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

IAC 2019 Washington DC

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This year’s IAC conference attracted nearly 7000 visitors, exceeding the 6500 in Bremen last years. Two record-breaking years for the IAC in consecutive years. Many astronauts (including Mae Jamison, Charles Bolden, Sergei Krikalev, Oleg Kotov, Sandy Magnus, Jean-François Clervoy, André Kuipers, Buzz Aldrin) were present to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Apollo.

A couple of the themes that caught my eye included

  • Space Situational Awareness (SSA) – The precision (and thus the ability to detect potential collisions) of what is up there and where it exactly is, remains a concern. This will be exasperated with more space assets from emerging nations and the private sector in the coming decade. The mega-constellations will significantly add to the congestion.
  • Satelite Service and refuelling – Lots of new players are developing the early stages of solutions that will prolong the operational lifetime of the spacecraft by providing servicing and refuelling. The use of additive manufacture (3-D printing), automation based on Machine learning and neural networks are already being developed on earth and demonstrated in space.

A bit about the International Astronautical Congress. It was established in 1950 and its governing body, the International Astronautical Federation, in 1951. An annual international congress is held in a different country each year in October. Last year, IAC was held in Germany, next year it will be in Dubai, Paris in 2021 and Baku in Azerbaijan was announced as the host city for 2022. India, Brazil and Singapore had put in a submission for 2022.

The current IAF president Jean-Yves Le Gall has come to the end of his term and is handing over to Pascale Ehrenfreund. The IAF has several vice presidents including ISRO’s S. Somanath since 2018. His welcome address for 2019 is below.

China and Russia had a minimal representation at IAC2019. The programme and the exhibition list entities from China but were absent. It appears that the Chinese delegations were denied US visa at very short notice.

Buzz Aldrin in Yorkshire

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To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11- reposting this 10-minute interview with Buzz Aldrin recorded on 30 April 2008. This was originally posted as episode 12. Some of the topics we spoke about were

  • Only became an astronaut after he failed to acquire a Rhodes scholarship.. twice!
  • Saw the Aurora borealis (Northern lights) from New Jersey
  • Saw more stars from Texas or Hawaii than when is space. The visor protection prevented him from seeing anything in the night sky except the Earth and the Sun from the lunar surface.
  • Dedicated his PhD thesis to the “the crew members of this country’s present and future manned space programs”.
  • Was concerned that his illness from Hepatitis may have impacted his NASA selection.
  • In 2002 he whacked a guy (persistent conspiracy theorists) at the “spur of the moment”.
  • Agrees that the film “In the shadow of the Moon” portrayed an accurate representation of the manned mission to the Moon

Episode 87 – Apollo Era recollections of a Brit working in NASA

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David Baker has been involved with the USA since childhood. First attending a US school in England and then studying in the US under a scholarship program sponsored by Senator Clinton P Anderson. He returned to the USA and worked for NASA on various programs from Gemini to the SpaceShuttle. After leaving NASA, he set up one of the earliest private space sector companies in London.

(Note – following questions on the veracity of his Phd, David Baker resigned from the BIS as the editor of Spaceflight on 25th March 2021.)

Today he is the editor of the British Interplanetary Society’s monthly journal – Spaceflight and a prolific author of space books. Some of the topics we spoke about include

  • Early interest in space and astronomy stimulated by milestones such as breaking of the sound barrier, Sputnik and Gagarin’s flight.
    Completed his PhD in Earth and Planetary physics.
  • Worked for Nasa between 1965 and 1984. Mainly in the mission
    Setup a consultancy in 1984 to bring US launch and satellites services to the wider international community.
  • Setup a consultancy in 1984 to bring US launch and satellites services to the wider international community
  • Delayed the launch of STS-41B in February 1984 carrying payloads for Indonesia and Western Union but problems with the payload Assist Modules did not meet the insurance certification requirements.
  • Was involved in the purchase by India its 4 INSAT satellites (INSAT 1A-1D) from Ford Aerospace in the USA.
  • Published over 110 books and more in the pipeline to mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

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Episode 84: NASA after the Shuttle. SLS and The Gateway

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David Baker

David Baker has been involved with the USA since childhood. First attending a US school in England and then studying in the US under a scholarship program sponsored by Senator Clinton P Anderson. He returned to the USA and worked for NASA on various programs from Gemini to the SpaceShuttle. He was present in mission control in 1970 and witnessed the drama of Apollo 13 first hand.

He joined the British Interplanetary Society in 1965, published his first article in the society’s journal Spaceflight in 1969 and since 2011 has been the editor of that very journal -Spaceflight. To date, he has published a remarkable 110 books by the close of 2018 with a few more in the pipeline for 2019 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11.

(Note – following questions on the veracity of his Phd, David Baker resigned from the BIS as the editor of Spaceflight on 25th March 2021.)

In this episode, we talk about the current status of the space programme in the US and the changing role of NASA.

  • The USA has not been able to launch US astronauts from the USA since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011. NASA found itself in a similar position between 1975 (Apollo Soyuz Test programme) and the first Space Shuttle in 1981.
  • Why NASA dropped the Ares programme and why its replacement, the Space Launch System (SLS) schedule remains unclear. The first SLS mission, uncrewed – Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) by 2020 and the second crewed mission, Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2) by 2023.
  • The successor to the ISS, the “Gateway” is an international project for a space station in lunar orbit. Only about a third of the size of the ISS and it will have fewer international partners.
  • The gateway is seen by Russia as an American lead programme. Will Russia participate with the gateway or consider a joint Russia/China human spaceflight programme?
  • China/USA cooperation in space has been prohibited ny US law. What prospects that this will change?

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