AstrotalkUK

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

BIS Northern Meeting York 19th May 2012

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A British Interplanetary Society  meeting with a difference. The venue is in the North of England – the historic city of York. You don’t have to be a BIS member – all with an interest in spaceflight are welcome. A day long event with five speakers on subjects that include Lunar dust, Soviet & German spaceflight, origins of the BIS and technical details behind the phenomenal success of the Apollo progam.

A summary below. Full details in the pdf indicated at the bottom of the page.

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Date: Saturday 19th May 2011
Venue: Denham Room : Priory Street Centre, York , Y01 6ET
Cost: £5.00 – Full day event – Seating capacity limited to 50
Tickets – Book online here

Confirmed speakers

Deadly Lunar dust (Dr John Cain  – UK Space Biomedicine Association). The first extraterrestrial material transported by man from an alien world to Earth was the almost 400kg of lunar rocks and dust. It is mysterious, fascinating but dangerous too. What were the hazards to the Apollo astronauts who brought it here and what has been learned by the scientist in the 40 years of laboratory experiments?

Origins of the BIS in the Northwest (Gurbir Singh – https://astrotalkuk.org). The BIS was founded in the northwest of England in 1933. The key players were Philip Cleater in Liverpool and from 1936 until the end of the war, Eric Burgess in Manchester. How did they realise their ambitious vision of establishing an Interplanetary Society a quarter century before a satellite was actually put into orbit?

How Apollo flew to the Moon (David Woods – How Apollo flew to the Moon). The Apollo program that took two dozen men to the Moon between 1968 and 1972 succeeded because of ingenious technological solutions developed rapidly midst the haste of the cold war. The author of the book, “How Apollo flew to the Moon ” explains the details of one of mankind’s most remarkable technological achievements.

China’s Long March to the Cosmos  (Mike Hall – www. aelitauk.com) China was the third country to independently launch humans in to space. That was almost a decade ago. Further success has been swift, including a space walk and a woman in space. Current active programs include lunar orbiter, lunar lander, mission to Mars and a Space station. As we approach the 40th anniversary of the last men on the Moon, why is it that most experts believe that the next one will be Chinese?

German Rocket Development (Martin Dawson – York Astronomical Society). ‘Modern rocketry and spaceflight owe a lot to German rocket development of the 1920’s, ’30’s and ’40’s. Although born as a military weapon, scientists and engineers have turned this sword into a plough share. German rocketry is a story that should not be forgotten, it has highs and it has lows, but is always fascinating.

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Download this pdf for all the details. This document is version 02. I will keep it updated from time to time with a final (version 1.0) by end of April.

 

Episode 48: 13th February 2012: Mat Irvine, early BBC Special Effects Department and Sky at Night episode from 1963

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The same year that the first woman made it in to space in 1963, a quaint children’s sci-fi series called Dr Who started on BBC television in the UK.  Eventually it became popular around the world and has enjoyed success once more since it restarted again in 2005.

Mat Irvine worked in the special effects department of the BBC and made the original model of K9 for Dr Who but he also worked on other programs including the Sky at Night.

One of the memorable characters from Dr Who was Davros. The horribly scarred, evil looking megalomaniac creator of the Daleks and arch enemy of the doctor. Listen out for my faux pas when I refer to Davros as StavrosJ

In this episode, Mat talks about the special effects department in those early days at the BBC and about the recently resurfaced 1963 episode of Sky at Night featuring Arthur C Clark.

A clip from the missing episode was shown in the November 2011 edition of sky at night. You can see the full episode here.

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From Dying Stars to the Birth of Life – Book Review

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Title: From Dying Stars to the Birth of Life: The New Science of Astrobiology and the Search for Life in the Universe
Publisher : Nottingham University Press
Author: Jerry L Cranford
ISBN : 978-1-907284-79-3
Price: £24.99 [237 pages hardcover]

Subtitled as “The new science of astrobiology and the search for life in the universe”, this is an abundantly illustrated book that attempts to cover the immensity of the universe and the minuteness of a living cell. The author establishes at the outset that he is not an astronomer. A now retired professor with years of experience in psychology and “brain sciences”, he brings his expertise of academia and research to his childhood passion of astronomy.

Astrobiology is a relatively new and still developing interdisciplinary field that studies origin and evolution of life throughout the universe. This book attempts to deals with some of the most poignant questions of Astrobiology that have faced humanity from the beginning. Where did life come from? What does it mean to be alive? Are we alone in the universe?  So dramatic are the developments in science and technology over the last half century that for the first time in human history tangible experiments can now be performed that have the potential to answer them.

The first half of the book takes the reader from the Big Bang to the emergence of stars, galaxies, and eventually supernovae that generate the fundamental elements to the complex compounds necessary for the development of life.  I found chapters 3 and 4 that described the constituent parts of living cells and how they work particularly interesting.

The final chapter is more rewarding than the title “Some final thoughts from the author” may at first suggest. In it the author turns to the question of why, in the technologically rich 21st century, science has been unable to provide a definitive answer to Fermi’s paradox – given that the universe is old and big enough to have nurtured life elsewhere than just that on Earth, why is it that life on Earth is the only one for which evidence exists?

Written in a somewhat unusual style, it has a freshness that readers new to the field may find attractive. The author jumps about between using the first and third person, variously talking about himself as “I”, “we” and “the author”.  He also uses “the present author” or “the present book” — why not simply “the author” or “the book”?    Initially oddities like these and others are a distraction, but they are relatively easy to get used to.

In the preface the author acknowledges support from many, including Seth Shostak from the SETI institute. Additional input like that from other specialists e.g. cosmologists, evolutionary biologists or planetary astronomers would perhaps have introduced a greater authority to the final product.

