring (ISU) and Dr. Willian da Silveira (Staffordshire University)
How does being in space affect an organism? At the cellular and biochemical level? Omics techniques have revolutionized molecular biology, permitting detailed snapshots of an organism’s cellular activity in different environments or over periods of time. Thousands of data points can be collected at a time, using blood samples or easy-to-collect samples like urine or saliva. Omics techniques enable statistically powerful low “n” studies which are perfect for space research, given the fact that there are only a few people or animals on each space mission. The first space examination of genes, gene products (enzymes and other proteins), and products of enzymatic reactions (metabolites) have already started to provide important and sometimes surprising results.
This intensive 2-week course will permit students to access and analyze omics data from NASA’s GeneLab: genomic, proteomic and metabolic data from animal and plant studies conducted in space or Earth-based space analogs. Student groups will formulate an hypothesis and conduct their own analysis to determine changes in gene expression. Faculty will guide the students through the processes of experimental design, data analysis, interpretation of results, and communication of findings. This first of its kind course was initially developed with the help of ESA funding and will be offered again April 24 – May 5, 2023, at ISU’s campus in Strasbourg France.
Tuition fees: 2000€ (US$2200), which includes the course fee and all course materials.
Registration will be complete through the payment of a 500Euro deposit to the ISU Finance Unit before 27 March 2023. The payment of the remaining fees is due no later than 10 April 2023.
Leads: Doctor Bertrand Goldman (ISU) and Doctor Taiwo Tejumola (ISU)
The impact of economic activities on the environment on the largest scales has become increasingly prominent over the recent decades. The present and expected costs of the global changes prompt governments, international organizations, public opinions, and interest groups to push to reduce their environmental and societal footprint through self- and externally-imposed regulations.
The space sector is no exception. Both the public-sponsored and private-led activities must justify and reduce their negative impacts, abide by national and international regulations, and develop industrial processes that take into account future costs and taxes.
Interestingly, the space sector has long been aware of the damage that careless activities can have, whether it is about telecommunications or collision risks in low-Earth orbits.
On the other hand, space activities and in particular space-based Earth observations are critical to the understanding, monitoring, and mitigation of the human-caused and natural modifications and dangers of the planet’s climate and geological parameters. The monitoring of greenhouse gas atmospheric content, hydro- and cryosphere evolution, accidental and criminal pollutant releases into the environment, is crucial to make predictions, advising the decision-makers, and preventing harmful activities.
In this 9-day course, experts and actors of the space sector will explain how companies and space agencies tackle their environmental and societal responsibilities; how they design and conduct the Life Cycle Assessment of their products, through initiatives such as the ESA EcoDesign or at Airbus; and the research that is conducted on propellants, recycling, and
company processes to reduce their footprint. Researchers will present the methodology, capacities, limitations, and technical developments of Earth observations and their
contribution to agriculture, emergency mapping and management, and law enforcement.
The participants will also learn about the current and to-be-expected political and legal constraints, from international lecturers of space agencies, academia, and the industry, involved in the definition and promotion of a sustainable space sector.
Illustration of the different stages of a space project and their environmental impact. © ESA
Tuition fees: 2000€ (US$2200), which includes the course fee and all course materials.
Registration will be complete through the payment of a 500Euro deposit to the ISU Finance Unit before 27 March 2023. The payment of the remaining fees is due no later than 10 April 2023.
