A Scenario for Interstellar Exploration and Its Financing

Introduction.- Motivations for space exploration and colonization.- Where to go: the search for habitable planets.- Interstellar exploration technologies.- Financing of space exploration and colonization.- The uncertainties.

Prof. Andrea Sommariva is an international economist, specializing in International Finance and International Monetary Policy.

In the past, he worked as Economist at the International Monetary Fund, Economic Advisor at the Italian Ministry of Treasury, Senior Financial Advisor at European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Senior Consultant to NatWest Capital Markets. He also was Team Leader of the GHG (Greenhouse Gas) group within the Sino-Italian Cooperation Program for Environmental Protection. 

At present, he is the CEO of META Co. Ltd., a consulting company based in China, offering to international enterprises and associations, a professional advice and an operating assistance in the relations with institutions and territory and in the processes of internationalization. The company shares knowledges and experiences achieved within legislative and regulation fields, financial industries, manufacturing industries, raw material industries, consumption goods industries, media and communication, and logistics.

Andrea Sommariva has also held several academic positions in Italy and abroad in the fields of Finance, Monetary Theory and Political Economy.

Prof. Giovanni F. Bignami is a physicist and astronomer. Over the last 40 years he has carried out research in astronomy, from the ground and from space. Professor of Astrophysics at IUSS, Pavia, he has been President of the Italian Space Agency and is now the President of COSPAR, the world-wide Committee on Space Research. He is President of The National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and has received various awards, including the Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the Blaise Pascal Medal of the European Academy of Sciences and the von Karman Award of the International Astronautics Academy. He is one of the most authoritative scientists in astrophysical and space research and identified the neutron star "Geminga".