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Astronaut at TEDX Salford

By Gurbir Dated: January 27, 2012 Leave a Comment

Only one day to go for  http://www.tedxsalford.com/ tomorrow at  MediacityUK

If you are in to astronauts you may be interested in this. I received confirmation yesterday that Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham‘s visit to Pontefract, Yorkshire in March has had to be cancelled. Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt in October is still on.

My interviews with astronauts on this blog during their visits to the UK including  episode 12 Buzz Aldrin Apollo 11, Episode 43 Richard Gordon Apollo 12, episode 28 Fred Haise Apollo 13,  episode 35 Ed Mitchell Apollo 14 and episode 45 Al Worden Apollo 15.

Looking forward to the mystery astronaut at TEDXFalford tomorrow – even if it is one of the above.

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Stargazing Live and other Astronomical Events

By Gurbir Dated: January 17, 2012 Leave a Comment

BBC’s Stargazing Live from Jodrell Bank in Cheshire is fast become an annual astronomical highlight for the amateur astronomical community not only the UK but throughout the world. Anyone can join in and it is free. For a pretty comprehensive list of  astronomical societies throughout the country and abroad, see the Federation of Astronomical Societies  website.  Here is a pick of a few Stargazing Live and other astronomy related events.

 

* * * Stargazing Events * * *

Find Stargazing Live activities near you. Enter your postcode here.

Tuesday 17th January

Amatuer Astronomy Centre. Todmorden

Wednesday 18th January

Salford Astronomical Society Observatory Open night

Wythenshawe Park Horticulture Centre, Wythenshawe

Heaton Park Astronomy Group Manchester

Thursday 19th January

Huddersfield Observatory, Huddersfield

===========================================

* * * Non Stargazing astronomical events * * *


Thursday 19th January 2012 Manchester Astronomical Society. “Panspermia”: Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe
(Professor and Director of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Cardiff University Honorary Professor, University of Glamorgan)

Friday 2oth January Liverpool Astronomical Society “Manchester’s first Rocket Man” by Kevin Kilburn

Saturday 21st January : West Midland Space day

Saturday 28th January TEDx  in Salford. Astronaut listed as one of the speaker. Not free but tickets available

Tuesday 24th January. Manchester Phil and Lit Society. Talk about John Dalton. Manchester Business School

CANCELLED: March 9th and 10th meet Astronaut Walt Cunningham. Not free but tickets available. Apollo 17 Harrison Schmitt will be coming in October 2012.

Saw the film “First Orbit”? It was free. Now a chance to support it. Just $10 will do it.

 

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Gagarin Statue Campaign – Open Letter

By Gurbir Dated: November 15, 2011 9 Comments

The campaign to bring the statue of Yuri Gagarin continues to attract support and now has almost 400 supporters who have signed the petition.  Over the  last few weeks  two dozen individuals, many of whom you will recognise, have added their significant weight to the campaign and signed the open letter below.

The names include Sir Patrick Moore from Sky at Night, Professor Andre Geim, a Nobel Prize winning Physicist from Manchester University, and a guy who went to the Moon – astronaut Al Worden, the Command Module Pilot  on Apollo 15.  In the coming weeks, I expect to add to the list of hyperlinked names below.

If you have not yet signed the on-line petition, you can do it here.

* * *

An open letter to those charged with making the decision on where the Statue of Yuri Gagarin will be relocated in 2012

To mark the 50th anniversary the first human spaceflight, a statue of Yuri Gagarin was unveiled by Gagarin’s daughter Elena in London on 14th July 2011, but planning restrictions require that it is relocated by July 2012.   The most appropriate new destination is Manchester.

Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union, traveling higher and faster than any human before him, made the world’s first human spaceflight on 12th April 1961. Three months later, 12th July, during a short but heartfelt ceremony in a congested boardroom of a union office in Manchester, Gagarin was made the very first honorary member of the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers.

Prior to joining the Soviet Air Force Gagarin had successfully completed his training in foundry work. He celebrated his working class roots by accepting the invitation from the union and visited a foundry in Trafford Park, the world’s first and largest industrial estate. Despite the driving rain, the people of Manchester lined his route to wave and welcome him. Standing in his open top Bentley, soaked, he waved back.

