During a visit to Italy and a stopover in Turin, site of the Thales Alenia Space facility, the astronauts of the Esperia space mission visited the Giugiaro Design team, designers of the mission logo.

"Close encounters of the third kind", one could almost say. During a visit to Italy and a stopover in Turin, site of the Thales Alenia Space facility, the astronauts of the "Esperia" STS 120 space mission, organised in collaboration with NASA, ESA, and the Italian Space Agency, visited the Giugiaro Design team, designers of the mission logo.

Giorgetto Giugiaro was greeted affectionately during this emotionally charged meeting between extraordinary personages capable of succeeding in unique undertakings that are admired worldwide - whether in space or on the Earth.

During their visit to the Italdesign-Giugiaro plant, the seven astronauts, accompanied by their spouses, by the top echelons of Thales Alenia Space, and by ASI managers, were able to admire projects developed over forty year of activity, with an appreciation of the many aspects shared by automotive models and technologies, industrial design products, and the space ships that they themselves pilot, also thanks to the presentation viewed in the new Virtual Reality Centre.

The meeting celebrated the extraordinary collaboration begun in 2002, when Giugiaro, upon the request of the Finmeccanica Group, developed a new concept for the interiors of Italian living module for the International Space Station. The meeting ended with an “arriverderci” …until the next mission.