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

Dr 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.

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 86 – Moon: Art, Science, Culture

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The 50^th 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

Fritz Lang’s 1929 sci-fi movie (watch full-length movie on Youtube here) Frau im Mond.
The book has a chapter about the Nebra Sky Disk and we also discussed the Antikythera Mechanism.
One of the earliest books with a picture of the Moon, called The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite (link offers free download) written in 1874 by James Nasmyth and James Carpenter. Here is an interesting review of it from Dr Stephanie O’Rourke from the University of St Andrews.
The Bluedot Festival at Jodrell bank starts on Friday 19th July

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Episode 85 – Russia’s Space programme with Brian Harvey

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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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Enabling democracy through an App?

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I came across an interesting App on my Twitter feed a few weeks ago. A new startup in India has developed an app accessible only via cell phone on both the iPhone and Android platforms. Its called GovernEye and is designed to facilitate democratic engagement by allowing voters, elected politician and all stakeholders to communicated in multiple languages across India. All user posts are moderated, filtered foul language and checked against authoritative fact-checking services.

Here’s the unique thing, unlike Twitter or Facebook – GovernEye does not ask for Personal Identifiable Information like an email address or the cell phone number of its users. Its eventual funding model relies on targeted ads. So if no personal information is collected how are those ads targeted? Whilst data collected during registration does not uniquely identify individuals, data such date of birth and level of education and languages spoken is collected. This information is used to identify broad categories of users and it is these categories that are targeted by paid adverts.

There are many examples where social media has been used to corrupt democratic institutions and processes. Is GovernEye a potential solution for modern democracies around the world?

GovernEye is free for any users in or outside India and currently in pre-release phase and is expected to launch later in 2019. In this interview with GovernEye founder Anant Ahuja – I started off by asking him what was the problem that GovernEye set out to solve. Some of the topics we discuss include:

The process of user registration does not require personally identifiable information data (no email, name or telephone) is required for users to register for this app.
Initially, GoverEye was only available via a browser-based front end. Some users continue to continue to use the browser front end. Eventually, GovernEye will only be available via an App (Android and Apple) not available via a website.
GovernEye has no connections to Application Programming Interfaces (API) with other applications. User account creation must be a manual process.
Users’ approximate location can be inferred from the IP address, choice of voting constituencies and language preferences. Explicit user location is not collected.
India some villages share a single cell phone between multiple users so it is common to have multiple users associated with a single device.

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