Bulgaria Sends Rose Oil to Space

Siyana Sevova, Standartnews daily

Solomon Passy - Bulgarian politician and foreign minister (2001-2005) handed to US astronaut Marsha Ivins a phial with rose oil. She promised the phial would reach the international space station and would get into orbit. "The voice of Valya Balkanska (singer of traditional Bulgarian folklore songs) is rambling in the space, but we haven't sent yet Bulgarian wine and computers," Solomon Passy joked.

Marsha Ivins delivered a lecture "Life and Work in Space - Today and in Future". "If we want to achieve something great as for example to land on Mars, we can accomplish that only as citizens of the planet Earth". Thus the US astronaut answered the question if a Bulgarian could step on the Red Planet.

US ambassador to Sofia James Warlick was also present at the lecture and promised to promote the cooperation between Bulgaria and the USA in the field of space technologies.