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Episode 49: 17th March 2012: National Astronomy Meeting 2012

By Gurbir Dated: March 17, 2012 Leave a Comment

This episode has no specific astronomical topic but draws attention to a very special astronomy meeting later this month. The Royal Astronomical Society’s annual National Astronomy Meeting last year was held in Wales, next year it will be in Scotland but this year it is in Manchester. National Astronomy Meeting 2012 or  NAM2012 will be hosted by the University of Manchester in partnership with Germany’s equivalent to the RAS, the Astronomische Gesellschaft in the last week of March 2012. Despite the title it is very much international in nature with professional astronomers attending from USA, Australia and Europe.

I hope be blogging from the meeting, if you are around do stop by and say hello. I plan to record interviews with some of the speakers for future astrotalkuk episodes.

From the evening of Monday 26th March to Friday 30th, the weeklong program has a fascinating and varied schedule including free public talks. Although free – booking online is essential. Some of the  outreach elements include

  • Two public lectures in the evening on Monday and Wednesday – book here
  • Two plenary session talks during each day of the week  between 09:00-10:00 and again between  17:00-18:00 (except Fri 15:45 -16:45). Contact Anna.Mayall@manchester.ac.uk Group booking by astronomical societies are welcomed but should done quickly – its first come first served.
  • A program of talks specifically for A level students. They are day-long event not free but refreshments are included.
  • A unique social event on the  evening of Tuesday 27th  in a city centre pub, an unusual blend of standup comedy and science £3.00 at the door.

In the following recording by telephone Dr Tim O’Brien from Jodrell Bank, explains the background to NAM2012 in Manchester.

Incidentally,  like me, you may enjoy a picture on Tim’s website. No doubt taken during the emmensly successful Stargazing live event earlier this year. It show’s Tim falling asleep in his chair with Dara Obriain looking on with Prof Brian Cox in the background. All the links online in episode 49.  Here’s Tim.

 

Summary of free public talks

Public Lectures

  1. Mon 26th March 8pm All from Nothing : The Structuring of Our Universe Prof. Simon White
  2. Wed 28th March 8pm The Juno Mission to Jupiter: What’s Inside the Giant Planet?  Prof. Fran Bagenal

Plenary Session Lectures

  1. Tue 27th March 9am-10am The Square Kilometre Array Michael Kramer
  2. Tue 27th March 5pm-6pm Probing the interior of Jupiter: NASA’s Juno mission Fran Bagenal
  3. Wed 28th March 9am-10am Frontiers in gravitational lensing Peter Schneider
  4. Wed 28th March 5pm-6pm The protocloud and the large-scale environment of galaxies Joss Bland-Hawthorn
  5. Thu 29th March 9am-10am Wonders of the solar atmosphere Alan Hood
  6. Thu 29th March 5pm-6pm Astrophotography Nik Szymanek
  7. Fri 30th March 9am-10am Catching Shadows: Kepler’s Year-Three Exoplanet Census Natalie Batalha
  8. Fri 30th March 3:45pm-4:45pm Cosmology in our backyard
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BIS Northern Meeting York 19th May 2012

By Gurbir Dated: February 18, 2012 2 Comments

A British Interplanetary Society  meeting with a difference. The venue is in the North of England – the historic city of York. You don’t have to be a BIS member – all with an interest in spaceflight are welcome. A day long event with five speakers on subjects that include Lunar dust, Soviet & German spaceflight, origins of the BIS and technical details behind the phenomenal success of the Apollo progam.

A summary below. Full details in the pdf indicated at the bottom of the page.

* * *

Date: Saturday 19th May 2011
Venue: Denham Room : Priory Street Centre, York , Y01 6ET
Cost: £5.00 – Full day event – Seating capacity limited to 50
Tickets – Book online here

Confirmed speakers

Deadly Lunar dust (Dr John Cain  – UK Space Biomedicine Association). The first extraterrestrial material transported by man from an alien world to Earth was the almost 400kg of lunar rocks and dust. It is mysterious, fascinating but dangerous too. What were the hazards to the Apollo astronauts who brought it here and what has been learned by the scientist in the 40 years of laboratory experiments?

Origins of the BIS in the Northwest (Gurbir Singh – https://astrotalkuk.org). The BIS was founded in the northwest of England in 1933. The key players were Philip Cleater in Liverpool and from 1936 until the end of the war, Eric Burgess in Manchester. How did they realise their ambitious vision of establishing an Interplanetary Society a quarter century before a satellite was actually put into orbit?

How Apollo flew to the Moon (David Woods – How Apollo flew to the Moon). The Apollo program that took two dozen men to the Moon between 1968 and 1972 succeeded because of ingenious technological solutions developed rapidly midst the haste of the cold war. The author of the book, “How Apollo flew to the Moon ” explains the details of one of mankind’s most remarkable technological achievements.

China’s Long March to the Cosmos  (Mike Hall – www. aelitauk.com) China was the third country to independently launch humans in to space. That was almost a decade ago. Further success has been swift, including a space walk and a woman in space. Current active programs include lunar orbiter, lunar lander, mission to Mars and a Space station. As we approach the 40th anniversary of the last men on the Moon, why is it that most experts believe that the next one will be Chinese?

German Rocket Development (Martin Dawson – York Astronomical Society). ‘Modern rocketry and spaceflight owe a lot to German rocket development of the 1920’s, ’30’s and ’40’s. Although born as a military weapon, scientists and engineers have turned this sword into a plough share. German rocketry is a story that should not be forgotten, it has highs and it has lows, but is always fascinating.

* * *

Download this pdf for all the details. This document is version 02. I will keep it updated from time to time with a final (version 1.0) by end of April.

 

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Falling to Earth – Book Review

By Gurbir Dated: February 9, 2012 1 Comment

Title: Falling to Earth: An Apollo 15 Astronaut’s Journey to Earth
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
Author: Al Worden & Francis French
ISBN: 13: 978-1588343093 & ISBN 10: 158834309X
Price: $29.95 [304 pages hardcover]

Back in 1966 there used to be an American western TV series called “Branded”. The central character, a West Point graduate and US army captain Jason McCord, is thrown out of the army falsely accused of cowardice. Each episode opens with a humiliating public scene. As his fellow soldiers watch, the captain’s hat is tossed aside, epaulets and buttons ripped off and his sword is ceremonially broken in two before he is cast out of the fort and the doors slammed behind him.

Following the successful return of Apollo 15, Al Worden was accused of unfairly profiting from illicit postal covers (envelopes carried aboard Apollo 15, stamped on day of launch and again on splashdown), in a deal prearranged with a German businessman. Virtually all astronauts had taken personal items on their flights and subsequently sold them for cash later. This was a tradition that NASA had sanctioned since the days of Mercury. But Worden became the fall guy. Abandoned by Deke Slayton (NASA’s Director of Flight Crew Operations), humiliated by Chris Craft (NASA flight director) and dumped by Dave Scott (his Apollo 15 commander), Worden was the only astronaut to be sacked by NASA for this infringement. He was “branded”.

“Falling to Earth“‘ is Al Worden’s autobiography, written with the British but USA based space historian Francis French.   To mark the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 15, Worden has published the story of his mission as Apollo 15’s command module pilot  (CMP) and its immediate aftermath of what came to be known as the “covers incident”,  as the centre piece. With a foreword by Dick Gordon, an epilogue by Tom Stafford and further praise on the cover from Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and John Glenn, Worden has finally received the personal redemption from those that he considers matter most – fellow astronauts.

In this three hundred page book Worden describes how Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott arranged a deal with a German businessman for the whole crew. They would fly 100 postal covers to the Moon and back for him to sell privately and discreetly after the space program was over or they left NASA. In return he would set up a trust account of 7000USD in a German Bank for each astronaut to be used for their children’s education.  Within months after the flight it all went wrong. The covers were on the open market with Deke Slayton receiving queries about their authenticity from potential buyers.

Relegated to a desk job following this revelation, Worden describes the humiliating and painful events that followed. He felt ostracised from NASA and in his darker moments was left wondering if life was “still worth living” (p258). He reassesses the idea of honour and discipline he learnt at West Point and the tradition of loyalty within NASA as “bullshit” (p262).   His crewmate Jim Irvin retired and stepped out of the picture, his commander Dave Scott, despite having initiated the business deal, avoided any public castigation. Throughout the book, Worden charts Scott’s culpability in the incident whilst repeatedly emphasising his exemplary command integral to the outstanding success of their challenging mission. Tom Stafford indicates in his book (‘We Have Capture ‘, published in 2004) that this incident cost Scott the command of the USA/USSR joint flight (Apollo Soyuz Test Project) that Stafford went on to command. None of the Apollo 15 crew flew again.

Whilst this is the first detailed account of NASA’s infamous covers incident, there is much more. Worden describes his childhood on a farm in Michigan, homesteaded by his illegal immigrant grandfather Fred from Canada. He describes candidly the harsh reality of his early days at West Point military academy, and throughout the book uses terse and colourful language that he probably picked up there.  He describes with remarkable detail his time with the air force as a test pilot, including an exchange period to Britain, his selection and training as a NASA astronaut and his flight to the Moon. Like all the Apollo missions, Apollo 15’s was a mission impossible. With the heaviest payload and longest duration on the surface of the Moon, it was arguably the most scientifically ambitious lunar mission. It had its share of drama but ended with outstanding success.

This book offers the reader a clearer understanding of the role of the CMP.  As the Apollo 15 CMP, Worden was responsible for the science experiments installed in the specially developed Science Instrument Module (SIM) within the service module. He operated the cameras and instruments during his six days in lunar orbit, for three of which he was alone. During the return journey, whilst still 200,000 miles from Earth, Worden made the deepest of deep space walks to manually recover the film from the cameras in the SIM bay.

Worden insists it was never his intention to become an astronaut until the mid sixties. This ambivalence seems hard to accept from a 21st century perspective. Things were so different then. He describes his genuine fear that his impending divorce might cause him to lose his place on Apollo 15. He smoked then and continues to smoke today saying “if I could have found a safe way to do it, I would have smoked all the way to the Moon and back” (p75).  He too briefly deals with one of the mission’s many unique objectives, the launch from the SIM bay of a sub satellite prior to leaving lunar orbit.

Like any good wine, Worden’s story benefits from the long interval offering a deeper insight into the human element of human spaceflight. Written in a slick punchy style it is entertaining and remarkably informative equally for those who remember the Apollo era and those unfortunate to have been born after it was over.

Two dozen Americans visited the Moon between 1968 and 1972.  As their numbers dwindle and they age the astonishing achievements and sheer magic of that adventure is fading from living memory. Books like this not only introduce a new generation to one of humanity’s greatest adventures, but make a critical contribution to the collective record of that exceptional era by those who made it happen.

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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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