Many of the illustrations are sourced from the public domain, a welcome trend which I hope will flourish. This book lacked the typical highly formal scientific approach that an astronomer would have taken.  The author’s highly personal approach and an abundance of genuine passion for this subject is his unique contribution in this book.  If you wondered what astrobiology is all about, this detailed and enthusiastic review from a dedicated amateur is a good starting point to the current state of the subject.

Falling to Earth – Book Review

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Title: Falling to Earth: An Apollo 15 Astronaut’s Journey to Earth
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
Author: Al Worden & Francis French
ISBN: 13: 978-1588343093 & ISBN 10: 158834309X
Price: $29.95 [304 pages hardcover]

Back in 1966 there used to be an American western TV series called “Branded”. The central character, a West Point graduate and US army captain Jason McCord, is thrown out of the army falsely accused of cowardice. Each episode opens with a humiliating public scene. As his fellow soldiers watch, the captain’s hat is tossed aside, epaulets and buttons ripped off and his sword is ceremonially broken in two before he is cast out of the fort and the doors slammed behind him.

Following the successful return of Apollo 15, Al Worden was accused of unfairly profiting from illicit postal covers (envelopes carried aboard Apollo 15, stamped on day of launch and again on splashdown), in a deal prearranged with a German businessman. Virtually all astronauts had taken personal items on their flights and subsequently sold them for cash later. This was a tradition that NASA had sanctioned since the days of Mercury. But Worden became the fall guy. Abandoned by Deke Slayton (NASA’s Director of Flight Crew Operations), humiliated by Chris Craft (NASA flight director) and dumped by Dave Scott (his Apollo 15 commander), Worden was the only astronaut to be sacked by NASA for this infringement. He was “branded”.

“Falling to Earth“‘ is Al Worden’s autobiography, written with the British but USA based space historian Francis French.   To mark the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 15, Worden has published the story of his mission as Apollo 15’s command module pilot  (CMP) and its immediate aftermath of what came to be known as the “covers incident”,  as the centre piece. With a foreword by Dick Gordon, an epilogue by Tom Stafford and further praise on the cover from Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and John Glenn, Worden has finally received the personal redemption from those that he considers matter most – fellow astronauts.

In this three hundred page book Worden describes how Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott arranged a deal with a German businessman for the whole crew. They would fly 100 postal covers to the Moon and back for him to sell privately and discreetly after the space program was over or they left NASA. In return he would set up a trust account of 7000USD in a German Bank for each astronaut to be used for their children’s education.  Within months after the flight it all went wrong. The covers were on the open market with Deke Slayton receiving queries about their authenticity from potential buyers.

Relegated to a desk job following this revelation, Worden describes the humiliating and painful events that followed. He felt ostracised from NASA and in his darker moments was left wondering if life was “still worth living” (p258). He reassesses the idea of honour and discipline he learnt at West Point and the tradition of loyalty within NASA as “bullshit” (p262).   His crewmate Jim Irvin retired and stepped out of the picture, his commander Dave Scott, despite having initiated the business deal, avoided any public castigation. Throughout the book, Worden charts Scott’s culpability in the incident whilst repeatedly emphasising his exemplary command integral to the outstanding success of their challenging mission. Tom Stafford indicates in his book (‘We Have Capture ‘, published in 2004) that this incident cost Scott the command of the USA/USSR joint flight (Apollo Soyuz Test Project) that Stafford went on to command. None of the Apollo 15 crew flew again.

Whilst this is the first detailed account of NASA’s infamous covers incident, there is much more. Worden describes his childhood on a farm in Michigan, homesteaded by his illegal immigrant grandfather Fred from Canada. He describes candidly the harsh reality of his early days at West Point military academy, and throughout the book uses terse and colourful language that he probably picked up there.  He describes with remarkable detail his time with the air force as a test pilot, including an exchange period to Britain, his selection and training as a NASA astronaut and his flight to the Moon. Like all the Apollo missions, Apollo 15’s was a mission impossible. With the heaviest payload and longest duration on the surface of the Moon, it was arguably the most scientifically ambitious lunar mission. It had its share of drama but ended with outstanding success.

This book offers the reader a clearer understanding of the role of the CMP.  As the Apollo 15 CMP, Worden was responsible for the science experiments installed in the specially developed Science Instrument Module (SIM) within the service module. He operated the cameras and instruments during his six days in lunar orbit, for three of which he was alone. During the return journey, whilst still 200,000 miles from Earth, Worden made the deepest of deep space walks to manually recover the film from the cameras in the SIM bay.

Worden insists it was never his intention to become an astronaut until the mid sixties. This ambivalence seems hard to accept from a 21st century perspective. Things were so different then. He describes his genuine fear that his impending divorce might cause him to lose his place on Apollo 15. He smoked then and continues to smoke today saying “if I could have found a safe way to do it, I would have smoked all the way to the Moon and back” (p75).  He too briefly deals with one of the mission’s many unique objectives, the launch from the SIM bay of a sub satellite prior to leaving lunar orbit.

Like any good wine, Worden’s story benefits from the long interval offering a deeper insight into the human element of human spaceflight. Written in a slick punchy style it is entertaining and remarkably informative equally for those who remember the Apollo era and those unfortunate to have been born after it was over.

Two dozen Americans visited the Moon between 1968 and 1972.  As their numbers dwindle and they age the astonishing achievements and sheer magic of that adventure is fading from living memory. Books like this not only introduce a new generation to one of humanity’s greatest adventures, but make a critical contribution to the collective record of that exceptional era by those who made it happen.