Post-Alpbach, Graz

I was extremely pleased to be selected as one of fifteen students from the original sixty at the Alpbach Summer School, to attend the Post-Alpbach follow up workshop in Graz.

We had all been on different teams previously in July, so we came together to work on one mission, expanding our research in more detail in establishing a viable Uranus mission proposal.

We are continuing to work on finalising a paper for publication and the team will be presenting this work as a poster at the Lunar & Planetary Science Conference, Houston in March and at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly, Vienna in April.

Post-Alpbach Team, Photo credit Ingo Gerth

Elon Musk at the Royal Aeronautical Society

Elon Musk gave a great talk at the Royal Aeronautical Society, shortly after the October successful launch of his Falcon rocket and flight of the Dragon capsule on the first official resupply mission to the International Space Station.

Me with Elon Musk

Sir Arthur Clarke Awards, House of Lords

The Sir Arthur Clarke annual awards were made at a lunchtime ceremony arranged by the British Interplanetary Society at the House of Lords, for significant contributions to the space community. Jon Culshaw was a brilliant compere, and the full list of winners can be seen here.

I joined the UKSEDS committee member for a photo with Jon Culshaw.

Jeremy Nickless, Zoe Versey, Jon Culshaw, Richard Painter, me, Ryan Laird
Photo credit: Jerry Stone

EPSC - European Planetary Science Congress

The European Planetary Science Congress took place in Madrid, Spain from 23-28 September 2012. We were invited to present our work carried out at the Alpbach Summer School both as posters and as 15 minute presentations in a special lunchtime session that had been added at short notice.

We were questioned by a Mission Specialist from NASA's JPL who was very interested in the summer school and kind enough to send positive comments back to the organisers afterwards.

Our Team Orange poster

We went on an excursion to the Centro De Astrobiologia, who gave us a fascinating tour round their modern facilities and gave us a demonstration of their machines to investigate crater formation. It was a great week and a wonderful opportuity to experience Europe's top Planetary Science conference, just before starting my MSc.

SpaceUp EU - a space un-conference!

The first SpaceUp EU unconference took place at the Cosmodrome in Genk, Belgium on 22-23 September 2012. The organisers, dedicated experienced space tweeps Remco Timmermans (Netherlands), Eico Newmann (Germany), Angie Kanellopoulou (Greece), Marco Frissen (Netherlands), Joachim Baptist (Belgium) and Alex von Eckartsberg (Germany) did a spectacular job of running a top event. The 100 spots sold out to people from 15 different countries and sadly last minute enquiries for tickets had to be turned away.

Our hosts: Marco, Remco, Eico, Alex, Angie, Joachim

ESERO-UK Space Education Conference

I'm very grateful to the UK Space agency for publishing my report on their blog.

Also to the Space Generation Advisory Council for publishing me in their September newsletter. 

Popular Astronomy magazine - published!

The September-October edition of Popular Astronomy magazine contains two feature articles I co-wrote with Nick Howes, about our trip to SpaceFest and other space attractions in Arizona such as Meteor Crater and Kitts Peak Observatory. The front cover features Nick's amazing images of the transit of Venus.
It can be obtained from the SPA here.
Many thanks to Nick Howes and to Peter Grego for publishing these.

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!