Who else had ‘astronaut’ on their ‘when I grow up I wanna be’ list? Most of us, right? Well, this new exploration of all things space, The Final Frontier Festival, aims to take you a bit closer to your distant childhood dreams.
The Plus Ones were invited to the Gala Opening of the festival which gave the opportunity for all those fascinated with the far reaches to socialise with students, academics, and industry professionals.
The Final Frontier Festival program was introduced to us during the speeches as a week-long festival that explores everything from launching satellites to a 24-hour problem-solving hackathon. Hosted by Melbourne University and brought to you by the Melbourne Space Program, the festival hopes to orbit back again next year. Lock it into your festival radar.
– Brenton
Brenton Spink is a social Melburnian who loves a good feed, drink, dance, and other related shenanigans. Find him on Twitter at @SoSpinky.
Did you know that there have been over 5,000 rocket launches since 1957? Or that 7,000 satellites have been put into space (4,000 currently in orbit), with only 6% still functioning? There’s more to learn about space than the solar system you covered in grade school. Tthe best part is, you don’t need to be an aspiring space engineer to enjoy the speaker series at The Final Frontier Festival at the University of Melbourne. With days that were free and open to the public, all were welcomed to be fascinated with an array of topics from ’What is it like to live in Space’ to the session I enjoyed, ‘Understanding Space Junk’. Yes, I was surrounded by academics, one of whom was even wearing a funky galaxy patterned necktie.But you don’t have to be well versed in space terminology to follow along.
Not all of us can be as knowledgeable on the cosmos as Sheldon from The Big Bang theory, but we can aspire to be. You control how much time you want to invest on your journey of the stars. You could stay and be entertained for a full day with back to back slots, or simply drop in and check out a single session. The speakers’ chats range from 30 minutes to an hour, with an open forum for questions and debates after.
The event may be called the The ‘Final Frontier’ Festival, but what I found is there an infinite amount of nuances and learnings when it comes to space exploration. Billions of dollars are spent each year on understanding the universe. You don’t want to miss out on the findings.
– Leah
Leah Sparks is a friendly Canadian girl living in Melbourne. Other than her love for maple syrup, she digs the outdoors, live gigs, beer, the 70s and cruising around town with her Siberian Husky.
Space is cool. Hopefully, The Final Frontier Festival will return next year. In the meantime, find out more about outer space at the Melbourne Observatory and The Astronomical Society of Victoria.
