The Starmus International Festival is an international gathering focused on celebrating astronomy, space exploration, music, art, and other sciences such as biology and chemistry. It was founded by Garik Israelian, an astronomer at the Institute for Astrophysics in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. The Festival has featured Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Alexei Leonov, Jim Lovell, Brian May, Jill Tarter, David Grinspoon, Lisa Kaltenegger, Kip Thorne, and Rick Wakeman among others. History In 2007, Brian May, founding guitarist of the rock band Queen, completed his PhD dissertation which was left unfinished in 1974 when Queen began to achieve significant success. May's work focused on interplanetary dust clouds in the solar system. He had studied at Tenerife earlier through Imperial College London, and resumed work there more than 30 years later. In 2007, his new co-advisor was Garik Israelian, and the two struck up a friendship because Israelian was also a musician. This led to the founding of the Starmus Festival. The name pays homage to stars and music. The first Festival would occur four years later. 2011 Starmus Festival, "Starmus I" The first Starmus Festival took place from 20 to 25 June 2011 on Tenerife and La Palma, Canary Islands. The primary site of the event was the Ritz-Carlton Abama Hotel in Tenerife. The theme was "50 Years of Man in Space." The Festival presented the rare opportunity for delegates, as the attendees were called, to share time, speak with, share refreshments, and converse with the speakers. About 300 people attended Starmus I. During the festival, Neil Armstrong talked about Starmus and our future on Earth; Buzz Aldrin spoke about possible future missions to Mars; Alexei Leonov described the early days of the Soviet space program and his historic first spacewalk; Brian May asked about future human exploration in space and whether humans should first clean up their act here on Earth. Further exploring themes of space exploration, Cosmonaut Viktor Gorbatko recalled early Soviet missions; Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders related details of the early American space program; Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell described the harrowing mission he endured returning that crippled spacecraft to Earth; and Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke described his adventures in the Apollo program. Covering themes of life in the universe, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Jack W. Szostak outlined the origin of life on Earth; Richard Dawkins described evolution and exobiology; astronomer