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.

ISS Symposium: Charles Bolden

Future use of the ISS for Human Exploration: Charles Bolden (NASA Administrator)

“Throughout history, nations have always explored in order to develop humankind. Exploration drives technological breakthroughs that benefit all of society. The ISS is there to advance us further…but if we are not tangentially relevant, not improving life on Earth, then we are missing the boat, and we need to help remind everyone that we are trying to make life better for people here on Earth. In doing so, we improve our ability to explore.”

Charles Bolden
Photo credit: Remco Timmermans

These were Charles Bolden’s opening words, at the International Space Station (ISS) Symposium in Berlin on Friday 4, May.

ISS Symposium: Long-term Space Monitoring & Exposure

The International Space Station (ISS) Symposium titled “Research in Space for the Benefit of Humankind” was held in Berlin, Germany from 2-4 May, 2012. Over 250 delegates were invited to attend, representing all of the ISS partners and more. This session looked at past and future science carried out on the ISS concerned with long-term space monitoring.

Waleed Abdalati, Pascale Ehrenfreund, Julie Robinson,
Masaru Matsuoka Gerhard Schmidtke, Boris Zagreev, Torsten Neubert

Waleed Abdalati, NASA’s Chief Scientist, introduced the round table discussion by saying the international space station (ISS) is a great platform and opportunity, which we need to take advantage of in order to understand Earth, the universe, and our place in the universe. The science we can do from space spans earth science, heliophysics and astrophysics.

ISS Symposium: “The ISS has changed the world forever”

“In building the ISS partnership we have made an impossible step, we have changed the world forever.  The ISS is a model for the future of humanity. We have to manage the ISS as one part of a wider exploration program for the benefit of humanity”

Jean-Jacques Dordain

With these remarks, Jean-Jacques Dordain ESA Director General, opened the International Space Station (ISS) Symposium: “Research in Space for the Benefit of Humankind in Berlin” on Wed 2, May. Over 250 delegates were invited to attend, representing the ISS partner nations.

ISS Symposium: Berlin

I successfully applied for an invitation to the International Space Station Symposium which took place in Berlin, 2-4 May, 2012, and enjoyed an amazing two days learning about the science being conducted on the ISS.

Top respresentatives from all five ISS partners were in attendance, including Charles Bolden and John-Jacques Dordain. Over 250 delegates attended, a diverse range of stakeholders including astronauts, scientists, engineers and politicians.

Paolo Nespoli (ESA astronaut) very kindly spent a couple of hours talking with a small group of us after the gala dinner.

Photo credit: Brigitte Bailleul

Brigitte Bailleul, Paolo Nespoli, myself

“In Orbit” lecture by ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli

“When you leave the ISS, you close all the hatches, check your suit and don’t touch anything anymore. You make sure the seals are effectively sealed, else you’re stuck, you might not have enough oxygen.”

 

ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli (Italian), addressed the question of the amazing photographs he took when last leaving the ISS, given the unique opportunity to provide images of ISS with space shuttle Endeavour and ATV-2 both docked. The talk was part of the Mission X initiative and took place at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Saturday 28^th April. Due to transport issues he started with an impromptu questions and answers session.

Conference celebrating 50 years of the UK in space

There was a great program of events for this two day conference at the Science Museum.

My contribution to their official blog can be found here.

I was excited to meet and talk with John Zarnecki, who spent over 15 years of his life working on the science surface package for the Huygens probe, which successfully landed on Titan on 14th January 2005, and continued to send back data for over 90 minutes. I look forward to seeing him again this summer as he is a tutor at the Alpbach summer school.