AstrotalkUK

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

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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Enabling democracy through an App?

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www.governeye.com

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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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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Episode 83: India’s Human Spaceflight Programme with R Umamaheswaran

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R. Umamaheshwaren. Credit: Author

R Umamaheswaren was born in 1963, the same year that India initiated its space programme with the first-ever launch of a rocket into space from Indian soil. He is currently serving as the Scientific Secretary to the chairman. This was recorded at the IAC2018 (so a little noisy background). Audio and video available below.

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He first joined ISRO in 1987 as an avionics and communications engineer at the VSSC and has held several posts including

  • Deputy director for the GSLV launch vehicle
  • Mission director for 3 GSLV launches
  • GSLV Mk3 to launch in November 2018 with high throughput satellites GSAT-29 to support the Digital India programme. A total of 100GBPS will be available from space once the other two satellites  are launched.
  • Dr. Lalitambika. Directeor of ISRO Human Spaceflight Programe. Credit TEDX
  • Pad Abort Test. Credit ISRO
  • Pad Abort Test. Credit ISRO
  • Pad Abort Test. Credit ISRO

Fundamental system and engineering challenges have been addressed and  India is ready for human spaceflight. ISRO conducted a Pad Abort Test on 5th July 2018 – Youtube video here. Currently, the roadmap looks like this

  • Crew selection – discussion underway.
  • Two uncrewed missions will take place – no animals required. Sensors and instruments will be sufficient.
  • Astronaut training – under discussion. Astronaut training support will be required from a third country – yet to be announced. 
  • Not necessary for potential applicants to be test pilots.
  • Prospect for a female to be part of the first crew is “very high”.
  • First uncrewed flight start in late 2020.
  • A longer vision for Human Spaceflight –  priorities not yet defined.