Big Bang Fair! - London Excel

The national Big Bang Fair at the London Excel Centre lasts 4 days, in UK Science and Engineering week, and has over 70,000 visitors attend the four day event.  I was helping visitors identify meteorites from Earth rocks and investigate crater sizes by practical demonstrations on the UKSEDS stand, while also doing some shifts with the Kennedy Space Centre stand, where they had air-rockets which could be launched to the ceiling, with safety strings keeping them in place.

Dallas Campbell and me

Jon McBride and me

We met Dallas Campbell, star of Supersized Earth and other documentaries including a particularly great programme about the Voyager spacecraft, as well as shuttle astronaut Jon McBride, who flew as pilot on Challenger for mission STS-41-G back in 1984. He was very gracious about signing autographs for the long lines of young people, excited to meet an astronaut.

"Characterising Exoplanets", Royal Society

The Royal Society held a two day discussion meeting on "Characterising exoplanets: detection, formation, interiors, atmospheres and habitability" on 11-12 March 2013.  I was only able to attend the end of the second day, though luckily this included two of the speakers I most wanted to hear. Having recently enjoyed Professor Charles Cockell's astrobiology online Coursera course, I was delighted to meet him briefly afterwards.

Professor Charles Cockell

Dr Ignas Snellen from Leiden University mourned the fact that with the Terrestrial Planet Finder and Darwin missions having been cancelled, it is unlikely there will be a dedicated space telescope to search for biomarker gases in exoplanet atmospheres within his lifetime.  He reviewed the exciting results from ground-based telescopes and extrapolated to what may be obtained with the planned E-ELT in terms of better data in the future.

ISSET Astronaut Leadership Experience

Amazing weekend in the Lake District, with the International Space School Educational Trust, Ken Ham (Space Shuttle astronaut, Pilot STS-124, Commander STS-132), Michelle Ham (NASA Astronaut Trainer) and our incredibly helpful guides Chris and Steve, from mobileadventure.co.uk

Further detailed updates to come, but for now here is my "stepping off the cliff" moment on the first afternoon, on the zip line challenge! Thanks to Peter Andrews for the video.

Some photos from the weekend can be seen here.