Foreword

The investment in space activities may be estimated in hundreds of billion of Euro and involves all G20 and BRIC countries. Why there is such a large interest, and why so many investments are allotted to space programs? Space is definitely an essential driver of economic growth. Aside from the obvious impact onto high-technology industry, many disciplines benefit from the development of space technologies. Climatology, environmental science, various medical sciences as well as telecommunication and—off course—military applications are just few areas that need space technologies and justify the launch of satellites. Nearly a thousand satellites are currently in orbit with the aim of observing the Earth and are used for telecommunications, navigation and positioning in addition to specific scientific research and to space exploration, with missions funded by many space agencies. Man is exploring the solar system by means of satellites in orbit around Mars and Venus, and exploration is now active on the surface of Mars. China, India, Japan, Europe and United States launched spacecrafts in orbit around the Moon and the International Space Station is inhabited ever since 2003. More than 50 nations are participating in this ''colonization'' of space; they all benefit from space technologies and information gathered by satellites. Italy is participating since 1963 with a significant contribution to the activities of the International Space Station (ISS). The Chinese space program accounts for tens of launches with many satellites placed into orbit already. The successful mission of Shenzhou–X has confirmed China advances in space technologies and its ambitions for the future. In the next few years, China will launch its own Space Station, where many challenging scientific experiments in the fields of astronomy, microgravity, medicine and radiobiology will be performed. This contribution is the written, peer-reviewed version of a paper presented at the workshop ''Cosmic Rays and Radiobiology in a SinoItaly Network Strategy: First Bilateral Workshop COSMIC-RAD'' held at Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academic of Science, in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China on September 3–4, 2012