This diminutive young spaceman was the first human to experience the alien sensation of weightlessness whilst circling the Earth at five mile a second. It was an extremely hazardous adventure from which he himself did not think he would return safely. But he did, and overnight became the twentieth century’s first global superstar. But he was a Russian, a Communist and potentially the enemy in the heart of Europe in the midst of the Cold War.  In every speech, accompanied by his tenacious but sincere smile, he repeated his appeal for peace, collaboration and friendship. He brought fresh hope and optimism to a population recovering from two World Wars, who feared the horror of another.

Recalling his visit to a foundry in Manchester several months after his visit to the city, Gagarin said “the firm handshakes of my fellow workers in the moulding shop were dearer to me than many awards”.  I think if Gagarin could choose, he would prefer the statue to be re-sited midst the working class traditions and people of Manchester.

 

Gurbir Singh 14/11/2011 (astrotalkuk.org)

 

* * *

Below are some of the signatories who support the campaign for the statue to be relocated in Manchester in 2012.

 

Sir Patrick Moore – Presenter of Sky at Night and Author

Al Worden – Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot

Professor Andre Geim – Physicist (Nobel Prize for Physics 2010)

Reg Turnill – Former BBC Journalist

Dr Chris Riley – Writer and Film Maker

Piers Bizony – Author

Professor Jim Al-Khalili – Physicist, Broadcaster & Author

Dr Heather Couper – Astronomer, TV Presenter and Author

Nigel Henbest – Consultant, TV Producer and Author

Captain Eric Brown – Test pilot

Dr Allan Chapman – Historian at University of Oxford & Author

Francis French – Author

Colin Burgess – Author

Dave and Leslie Wright – British Rocketry Oral History Programme

Professor Andrew Jenks – Author

Nick Spall – Space writer

Professor Asif Siddiqi – Author

Mike Little – WordPressing co-founding developer

Michael Cassutt – Author

Richard Evans – Science Fiction Author

Professor Jim Aulich – Visual Culture at MMU

David J Shayler – Author

Professor Sergei Utyuzhnikov – University of Manchester

Professor Malcolm Heath – University of Leeds

Professor Carl Murray – Scientist on Cassini probe currently orbiting Saturn

Brian Harvey  author

Bert Vis author

Tony Lloyd MP for Manchester central

Michael Wood – Historian and author

* * *

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Book about Gagarin’s visit to the UK in 1961

By Gurbir Dated: November 7, 2011 1 Comment

Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester

A Smile that Changed the World?

The story of the World’s first spaceman’s five days in the UK 11th – 15th July 1961

 

*  *  *

 

Reviews

London Society Journal “This fascinating and well-researched book recounts the legendary Soviet cosmonaut’s visit to the UK in the summer of 1961 at the height of the Cold War, setting it within the context of scientific advance, the political climate in the UK, and Gagarin’s relationship with his political masters in Russia. A timeline is included, as well as much new information from personal interviews with those who met Gagarin, by all accounts a personally charming man who found himself in a difficult and charged political situation.”
Amazon.co.uk “This is a long overdue book.  The memories of the visit to Manchester are great, neighbours of mine were taken by their mother to see Gagarin and that started a wonderful conversation ‘down memory lane’. I am not sure why it has to be ‘London and Manchester’ – better to be Manchester and London. Manchester asked him over, London did not quite know what to do with him as they were in the middle of a cold war with Russia. To the workers over there and here, they were workers and amazed by what Gagarin did…..we had nothing like it here. I think it’s a great book.”

Colin Burgess October 25, 2011. This unpretentious but highly informative book not only reveals details about the hurriedly arranged visit of the world’s first spaceman to England, but gives us a fascinating insight into his personality. Gagarin’s own working life began in a foundry, so he found much in common with the people he wanted to meet, and subsequently got to meet. This was a time clouded in international suspicions, when the Soviet Union was regarded as the philosophical antithesis of the Western world, and yet this remarkably modest and simple man charmed everyone he met with his warm smile and friendly manner. His visit took place in less than a week, and yet this was a truly extraordinary and largely forgotten event that needed to be recorded, and has finally been accomplished in this fine book.”

==

Purchase online here. More on  publications@astrotalkuk.org

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