Czech Space Office celebrates 10 years since its foundation
Prague, 19 November 2013 – Today, we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary! The non-profit organisation, which was founded by Jan Kolář in November 2003, has contributed to the rebirth of the Czech space research and has helped the Czech Republic to join European Space Agency (ESA). In the future, we are planning to become involved with commercial space travel and also we would like to carry on mediating newly emerging opportunities for the public.
CSO, during the ten years of its activity, helped Czech institutions to gain access to several dozens of space related projects and prepared more than a hundred of specialized seminars and courses that helped them to accomplish the requirements needed to enter successfully the competitive environment of international aerospace projects. The Office also organized several international professional workshops and conferences of which the International Astronautical Congress 2010 (IAC 2010) gained a worldwide acceptance including an award „The Congress of the Year" given by the mayor of the capital city of Prague.
„During the whole time of its activity, Czech Space Office tries to prove the inaccuracy and impropriety of the opinion, that cosmonautics is an expensive kind of fun for a very narrow part of society and thus having no place in the Czech Republic. We are persuaded that its proactive development and utilization is not only useful for our society, but also essential to life in a broader perspective of view. Hence we help every institution, which shows interest, and we try to inspire others that we meet on occasions during our work. The basis of our work always was, is and will be personal and individual cooperation with many of the local as well as with foreign experts and institutions of various specializations. To develop such a branch like cosmonautics that stands on a border of various fields of science, requires especially a conceptual strategy and dedicated national support of the aerospace research”, summarizes Jan Kolář, the director of CSO.
„With our activity we are trying to create suitable conditions for the development of cosmonautics. We start at the very beginning, with pre-school children, through the elementary school pupils and high school students, up until students and experts at universities. We are trying to introduce them the cosmonautics, using a form suitable for their age, as an interesting adventure but foremost as a perspective field with a wide spectrum of either study or work opportunities”, says Milan Halousek from the CSO’s Centre of Student Activities.
CSO is convinced that with such a demanding work, which cosmonautics really is, it is crucial to pay attention to the contents of the work and to remove most of the administration obstacles, which repulse the very proposers of the projects. An adequate national support of the cosmic development projects in the Czech Republic is a major factor, although without a qualified support infrastructure and organisation facilities allowing the institutions to concentrate on their work, the much needed motivation, continuity and the expected outcomes will never come.
„Long-standing relations between Czech Space Office and international partners allows us to keep up with the international progress. An example could be the announcement of the contract between CSO and one of the world-wide leader in the branch of commercial space flights, American company XCOR Aerospace, which happened today. CSO then brings a possibility of an affordable form of research in the conditions of space flight including the technical arrangement of the experiment and its testing in compliance with XCOR Aerospace requirements”, announces Michal Václavík, Head of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration Department, CSO.
„In the end we would like to thank all the organizations, local or foreign, and all the individuals, with whom we had the possibility to cooperate in the past ten years, for their interest and support of our work, and we rejoice in their successes, which are a great inspiration and motivation for us to continue on improving our services”, concludes Jan Kolář.