Forty years ago, in June 1980 he was unable to attend the 19th Itinerant Conference of Economics in Szeged, no matter how much people wanted to see him: having returned from Baykonur, his official reception at the Parliament was held at exactly the same time. This year, however, retired brigadier general cosmonaut Bertalan Farkas will be with us, delivering a speech at the 58th ICE.
The first Hungarian cosmonaut went into space in 1980, exactly forty years ago, spending most of his time on board the Salyut space station carrying out numerous major successful scientific experiments over his 7 day, 20 hour and 45 minute long space journey. It made Hungary the seventh(!) country in the world to travel to space. Bertalan Farkas will make a speech at the opening plenary session of the Conference, on the 40th anniversary of his space journey, addressing the present and future of space exploration and the space sector, including the role of Hungary.
This year’s extraordinary 58th Itinerant Conference of Economists will start on Thursday, 24 September 2020 at 10 a.m. with a presentation delivered by György Matolcsy, Governor of the central bank of Hungary. The plenary presentations and panel discussions of the two-day conference will be accessible at website of the Conference. The video recordings of the thematic sections will be available at the website from 24 September.
(Photograph: MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák)