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Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing

Episode 86 – Moon: Art, Science, Culture

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Moon: Art, Science, Culture
Moon: Art, Science, Culture

The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing was a momentous event and expected to be marked by numerous publications. Most books cover the technologies, events, personal recollections and politics of the first human voyage to another world. One book jointly authored by an art historian and an astronomer has a fresh perspective.

The guests in this episode are the authors of the book Moon: Art, Science, Culture – Dr Alexandra Loske Associate Tutor in Art History, University of Sussex and Dr Robert Massey Deputy Executive Director Royal Astronomical Society.

The book is attracting an interesting eclectic mix of readers with an interest in science and art. Some of the topics we spoke about include

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Episode 85 – Russia’s Space programme with Brian Harvey

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Brian Harvey

Brian Harvey is a Dublin based writer who has authored more than 14 books on space. His books have covered the space programmes of USSR/Russia, USA, India, Japan and China. He has a deep understanding of the motivations and politics as well as the space technology that has emerged since the space age. In this episode, we speak about Russia/USSR’s space programme what it was at the outset and its status today.

Some of the topics we discuss include

  • Russian rocket engines still the best in the world.
  • The first factory to build rocket engines for spacecraft was established in Leningrad in 1927.
  • Age profile in Russian space programme – not enough younger people. Compared to the programme in China which is largely less than 40.
  • In 1935 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky invited as a guest of honour at the mayday speech “I believe the first person in space is alive today”. This was in 1935 when Yuri Gagarin was one year old.
  • There were several reasons for the failure for the USSR not get a crewed mission to the Moon. The main one was the lack of programme management.
  • With 39 launches in 2018, China was the leader. Until a few years ago Russia was the world leader of launches. Russia’s planned 45 launches in 2019 is not realistic.
  • China, India and Japan were on par about a decade ago but China has now emerged with a “superpower” status. India has made progress in the number of annual launches, science missions and recently announced its plans to initiate a human space program.
    We discussed the movie Salyut 7 the movie. This is the space station that Rakesh Sharma had visited in 1984.
    Russia space programme, minimal new investment, an ageing workforce, reliability and quality control on a decline.

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Episode 82: Jaxa and International Collaboration with Professor Fujimoto Masaki

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Prof. Fujimoto Masaki
Prof. Fujimoto Masaki. Credit author

 Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was founded in 2003 by the merger of three existing organisations and has an annual budget of around two billion USD. It has a remit for research and development of technology, space exploration and supporting human spaceflight aboard the ISS through collaboration with the European Space Agency. This episode is available in audio and video below.

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In 2003 JAXA launched Hayabusa-1 to explore the asteroid Itokawa. It arrived at Itokawa in 2005 and returned to the Earth with a tiny sample in 2010.  In 2014, Jaxa launched Hayabusa-2 to explore asteroid Ryugu.  Hayabusa2 arrived ta Ryugu on 27 June 2018 and will remain in Ryugu orbit until 2019. It will collect 3 discrete samples (between 0.1g and 1g in each case), store them in separate sealed containers on board for return to Earth in December 2020 in the Woomera test range in Australia.

  • All four rovers. Credit ESA
  • Hayabusu 2 and Ryugu. Credit ESA
  • silhouette of Hayabusa2 on Ryugu. Credit JAXA

Hyabusa2 has four rovers.

  • MINERVA-II-1 contains two rovers, Rover-1A and Rover-1B was deployed on 21 September 2018.
  • Mascot – a rover developed by the German and French space agencies. Deployed on 3rd October 2018.
  • The MINERVA-II-2 contains ROVER-2, a payload developed by several universities in Japan. Planned for deployment in July 2019.

JAXA is also considering

  1. 1 The launch of the world’s smallest lunar lander  intended to be launched on NASA’s Space Launch Systems in the 2020s.
  2. Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon (SLIM) will demonstrate the technology of precision landing. 
  3. Selene-R – a tentative joint JAXA/ISRO Moon mission to soft-land a rover on the Moon. Jaxa would supply the rover and ISRO the lander.
  4. MMX – Martian Moons Exploration. A martian sample return mission. Only possible with international collaboration (US, France, Germany). To be launched around the 2024 timeline. Following a period of 3-years at Mars, it will return to Earth with a sample from Phobos in 2029. 
Prof. Fujimoto Masaki. Credit Author

Episode 76: Space law

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Bayar Goswami

One of the earliest characteristics of human civilisation (large populations living together in organised cities) was the creation of rules or laws that everyone who lived there agreed to abide by.

The 50th anniversary of first humans to visit the Moon is celebrated later this year. In 1968 it was pretty much just two countries and a few space missions per year. Today, over 70 countries have something in the way of a space programme and along with a blossoming private space sector, space is likely to become very busy in the next decade or so. This surge of space activity will determine how the laws in space will apply and begin to set the scene for human civilisation beyond Earth.   On earth, most nations follow international laws most of the time.

International rules for operating in space were defined by the UN in five treaties established between 1967 – 1984.

  • 1967 – The Outer Space Treaty: Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.
  • 1968 – Rescue Agreement. Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
  • 1972 – The Liability agreement. Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects.
  • 1976 – The Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
  • 1984 – The Moon Treaty. Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.

How will these laws fair in space? For example, will all governments

  • “authorise and supervise” their  “non-governmental entities” in space?
  • comply with international liabilities for physical damages caused by their space objects?
  • agree on who can build what and where on the Moon?
  • establish mining and ownership rights to materials on the Moon and other celestial bodies?
  • maintain the principles of human rights in space.

These are some of the questions I discuss with  Bayar Goswami, a Doctoral student at the Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University (IASL) in Canada. A TedX speaker, Bayar has an interest in space as well as law and I started by asking him what came first.

The distinction between terms, such as signed, ratified and accessioned, is described here. A status of which nations have signed which treaty is maintained by the UN here. A summary of the five treaties is available here.

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