SGAC Newsletter - published!

As UK SGAC representatives, Ryan Laird and I co-wrote a report on our time spent at the Farnborough International Airshow in July 2012. This can be read on pages 14-16 of this SGAC August newsletter.

Mars Society UK AGM & Conference

The Mars Society UK AGM and conference took place on 25^th August 2012, at the National Space Centre in Leicester.  The Mars Society was originally formed in Colorado in 1988, and has had a UK branch since that time. In recent years the society has been restructured, and the new committee look forward to re-establishing the society and extending its membership across the UK.

National Space Centre, Leicester

The AGM re-elected Graham Dale as president, and then noted grateful thanks to Andy Nimmo who was retiring from his many years work as secretary. Paul Clark was elected in his place, and Robert Astbury volunteered to be the new press officer.  Jerry Stone has also joined the committee.

Flying a Cessna Skyhawk

Today, I flew a Cessna Skyhawk, during a 30 minute flight experience, courtesy of Tesco clubcard vouchers!

I didn't really know what to expect. When needing to spend some vouchers, this seemed to be the most fun option and I recently realised I had two weeks left before it expired. Thus, I arrived at the Goodwood Flying School, somewhat late, after underestimating the time to get there, being stuck behind a tractor, and finding their aerodrome somewhat difficult to navigate!

MSL “Curiosity” Landing event at the Natural History Museum, London

I joined a tense gathering at the Natural History Museum, just before 6am on Monday 6^th August, waiting to find out if the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) “Curiosity” would make it safely onto the surface of Mars.

Experts Dr Peter Grindrod from UCL, Dr Joe Michalski from the NHM annd Dr Matt Balme from the Open University were on hand as our panel for the morning, to guide and educate us through the landing as it happened.

Dr Peter Grindrod, Dr Joe Michalski, Dr Matt Balme

Alpbach Summer School 2012

The 36th annual Alpbach Summer School took place from 24th July - 2nd Aug, in Austria's "most beautiful village". 60 students from across Europe were divided into teams of 15 to design missions to the outer planets. I was one of four UK students awarded a UK Space Agency scholarship to attend, where I was placed in the Orange team and we came up with the iTOUR Investigative Tour of URanus mission in 8 days.

Our team reports and presentations can be found here.

Credit: Summer School Alpbach 2012/M.A. Jakob

A summary of Alpbach tweets can be found here.