Ariane: A Space Epic

Man has always sought to seek further afield. After the seafaring explorers of the 16th century, 21st century cosmologists today navigate more celestial oceans, with each mission providing an ever-broader and more impressive cartography of our surroundings. At the avant garde of modern technology, these strange travellers are actually immobile, and their vessels are powerful and spectacular telescopes, on the Earth or in space, constantly widening the limits of our knowledge and giving form to our dreams of infinity. From Hawaii to Australia, via South Africa and China, we set out on an incredible scientific and human adventure to visit the planet's greatest cosmic exploration centres to discover the new challenges involved in understanding the universe. A journey on Earth and in the heavens that will take your breath away!

A look at relevant scientific issues

A young widow wants to carry on with her husband's work:managing a pine plantation where they extract resin;but most of all,she wants to have electricity installed in her valuable property.In this place,it seems that 1789 never happened and that time stood still:her workers,circa 1920,do not receive any salary and ,like the peasants in the middle ages,have to bring their production to their landlady. But her progressive ideas come up against men still remembering WW1 and against her bourgeois peers.Her foreman ,first bewildered ,is finally won over by his boss' resilience and strength of character.For her own good,the young heiress is too ahead of her time though.

Everything that develops and changes in nature is folded: mountains, blossoms, the brain…Life is an unending series of folding and unfolding. Researchers in robotics, medicine, nanotechnologies, are embracing this “origami philosophy”, trying to understand and duplicate nature’s folding principles.

The art of origami reshapes the world, affecting drug development and future NASA space missions.