The Cité de l'Espace officially celebrated its 7,000,000th visitor this Thursday.
A student engineer who came in June.
She participated in her own way in a prosperous period for the science park which, despite the Covid-19, beat its absolute summer attendance record.
Franco-French tourism, a well-accepted health pass and, above all, space news, between
Perseverance
and Thomas Pesquet, explain this enthusiasm.
The science park was able to stay in the spotlight even when it was closed.
“Mission Tessa” for Claudie Haigneré this Thursday in Toulouse. The one who became the godmother of the future Cité de l'Espace twenty-five years ago, live from the Mir station, at the turn of a video from another century with Dominique Baudis, who remained faithful to the science park. The task of the day for the first French and European woman in space was more down to earth: to offer a private exploration of the site to the 7,000,000th visitor who entered the gates. Tessa in this case, an engineering student at Insa Toulouse, originally from the Nantes region and curious.
Toulouse: Tessa, a student at Insa from Nantes, is the 7 millionth visitor to @CiteEspace.
She has the right to a private visit with astronaut Claudine Haigneré.
The latter celebrates the 25th anniversary of its first flight in the Mir station.
pic.twitter.com/KIijkw4cFx
- 20 Minutes Toulouse (@ 20minutestoul) September 23, 2021
The girl won the moon - and a lifetime pass on June 10.
“In fact, I had seen Claudie Haigneré commenting live from the Cité de l'Espace on the departure of Thomas Pesquet to the ISS,” she says.
She therefore had the idea of offering her brother Tom, for his eighteenth birthday, a ticket for the park that she had only known until now through the tourist signs planted along the bypass.
Record attendance this summer
It was then unknowingly inaugurating a historic tourist summer, and quite unpredictable as the health crisis turned out to be interminable, at the Cité de l'Espace. Between July 1 and August 31, the park welcomed 119,312 curious people. It is quite simply its best summer in 24 years of existence (5% more than the previous record in 2019) despite the eclipse of foreign tourists, who have gone from 20 to 7% of the summer audience.
So how do you explain this improbable performance?
“Last year, we were in a Covid phase where people went to the mountains, the countryside or the coast.
This year, we have seen overall in France that the public has returned to urban tourism and to sites like ours.
He also wanted to, I would say, reopen his intelligence, ”says Jean-Baptiste Desbois, the director.
And the health pass, set up on July 21 in cultural places, even caused a little rush just before, without really stopping the following weeks.
Pequet, "Perseverance" ...
Finally, as the third reason for the force of attraction, the manager cites “space news” which does not stop: “We celebrate major space events and in the very short term, there has been 'arrival of
Perseverance
on Mars in which Toulouse is strongly involved, ”he said, then that of the first Chinese rover on Mars, then on April 23, the relaunch of Thomas Pesquet towards the ISS whose visitors still follow the
Alpha
mission live
in the new "square of news". For these important dates, the City was closed. But, it has asserted itself each time, "with the support of the industry", as the media and scientific HQ of the event. Even confined, she continued her mission. The proof with Tessa.
The next bouts of stress are looming with "the assumption of command of the ISS by Thomas Pesquet", scheduled for early October, and his return in November.
This time, the City will be open.
There will no longer be a screen between scientists and the public.
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