The Slovak National Library was crowded with over five hundred visitors on 10 July 2022 due to science event On the Halfway to Mars. We hosted exclusive guests Dr. Michaela Musilová, Slovak astrobiologist and science popularizer and prof. Štefan Klein – creator of the Slovak flying car AirCar.
As the director general of SNL, Katarína Krištofová, said in her speech: “science would not progress without educated people, and we seek education primarily in books. It doesn’t matter whether they are printed on paper or available in a digital library.” This was why the SNL prepared such event.
During the lecture, Dr. M. Musilová summarized her work at the space agency NASA, and provided and inside into successful projects focused on extremophile research. She was also talking about her new project Seven Summits. The crowd was eager to know more information and placed interesting questions. The lecture was followed by an autograph session.
Afterwards, prof. Štefan Klein introduced the flying car AirCar through presentation and video technology.
The most interesting part of the event for some visitors was a public presentation of original works by Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, and Isaac Newton written in the 15th and 16th centuries. Due to their uniqueness, these books are presented rarely, so they are definitely worth seeing. Although digital copies are fully accessible to the public in the Digital Library of SNL, meeting with 400-year-old legendary works by the founders of modern natural sciences in person is something that no one can resist.
The beautiful designed small electric city car Patak Rodster, made by the Slovak company Patak Motors had a successful Slovak premiere at this event.
Younger visitors had fun with mobile planetarium, creative workshops, toy rental service Hravonožec. Above all, there was also Expo 2022 revolutionary self-service kiosk Fotomat which allows printing take-away photos directly from a mobile phone.
Photo: M. Lašut