European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano chatted to Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte in a video link from the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday. "Welcome aboard the International Space Station," said the Italian astronaut, who is the current commander of the ISS and has been leading a series of tough spacewalks to service the cosmic-particle-hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02).
"I'm excited," replied Conte.
"The Space Station is humanity's outpost in space and it is its greatest feat of engineering.
"Space and scientific research are strategic sectors for Italy which the government intends to keep focusing on. "It's a strategic sector because involvement from the technological point of view makes it possible to develop increasing awareness of our planet".
Parmitano, who is widely known by his Twitter handle Astroluca, also hailed Italy's efforts on the space-science front.
"Italy is on the podium," he said.
"Many of the Italian experiments (on the ISS) are innovative," he added, citing the example of the newly installed Italian Mini-Euso telescope.
"It will be able to shoot over 100,000 ultraviolet photos a second".
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