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

Episode 67: Technik Museum Speyer

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IMG_3306This episode is a preview of some of the space related exhibits in Europe’s largest aerospace museum – Speyer Technik Museum, in Germany. If you ever go and the following may entice you to do so,  four space exhibits to look out for include the following:

Soyuz TM19 – The landing capsule Soyuz TM-19 was used by the German astronaut Ulf Merbold to return to Earth on 4th November 1994 following his launch in Soyuz TM-20 on 3rd October 1994.

Buran – The Soviet Space shuttle Buran was a the Soviet response to the American Space Shuttle. Two complete working vehicles were made.  The Buran was unmanned and, although reusable, was never actually reused. One made a single flight to space and was later destroyed when the hangar housing it collapsed. The other made 25 test flights also unmanned but only in Earth atmosphere.  Following an unexpected find in the Persian Gulf by German journalists, it was brought to Speyer in 2008.

Bor-5 – To assist the Soviets’ design of the Buran they built and flew BOR-5 – a  1:8 scale model of the Buran. Bor-5  made five unmanned sub-orbital test flights between 1984 and 1988.

Moon rock – One of the largest pieces of Moonrock I have seen on public display. It is from Apollo 15 mission but was unveiled at the Museum in June 2013 by Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan. 

If you do go, it is is a big place – one day is not enough!

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Episode 66: Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre

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November 21st 2013 was the 50th anniversary of a rocket launched from India in to space. The launch itself was an all Indian affair but with lots of international support. The rocket was American, carried a French Sodium Vapour payload with assisted by a computer and a helicopter from the Soviet Union. From this meagre beginning, India has become a key player not only  in building and launching rockets  but also designing , building and deploying satellites.

This episode was recorded on the site of that first launch. Then  known as the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launch Station and is today known as the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.  Sundaram Ramakrishnan, the current director of the  Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) talks about his 4 decade long career with the Indian Space Research Organisation. He has has played a central role throughout the development of India’s most reliable launcher – the  Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

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India and Space

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November 21st 2013 marks 50 years of the Indian space program. From humble beginnings devoid of infrastructure, experience or trained engineers, India today has an established track record of designing, building and launching satellites for its own national needs and commercially for others.

The next few podcast offer a glimpse of the people and achievements of this half a century old story .. so far.

Episode 62: An interview with Amrita Shah from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Author of the most comprehensive biography on Vikram Sarabhai (Vikram Sarabhai :  A Life). Book review of this fascinating book here.

Episode 63: Rakesh Sharma – India’s only spaceman. A video interview recorded in August 2013 where Rakesh Sharma talks about his spaceflight, its aftermath and his views on human spaceflight. Two minute trailer below.

Episode 64 – Bangalore Astronomical Society. Probably the most productive amateur astronomical society in India with a huge presence online and thus an international footprint.

Episode 65 – Professor UR Rao. A look back at the contribution of former ISRO chairman who was originally recruited in to the Indian Space program by Vikram Sarabhai. Whilst working at NASA in the early 1960s, a cosmic ray scientist Rao worked on several Pioneer and Explore spacecraft. Rao was in Dallas waiting to meet Kennedy on that fateful day…

Episode 66 –  Interview with director at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre originally known as Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launch Station. TERLS was the site of India’s first rocket launch in to space on 21st November 1963.

Rakesh Sharma two minute trailer

 

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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