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

Online via Zoom. History of Britain in Space, Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 visit to London and Manchester, Covid-19 Facts and Fiction, and Cybersecurity

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C3844735 10:00 Tue July 28th Britain in Space. The story of Britain’s space programme. Single presentation. Online and Free register here.

Tim Peake. Credit ESA
  • Early rocketry Societies in England
  • Development of British Ballistic Missile & Nuclear Tests in Australia
  • Launch Satellite of Black Arrow & satellite Prospero from Woomera
  • British Astronauts Helen Sharman & Tim Peake
  • UK Spaceports
  • Virgin Galactic & Orbit
  • SSTL and Skylon

C3844737 10:00 Thu July 30th. The Day the Cosmonaut came to Manchester. Single presentation. Free and online. Register here.

This presentation is based on my 2011 book – Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester. It will cover

  • Gagarin’s achievement?
  • What was he like as an individual?
  • Why he came to Britain?
  • Where in London and Manchester he went and who he met?
  • Legacy of his visit?

C3844797 11:00 Fri July 31st Covid-19 Facts and Fiction. Single presentation. Online and free. register here.

Covid-19

With support from Dr James Anson, a microbiologist and medical director at Liverpool Clinical laboratories, we explore the truth behind the globally popular myths listed on the World Health Organisation website.

C3844740 Staying Safe online. Starts Mon 3rd August. Introduction to key concepts and principles in information security for home computer users. Four weekly sessions. Register here

17:15 Aug 3rd Week1: Cyber Security concepts – an introduction
17:15 Aug 6th Week2: Common Cyber Attacks
17:15 Aug 10 Week3: Secure home working
17:15 Aug 13
Week4: Online Tools and resources

Stephen Smith and Leslie Johnson. Development of rockets during the 1930s and letters from Calcutta to Liverpool

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Stephen Smith with two of his rockets. Sikkim 1935, Credit Leslie Johnson

I came across the Liverpool/Calcutta connection during my research into the life and work of Stephen H Smith. During 1934 and 1944, Smith undertook around 300 rocket experiments to demonstrate the utility of a rocket to transport mail, medicines, food and living creatures. Similar experiments were being conducted in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and the USA, but in India, for over a decade it was just Smith.

The British Interplanetary Society had been founded in Liverpool in 1933. Smith conducted his first rocket experiments in September 1934 and it was published in the BIS Bulletin in November 1934. Smith in Calcutta joined the BIS around this time and established regular correspondence with the Leslie Johnson, the BIS secretary, in Liverpool. Johnson’s daughter still has a file of letters Smith sent from Calcutta to Liverpool in the late 1930s.

My book (India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer) will be published by the end of March 2020 and contains many pictures of Smith, his rockets and quotes from his letters. Some from the Johnson collection but other sources too.I could not include many in the book – so I am sharing some more here. Click on any of the images below to open the gallery viewer.


  • Smith conducted his first rocket mail experiment on 30 September 1934. It appeared in the November 1934 issue of the BIS Bulletin.
    Credit National Air and Space Museum. Washington DC

  • In the early 1930s, the founders of  nascent rocketry societies (Phil Cleator of the BIS in UK and Edward Pendray of the AIS in USA) were swapping notes on the work on rocketry being conducted by Smith and Goddard. Goddard’s contribution was incomparable to that of Smith’s.
    3 April 1936  From Phil Cleater to Edward Pendray.  Credit National Air and Space Museum. Washington DC 
  • To help raise funds and raise the BIS profile, members could purchase BIS headed paper to use as “Member’s correspondence”. Smith used it widely especially when communicating with the media to assert his credentials. He also used it to write one of his many letters to Leslie Johnson in Liverpool.
    29 September 1937 Members Correspondence with BIS logo. Credit Leslie Johnson

  • Stephen Smith (sitting bottom left) in Calcutta with a mostly obscured rocket launch frame for his rockets behind him. 
    22 July 1938.  Credit Ramu M Srinivasa

  • Soon after the BIS was founded in Liverpool, the Manchester Interplanetary Society was established in nearby Manchester. Headed by Eric Burgess, it did not last long and was later subsumed in to the BIS when it was reformed after the World War II in London. The MIS was just as ambitius as the BIS and published a journal called The Astronaut. 
    August 1938 – Manchester Interplanetary Society’s journal – The Astronaut.  Credit National Air and Space Museum. Washington DC.

  •  7 November 1949. Stephen Smith to Robert Paganini. Transcript below.

    “You may mention that I have been working on these tests for over 12 years  and that my work and experiments were increasingly more and (more) until the war when the military wrote to me on numerous occasions for aid. Tell him that I was India’s Pioneer Rocket experimenter and that I am an Indian by birth, having been born in Shillong, Assam. You may mention that I have done work in the Himalayas and that my efforts have been recognised  in the USA and the whole of Europe and yet I’m the land of my birth I am ignored and last though not least, thousands of my rocket mail letters, cards and stamps are scattered around the world. If his excellency the governor, Dr Katju should be interested he should send for me for a private discussion on a field of experiments now occupying the world.  Thank you my good friend, thank you a thousand times and god bless you for your great kindness to me.” 
    7 November 1949. Credit Robert Paganini collection. Museum of Communication, Bern Switzerland.

