The ISSFestival is organised by the International Space Education Institute e.V. (ISEI) from Leipzig and is the result of 20 years of intensive preparatory work. It borrows from the US Science Festival with multinational aspirations for a common future.
As early as autumn 2002, the idea of the "Space Fair" was pushed by the current chairman in Leipzig to promote science among young people in the new millennium with the construction of the International Space Station ISS. There were talks with the fair and the ideas of the time flew into orbit to the ISS together with the "Leipzig Freedom". But it took another 19 years and hundreds of flights around the world before this vision became reality. Now we are in the next moon landing decade, as well as the need for sustainable action for our planet - and this idea has reached the youth worldwide.
ISEI has been supporting international pupils and students at international competitions since 2005, following numerous high-profile events on the ISS. This commitment goes back to the NASA scientist Prof. Dr Jesco von Puttkamer, born in Leipzig in 1933, who, as director of the ISS space station, had been campaigning for an aerospace department in Leipzig since the turn of the millennium. This idea had scientific matter at the time, as Prof. Dr. Harry O. Ruppe, also born in Leipzig in 1929, founded the aerospace department at the TU-Munich in 1975 after his time in the Apollo programme.
Jesco von Puttkamer has been developing ISEI as an international meeting and support centre since 2005 together with selected residents of Leipzig and, thanks to his 50-year career at NASA, has opened all the necessary doors for this. The Korolev family from Moscow joined this commitment. A cousin of the chief designer of the Soyuz rocket now lives in Leipzig. Sergei Korolev's daughter maintains a close relationship with ISEI.
Quickly succeeding one another, teams from Leipzig won top international honours in the NASA Human Exploration Roverchallenge and the Russian space competitions "Ot Vinta" and "Korolev Readings". Educational institutions from 30 countries pick up ideas in Leipzig or take part in ISEI workshops. A rover built in Leipzig has a supporting role in the US space adventure film "Space Warriors". Today, the students of that time are astronauts, space scientists, teachers and experienced entrepreneurs. They form the core of this festival.
Since 2010, ISEI organises an international summer seminar in Leipzig, supervises students at the American Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, and is a three-time winner of the NASA Human Exploration Roverchallenge with 34 international teams. Since 2015, ISEI has organised lecture tours in schools and universities in 30 different countries and, in the spirit of Prof. Dr. von Puttkamer, motivates young people to pursue space travel as the pinnacle of science around the world.
Prof. Dr. von Puttkamer passed away in Alexandria, Virginia, in December 2012, leaving behind an enormous life work as NASA's chief strategist and an inspiration for young people. In September 2016, a school at the ISEI campus in Leipzig was named after him and additional offices were set up in India, the USA and Latin America. He helped build the Apollo programme, advised Gene Roddenberry on the Star Trek series as a scientist, developed the first ideas about reusable rockets, helped build the space shuttle and founded the International Space Station. He was its director. Many NASA employees still recall that it was the "man with white hair and a German accent" who inspired their work.
In 2005, he wrote the programme (COTS, Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems) that today enables private flights in the service of NASA by SpaceX and Blue Origin. Puttkammer once told today's festival officials: “One day private entrepreneurs will independently mine ore in the asteroid belt with homemade spaceships and establish settlements on the planets and moons of our solar system. Only in this way will we be able to permanently protect our planet and our genius."
In 2005, he wrote the programme (COTS, Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems) that today enables private flights in the service of NASA by SpaceX and Blue Origin. Puttkammer once told today's festival officials:
Wir sind ein Team – We are one team - Мы одна команда!