On 9 July 2014, Dr. Phys. Marius-Ioan Piso, President of the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) holds a presentation during the Romania's Day event, at the Solar Decathlon Europe’s second edition — SDE. Held from 28 June to 14 July 2014 in Versailles, SDE is a international architecture and applied technologies university competition that encourages universities to design and build the solar homes of the future, able to cover their energy consumption independently. Each participating State is granted a day during which it can present its own project.

Romania's Day, organised by the Ministry of Education in Romania, the EFdeN Romanian project team and the Romanian Cultural Institute will include the official opening of the Romanian solar habitat, an exhibition that presents the most important results of scientific research in Romania, and also the viewing of short films from the Romanian Short Waves Cannes 2014 festival.

Romania's project, EfdeN, is the only one from Central and Eastern Europe selected to participate in the competition in Versailles and it was built by a team emerged from the collaboration between the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest,  "Ion Mincu" School of Architecture and Urbanism and the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. The project proposes a solar energy efficient home, sustainable and intelligent. The concept proposed by the EfdeN team is dedicated to the urban environment and it is considered an innovation in energy efficiency through the integration of the prototype of an "urban farming" productive greenhouse. More information about the project of the EfdeN team can be found here: http://efden.org/

At this year’s edition, in addition to Romania, other 15 countries are attending the competition: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, the United States of America, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, India, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan. Thus, for over a month, 800 participants, 200 teachers and 41 educational institutions that form the 20 teams entered in the competition will present their prototypes in real size.

At the previous edition of SDE, which was held in Madrid, Romania was represented by the PRISPĂ prototype, which ranked 9, achieving 2nd place in the contest for Energy Efficiency, 4th in Energy Balance and 2nd place in the Audience Choice.

Image credit: EfdeN

Between 8 and 10 July 2014, the president of the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA), Dr. Phys. Marius-Ioan Piso, is participating in the Romanian delegation visiting France, along with officials from the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Technological Development, representatives of Romanian research institutes and companies, and the Romanian Embassy representatives in France. The overall objective of the visit is to intensify the cooperation between Romania and France, as well as developing partnerships in the field of research and technological development.

The Romanian delegation’s agenda includes visits to the Thales Alenia Space and Amplitude Systèmes companies, the latter being the one that offers all ultrafast laser technologies currently available, and a visit to the Institute of Optics (Institut d'Optique) d'Aquitaine.

The delegation will take part also at the exhibition organised on 9 July for Romania's participation in the second edition of Solar Decathlon Europe - SDE, an architecture and applied technology international university competition, where each participating country will be able to present their project during a special day dedicated to them. During the event, Dr. Phys. Marius-Ioan Piso will hold a presentation on Romania's participation in the missions of the European Space Agency (ESA), such as Planck, CLUSTER II, VENUS EXPRESS, GAIA, SOHO, CoRoT, and in the ESA optional programs as a Member State.

Along with Romania's participation in the ESA missions, on the visit’s topics agenda are noted the most important Romanian scientific research, development and innovation projects, such as the high power laser ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics) or the International Centre for Advanced Studies "Danube River - Danube Delta - Black Sea" (DANUBIUS - RI).

25 June 2014 marks 120 years since the birth of Hermann Oberth at Sibiu, father of aeronautics and technical precursor of a new technological era.

Enthusiast since childhood about Jules Verne's books, especially "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Journey around the Moon", the future scientist realised his first model rocket at the age of 15, and at later he did a series of calculations for a multistage rocket.

Later, his work would be so revolutionary, that it was regarded with great apprehension by scientists and publishers. His paper, "Rocket to interplanetary space", was refused for publication in Germany, because it contained among other things "too much Math for a Physics paper and too much Physics for a mathematical book". But it was accepted by Professor Augustin Maior in 1922 at the University of Cluj in Romania, as dissertation for the award of Mathematics and Physics professor title.

A few years later, in 1929, the main work of Hermann Oberth was published, entitled "Ways of interplanetary flight", also called "the Bible of astronautics science", work which received then the International Award for interplanetary flight science.

While he served as Professor at the Stephan Ludwig Roth High School in Medias, Oberth created there most of his scientific work to the construction and flying of rockets in space. King Carol II gave him permission to do experiments at the Aviation School in the city, and during 1932-1935 Oberth will build numerous experimental  model rocket, a few of which were even launched.

Since 1950, Hermann Oberth worked at Spezia, Italy, where he built an ammonium nitrate rocket and then left for America in 1955, where he worked under the supervision of Wernher von Braun in the U.S. space program. He returned to Germany, then he was a temporary consultant in America, and in 1962 he moved at his Feucht home.

By the end of his life he received numerous honors and recognitions for his work, for which institutes or astronautics awards carrying his name had been established, and he was decorated and welcomed in many prestigious institutions. Currently, 90 solutions are assigned to Hermann Oberth, which were later used in the worldwide construction of rockets, and more than 300 formulas, Physics and Mathematics relationships and conceptual ideas of his were then subsequently translated into practice.

Unfortunately, the scientist is known more internationally and too little in Romania, especially in the small world of astronautics. In the Technology Museum in Vienna, for example, Oberth's presence is prominent, but it says nothing about Romania, about his origin, about the place where his scientific work was created or where he received his professor license for the aforementioned work, later published as a book in Germany.

Source: http://enciclopediaromaniei.ro/