  •   2 March 1950 From Stephen Smith to Robert Paganini
     Smith complaining that he has not received a response from any senior politicians including Prime Minister Nehru. “I have not heard a line from H.E. Dr Katju or Dr B. L Roy or Pandit Nehru. They will not have anything to do with anyone, except one who is an India. This is life.” 
      2 March 1950 Credit Robert Paganini collection. Museum of Communication, Bern Switzerland. 
  • Smith hints at an “offer of his services” but cannot tell anyone.
    6 April 1946 from Stephen Smith to Robert Paganini    . Credit Robert Paganini collection. Museum of Communication, Bern Switzerland

  • Extract from Robert Paganini’s will. Paganini died on 6 December 1950. He left a quarter of his estate to Stephen Smith – someone he had never met. Smith himself died three months later.
    Credit Robert Paganini collection. Museum of Communication, Bern Switzerland. 

Episode 89 – Carbon Nanotubes

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Gadhadar Reddy

In his 1979 novel, Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C Clarke imagines a cable stretching from the Earth’s equator to Geosynchronous orbit. He called it a “space elevator” and imagined it would be constructed from continuous pseudo-one-dimensional diamond crystals. Bangalore based NoPo Technologies is now commercially producing Carbon Nanotubes. Could this material, one day be used to construct Clarke’s space elevator?

Materials that offer high strength alongside low mass are highly sought after by the aerospace industry. In the past, it was aluminium, titanium and Carbon fibre. The new wave of materials consists of Graphene and Carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes like diamonds, soot and graphene are allotropes of Carbon. Same atomic structure but differ in physical construction.

NoPo Technologies was established in 2011 by the CEO Gadhadar Reddy and is already commercially supply Carbon Nanotubes to Japan and elsewhere.

Some of the themes we discussed include:

  • NoPo Technologies was incorporated in 2011 and is probably the only producer of Carbon Nanotubes in India at the present.
  • Carbon Nanotubes have desirable attributes of high thermal and electrical conductivity, tensile strength, resilience to radiation and are extremely lightweight.
  • Nopo Technologies commercially produce single-walled Carbon Nanotubes of about 8 nm diameter and 2000 nm long.
  • Use cases currently include lightning conductors on aircraft, insulators for cryogenic fuel tanks, black surfaces for star trackers on spacecraft and molecular scale filters that can be used for producing biological membranes or even water filters for desalination plants.

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  • NOPO Offices in Bangalore
  • Electron Microscope
  • Carbon Nanotubes
  • Anto assessing a new batch of Carbon Nanotubes
  • Manufacturing vessel
  • Raman Specrometer

Episode 88 – India’s Private Space Sector

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Narayan Prasad

No country has exploited space for social and economic benefits more than India. It has always been a government-run operation, until now.

As in other nations, the private space sector is emerging in India. One name that pops up when discussing private and commercial space in India is Narayanan Prasad. He has been instrumental in forging platforms where all stakeholders from the New Space Community can support each other and share views, opinions and news. The platforms include Whatsapp, Blog, Telegram and a New Space India Podcast.

In this episode, he recalls his journey so far and his part in his own start-up Satsearch.co as its COO. Here are some of the key takeaways from this interview

  • Most private sector players build products designed by ISRO under licence from ISRO. Private Space Sector in India is subject to excessive government bureaucracy preventing engagement from private investigators.
  • An independent regulator is needed. Independent regulator in telecommunication opened up the market for private telephone lines. An independent regulator for the private space sector is essential for this market to flourish.
  • NASA has created the Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) to engage the private space sector companies. India does not have anything equivalent.
  • This year ISRO established the New Space India Limited (NSIL). It was established to limit the potential impact of the Antrix/Devas case.
  • Policies exist in India for Communication and Remote Sensing but no overall policy for Space – yet. Although a draft Space bill was published in 2017 for comment. That bill drew a distinction between companies that work with ISRO and those outside ISRO.
  • Two of many space startups in India include 
    • Bellatrix Aerospace produces Ion engines for in-orbit spacecraft propulsion. Ion propulsion and reduce the spacecraft weight and extend the operational lifetime by about 60%
    • NoPo technologies are the only producer of Carbon Nanotubes in India. Like Graphene, Carbon Nanotube is an allotrope of Carbon. The unique properties include high tensile strength, electric and thermal conductivities.
  • Satsearch.co – now 3.5 years old based in the Netherlands and managed by a distributed team based in Germany, Netherlands, Italy and England.  Had it been based in India – it may have been subject to restrictions e.g queries coming in from Suparco in Pakistan.
  • As with any new emerging industry – most of the current space startups will cease to exist within 5-7 years from now.

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