Spaceflight Archives - Page 4 of 12 AstrotalkUK

Mars, Gagarin, SETI and British Space Programme

By Gurbir Dated: February 10, 2021 4 Comments

As part of the WEA’s Festival of Ideas, I will be presenting a series of four two-hour online Zoom meetings (not webinars) with Q&A. The cost for each is £10.00 but depending on personal circumstances – free.

Exploring Mars: 09:45 – 11:45 22 Feb 2021
It’s getting busy on Mars. Currently, Mars has two spacecraft on the surface and another five in orbit from the USA, Europe and India. In February three more will arrive from the United Arab Emirates, USA and China. NASA will attempt to land its most advanced Martian rover called Perseverance on Thursday 18th February, and China will attempt to land its rover in May.

What have we learnt about the red planet’s surface, atmosphere and chemistry? Did Mars have life in the past? Is there life there now? What does the evidence show so far? The dream for humans going to Mars has been written about for centuries are we about to see it happening?

The Day the Cosmonaut came to Manchester 09:45 – 11:45 1 Mar 2021
Three months after the world’s first human in spaceflight, that human, USSR cosmonaut Major Yuri Gagarin, spent five days in Britain. Mostly in London but on 12 July 1961 he came to Manchester for the day. At the time, he was the only human to have orbited the Earth. Why did he come to London and Manchester? Where did he go and who did he meet and what was the impact of his visit between the East and West in the midst of the Cold War?

Based on my 2011 book – Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester

The search for life beyond the Earth 09:45 – 11:45 8 Mar 2021
The search for life beyond the Earth has been a constant quest in human history. Developments in the 20th century in radio astronomy and space technology have sped up the search for life in the solar system and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). How is that search going? What is the latest progress and current status?

The rise, fall and rise again of the British Space Programme 09:45-11:45 15 Mar 2021
Did you know that Britain is the only country to have developed rockets, launched a satellite and then … pulled the plug on its space programme? That was in 1971 but now the space industry in Britain is thriving once more. This presentation is a look back at early space developments in Britain and why it is thriving again today.

Online Course – The New Space Age

By Gurbir Dated: March 3, 2020 Leave a Comment

A new online introductory (yes – for beginners) course from the Workers’ Educational Association supported by the Royal Astronomical Society. Enrolment requirements include:

You have been resident in the UK, EU or EEA for the last 3 years
You are aged 19 years or older on 1st September 2019
Starts at 19:00 on Tuesday 10^th March 2020. Cost is £20 or free if eligible

International Space Station — Credit ESA

Over six weekly ninety-minute sessions online, the course will look at space programmes and missions being conducted by many countries and companies right now. Starting 10th March 2020. The six sessions will cover

From the Space Race to the New Space Age. How has human space exploration evolved since the launch of Sputnik in 1957?
Services from space. All those satellites in space, what impact do they have on the quality of lives of people on Earth?
The Private Space Sector. It has been emerging for many years. Has it finally arrived?
Environmental control in space. Can the international community apply the lessons of climate change on Earth to the space environment around Earth and beyond?
Militarisation of space. Humans on Earth have always fought on the land, sea and the air. Is war in space inevitable?
Humans in Space. In this decade, will humans walk on the Moon again? Will this decade deliver, finally the promise of space tourism?

More info and Signup Here

Episode 91 – ISRO and the Spy who was not

By Gurbir Dated: November 15, 2019 Leave a Comment

One of the most fascinating and colourful characters associated with the Indian Space Programme is Narayan Nambi.

In 1994, Nambi Narayanan an ISRO aerospace engineer was falsely arrested by the Investigation Beuro on charges of espionage. He was accused of passing on confidential launch vehicle flight test data to foreign nationals. In 1996 he was cleared by the Central Investigations Bureau and India’s Supreme Court found him not guilty in 1998. In 2019 he was presented with India’s third-highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan.

In 1966 he joined ISRO or INCOSPAR as it was known at that time. With the guidance and support of Vikram Sarabhai, he went to study liquid and cryogenic engine technology at Princeton in 1969. He worked on the early stages of the development of the Vikas liquid engine which now powers two of the four stages of the PSLV.

Some of the topics we discussed include:

During the 1960s he visited the Spadadam site near Carlisle. Today it is a Royal Airforce Station but in the 1960s it was the site used by the British Government test rocket engines and to develop Blue Streak – an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile.
In 1974 ISRO concluded a barter arrangement – no money changed hands. India would provide 100 man-years trained engineers. 75% of this time would towards supporting France developing their (then new) Ariane 1 launcher and 25% would be used by India to develop the Vikas Engine with the technology transfer from France. Indian engineers would also build, test and qualify 100,000 pressure transducers for France.
He claims to be the architect of this unique barter arrangement. In addition to being the father and architect of the PSLV.
He suspects that the intelligence Beuro picked on him to slow down the Cryogenic engine development and remove him as project director.
Speculating on the why the Vikram lander failed to make a soft landing he thinks it may have been related to the automatic landing sequence (software) or an issue with the braking thrusters.
He is an advocate of an Asian Space Agency lead by India.
He believes China space programme is not ahead of India’s because India has succeeded with the Mars Orbiter Mission.
He would like India and China to increase collaboration in space.
In 2017, he published a book on his experiences and a film based on the book will be released in late 2019.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:52 — 67.9MB) | Embed

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Episode 89 – Carbon Nanotubes

By Gurbir Dated: October 25, 2019 1 Comment

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.