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Episode 61: Reg Turnill on Wernher von Braun

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Reg Turnill wit von Braun
Reg Turnill with Wernher von Braun 1977

Like so many in the “space community” I was saddened to hear of the passing of Reg Turnill. He was  the BBC’s aerospace correspondent but is  best known  for covering the American Space program  throughout the 60s and 70s that he documents so well in his book Moonlandings: An eye witness account.

He was the BBC’s representative in Moscow at Gagarin’s post flight press conference and told me in episode 41 of his experience when I went to meet him in January 2011.

Reg captures the ambiguity of the brilliant Wernher von Braun who he got to know so well that he called him a friend and yet believed that he was a war criminal and should have been hanged.

In this 30 minute podcast , the first a six minutes is  telephone conversation recorded on 3rd November 2011 followed by extracts from his talk at the UK Space Conference 5th July 2011 “The von Braun that I knew”. Reg shares three of his audio interviews with von Braun, the audio quality of the 2nd and 3rd is better than the first.

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Episode 60: Square Kilometre Array

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Artists impression – from http://www.skatelescope.org/

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a global science and engineering project to build a revolutionary new radio telescope with extraordinary scientific ambitions.

With funding from ten nations the building of the SKA will start in 2016 and be fully operational in 2024. It will tackle some of the profoundest questions of cosmology associated with organic molecules, gravitational waves,  pulsars orbiting black holes and light from the earliest stars that illuminated the universe. To do this the SKA will require super computers,  innovative new power stations and high speed communication links  that currently do not exist.

This interview with Professor Michael Kramer was recorded in March 2012 at the National Astronomy Meeting in the University Manchester two months prior to the announcement that the Square Kilometre Array will be built in South Africa along with  Australia & New Zealand.

Professor Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany that manages the 100m Effelsberg Radio Telescope  is  a former associate director at Jodrell Bank and still professor  there, talks about the technical, political and economic concerns associated with the SKA project.

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Episode 59: Astrophotograpy

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Nik Szymanek
Nik Szymanek

If you have ever been to London and used the underground Tube service, it may well have been driven by the speaker in this episode. That is his day job but Nik Szymanek  is one of Britain’s best known astrophotographers.

This interview was recorded during National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Manchester in 2012. Nik collaborates with Ian King and in this episode discusses how he got started, issues to consider for those moving in to astrophotograpy and how things have changed in this developing field. He also talks about another growing area of interest to amateur astronomers  – a personal remote telescope.

David Ratledge another accomplished astrophotographer based in the north west of England has  some very useful links for astrophotography on his website http://www.deep-sky.co.uk/links.htm.

 

 

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Episode 58: Astronauts Joe Engle and Ron Garan

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Joe EngleThe first  interview in this episode is with astronaut Joe Engle was recorded during his visit to the UK in 2008.   Joe Engle was at the front of the queue  to go to the Moon when NASA cut its Apollo program. His place was taken by the geologist Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17 – the last manned mission to the Moon. In this interview Joe talk about his work before and after Apollo – on the X-15 and Space Shuttle programs.

The second short interview with astronaut Ron Garan was recorded at TedXSalford in January 2012 (unfortunately the recording stopped prematurely).  You can see more about the online community offering a “unique orbital perspective of men and women who live and work in Space” online at Fragile Oasis.

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You can see the video of his talk  on this link http://youtu.be/lJNbjSLvtpI