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Episode 100 Sandra Benitez Herrera – ESA Education Outreach

By Gurbir Dated: September 18, 2022 Leave a Comment

Astrophysicist Sandra Benitez-Herrera  talks about the opportunities for teachers and students made available by the European Space Agency‘s CESAR (Cooperation through Education in Science and Astronomy Research) program. This episode was recorded in Athens in July during Cospar 2022.

If you are a student or a teacher in Europe or beyond, Sandra explains how you make use of CESAR’s resources – optical, solar and radio telescopes, online seminars, face-to-face training and an enormous quantity of space data from ESA and other space agencies. All in one place and with no charge. She starts with an explanation of what CESAR is – in audio and Youtube video below.


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New Book – Atlas of Space Rocket Launch Sites

By Gurbir Dated: September 13, 2022 Leave a Comment

ISBN 978-3-86922-758-0
Size 240 x 300 mm
272 pages
500 images
Index
Glossary
Hardcover

** Description and look-inside below **

Available from: dom-publishers.com, www.amazon.com, www.freytagberndt.com, www.mondadoristore.it, www.lehmanns.de and www.abebooks.co.uk – a variety of suppliers at many lower prices.

Learn more from podcasts: New Space India, The Spaceshow and Aviation-Xtended

Book Reviews: www.wallpaper.com, www.raumfahrer.net, flugundzeit.blog, www.ivorypress.com and collectspace.com

To purchase signed copies directly from the authors contact Brian Harvey or Gurbir Singh


The book describes primary launch sites around the world including some that are historically significant but no longer operating (e.g Peenamunde) as well as the new kids on the block (e.g Kodiak).

The book is edited by Paul Meuser who has written the foreword and sourced most of the 500 or so majestic photos of launch sites and their environments. The majority of the text is authored by Dublin-based author Brian Harvey. A prodigious writer who has been writing on space programs of numerous countries since the 1970s. Katrin Soschinski designed stunning maps, the foundation of any atlas.

Copy of the back text page and a few sample pages from the book in the slide show below. These sample pages can be downloaded here albeit the quality is way inferior to the original.


Back page text

The machines that orbit our planet live in a void environment–
however, space travel itself does not exist in a vacuum. Traveling
to space is an immense effort of humans and machines, taking
not just ‘a small step for a man’ but leaving a huge carbon
footprint in the process. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift
in which private companies and leadership figures in the form of
Billionaires are re-popularizing space travel to an extent not seen
since the space race of the USSR and USA. Space exists isolated
from the place that births its mechanical and a few select human
inhabitants. Thus we tend to forget that every single thing that
exits our atmosphere takes with it more than just its own weight
of materials when it departs our fragile blue marble.

This book offers a unique look at the physical footprints of earth’s
launch sites. With most places hidden away in jungles, deserts, or
amidst the Central Asian steppes, these places exist for the most
part out of the eye of the general public. With satellites facilitating
our modern society and a modern space age ever-present in today’s
news cycle, it is now more important than ever to think about the
imprint these undertakings leave on earth. To begin to answer
the new socio-economic questions raised by our rapid expansion
into the void, we need to look no further than follow the cracks in
the concrete of our planetary launch sites. The rusty train tracks
leading to the pad break the pristine and sterile looks of space, and
reopen our eyes to the realities of space exploration.

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Episode 99 Professor Stamatios Krimigis – Exploring the Solar System with Voyager

By Gurbir Dated: September 9, 2022 Leave a Comment

This episode was recorded in Athens in July 2022 during Cospar 2022 and he speaks about his remarkable career guided in large part by his mentor, physicist James Van Allen.

Professor Stamtios Krimigis

He started studying physics at the University of Minnesota in the same month that Sputnik was launched. A chance meeting with James van Allen led Stamatios Krimigis to build instruments for Mariner 3 and 4. Eventually assigned as the Principle Investigator for the charged particle instrument on the voyager program which was initially known as Mariner Jupiter Saturn 77 program.

It is released today to mark his 84th birthday tomorrow on September 10th. Audio and youtube video below.

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Pam Reid speaks on BBC Radio Merseyside about her father’s Memoir – My personal History of the British Interplanetary Society

By Gurbir Dated: July 12, 2022 Leave a Comment

Founded by Phil Cleator on Friday 13 October 1933 , the British Interplanetary Society exists to this day. BIS members include Arthur C Clarke, Carl Sagan, George Bernard Shaw, and Robert Heinlein. In 1933 Leslie Johnson was 19 and Clarke, aged 16, joined in 1934.

Leslie Johnson – My Personal History of The British Interplanetary Society 1933 – 1937 Liverpool

The initial aims of the BIS were to convince the public that space travel really was possible and help develop the technology to make it happen. It was an ambitious goal, futuristic, perhaps even reckless. A tough challenge when most people would not have seen an aeroplane up close, let alone ridden in one. Speke airport, now Liverpool John Lennon, was opened in July 1933. Movies were just turning into talkies, the BBC was founded in 1922 large populations geographically separated could share the same experience without having to be in the same place at the same time. Something that was possible for the first time in human history.

Today we are familiar with terms such as satellites, rockets, spacecraft and astronauts but in the 1930s they did not exist. Very few could visualise and understand these concepts and let alone the IDEA of space and space travel.

Like many other leading economies, Britain has a flourishing space programme today. I would suggest it started in Liverpool almost 90 years ago. Yes, despite 13th October 1933 being a Friday, the BIS is still flourishing today as the oldest space advocacy group in the world.

Leslie Johnson’s daughter Pam Reid and I spoke with Tony Snell at BBC Radio Merseyside. Listen below.

More about the book and how to get a copy direct or via Amazon.

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