189th Session of the Andalusian Aerospace Forum

By Mr. José Luis Bonilla Romero, General Director of the Río Tinto Foundation and Ricardo Amils Pibernat, researcher at the Astrobiology Center and professor emeritus of the UAM.

Institutions such as NASA, the European Space Agency, or the Astrobiology Center (INTA-CSIC) have been developing scientific research and field tests related to space exploration for more than 30 years in the Rio Tinto area, especially in two lines of action: the possibility of life in extreme environments and testing technologies for space missions. The result has been, on the one hand, the confirmation of analogies between this area of Huelva and Mars that feed the hypothesis of life in similar conditions on the red planet; on the other hand, the presence of Spanish technology and instrumentation that is already incorporated in NASA missions on Mars. This Riotinto-Marte pairing has generated curiosity among the thousands of people who visit the Riotinto Mining Park. In response to this interest, a new tourist circuit has been created to allow visitors to get to know the places where research is being carried out and its results.