FIA Spacezone: Careers Day - Astronaut Tim Peake

ESA's astronaut, Tim Peake, delivered the following keynote address to start the Careers Day organised by the UK Space Agency, in the space zone of the Farnborough International Airshow.

ESA's astronaut, Tim Peake

"It’s great to be here in Farnborough and actually it’s great to be in the UK as I’ve spent much of my year outside of the UK.  My dream is to go into space and it always has been, but it’s been my passion for aviation that’s got me where I am today, so I am delighted to be surrounded by aircraft and aviation enthusiasts.

I recently had a trip to a new dentist; he asked me my profession, so I said I work with the European Space Agency. He jokingly said “Ahh, so you’re an astronaut then?   So I said “well actually yes, I suppose that is my title”, and there was this awkward silence where he thought is this guy for real, just pulling my leg or is he just mad?

Richard Branson arriving at Farnborough International Airshow

SpaceShipTwo!

FIA Spacezone: Space Day - Space Conference

I was excited to be invited by ESA to attend the Space Conference at the Farnborough International Airshow, on Tuesday 10^th July, to help publicise the event via twitter and social media. Several top figures from ESA, Roscosmos and other space agencies gave presentations.

J J Dordain (ESA), F Profumo (Italy), D Willets (UK), V Popovkin (Roscosmos)

Lecture by British astronaut, Helen Sharman, and former Soviet Cosmonaut, Anatoly Artsebarsky

Rocket Science! UK & Russia in orbit 

Helen Sharman & Anatoly Artsebarsky

This event was held as part of the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition, on Sunday 8th July. Helen Sharman became the first British astronaut on 18 May 1991, when the Soyuz TM-12 mission, with Anatoly Artsebarsky and Sergei Krikalev, flew to the Mir Space Station. I had been lucky enough to meet Sergei Krikalev at the ISS Symposium in Berlin in May earlier this year, so it was a lovely opportunity to meet his crew mates. Dr Helen Sharman OBE talked first, after introductions from the British ambassador in Moscow and the Royal Society.

Yuri Gagarin's statue, The Mall, London

On my way to the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, I took the opportunity to see Yuri Gagarin's statue, which was unveiled as part of the 50 year celebrations of his first space flight, in the UK-Russia Year of Space 2011.

Parliamentary Space Committee Summer Reception

Members Dining Room, House of Commons

The Parliamentary Space Committee (PSC) is a cross-party group of MPs and Peers who aim to raise awareness and understanding of the great benefits of Britain’s important role in space, while promoting dialogue between politicians and the space community. Around 120 representatives of industry, government and academia attended the reception. I was very grateful to have received an invitation to this event, held on 4^th July.

Excalibur Almaz Capsule in Westminster

The Space Tourism Conference took place at the Royal Aeronautical Society on Tuesday 19th June. I was unable to attend, but several friends went and reported that it was a very uplifting event, with so many companies making progress towards the first flights of their first commercial space vehicles.

Excalibur Almaz capsule
Photo credit: Amjad Zaidi

I met one of the attendees the next day, to visit the Excalibur Almaz capsule which was on display near Westminster. Some large posters were on display, to tell us full details of the long history of this vehicle:

Tour of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL)

I arranged to visit the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) after meeting a postdoc student back at the UKSEDS conference in March.  As I will be starting an MSc in Planetary Science at UCL in September, I was curious to find out what goes on at MSSL, which is part of UCL, 30 miles south of London, near Dorking.

Published!

I was delighted to wake up one morning in the USA to an email from a friend, Richard Painter, who was on my Arctic Science course back in February and is currently the projects officer for UKSEDS. He had received his copy of Spaceflight magazine (July 2012) from the British Interplanetary Society, and sent me a scan of my freshly published article about the UKSEDS conference.
You can buy a copy of the magazine here, or join the BIS here.

SpaceFest, Kitt Peak, Lowell Observatory, Meteor Crater

Gene Cernan & myself

I attended SpaceFest IV, in Tucson, Arizona, which took place 1-3rd June 2012. Guests included many of the Apollo astronauts, some shuttle astronauts, mission specialists and principal investigators of space missions, along with other space media personalities. There were three tracks of talks and meals with the astronauts.