UK Space Conference
I've just come back from the UK Space Conference (www.spaceconference.org.uk) where I met lots of rocket scientists. It was awesome. I will be writing up all my notes from the talks shortly. If any of the speakers read this, Duncan Law-Green says PowerPoint slides can be put on the website, so do send them to him.
Introduction:
For those who don't know, the conference used to be the British Rocketry Oral History Programme and has now been expanded to include current space research and an education section as well as the history stuff. There were stands from various companies and organisations in the exhibition hall, and there was a careers fair on the student day.
Cambridge bit:
Dave (my boyfriend, also on the Cambridge University Spaceflight team) spoke briefly to David Wright, who organises the conference, and there's a chance we might be presenting next year. There was a Leicester Uni session and an Open University session - it would be great if enough people from the IoA were interested that we could have a Cambridge session next year.
Talk 1:
The first talk I went to was by Steve Owens, UK co-coordinator for the International Year of Astronomy 2009. It's the anniversary of Galileo's discoveries in 1609 and the Moon landing in 1969. There was a mention of the Galileoscope $1 telescopes they're hoping to produce to encourage kids to learn about astronomy, and the website is www.astronomy2009.co.uk.
The second half of the talk was by David Williams, Director General of the British National Space Centre. I learnt how to pronounce the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. (Dee-uss, not diy-uss.) He talked about how much of our day-to-day life relies on satellites - not just satnav, but TV and broadband and weather forecasts. His powerpoint presentation needed proofreading - we muttered about the missing apostrophes and other typos and American spellings. He mentioned the National Space Centre in Leicester, and the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, Sep 29-0ct 3 this year, which is organised by the British Interplanetary Society. He talked about both the ESA projects that the UK is involved in and bilateral projects we're doing. Mars Express was launched in 2003. The main thing in the Aurora Programme is ExoMars. ESA are putting out an astronaut call this year. (I later learnt that this will be within a few weeks; they are recruiting 4 more astronauts to join their team of 6. Selection is from any ESA country, including the UK, and takes ages. They want you to be doing or have done a Masters or PhD, and piloting or SCUBA diving skills help, as does physical fitness.) The spectrometer that was designed for Beagle 2 is now used as a TB detector in Africa - space technology has wide-ranging applications. Satellites can help in disaster relief, with weather forecasting and spotting areas that have been devastated after a natural disaster.
The last bit of the first talk was by Anu Ojha, who works at Space Academy in Leicester. He is the Education Director for the NSC (Space Academy is the education outreach bit of the NSC). He started off with a Simpsons clip of space. To get kids and teachers interested, linking space to climate change and the curriculum is pretty effective. They do both academic and vocational stuff. He gave various examples of how learning about space can be used to teach parts of the National Curriculum as well. He's a good speaker, and seems like a businessman more than a geek, though I think it later emerged that he is a part-time physics teacher. Space School UK is a summer school in Leicester for secondary school pupils to learn about space. They have 25 places. There's also an ESA summer school in Norway, and they've just funded 15 UK places for that.
Part 2: http://cesy.livejournal.com/174263.html
Introduction:
For those who don't know, the conference used to be the British Rocketry Oral History Programme and has now been expanded to include current space research and an education section as well as the history stuff. There were stands from various companies and organisations in the exhibition hall, and there was a careers fair on the student day.
Cambridge bit:
Dave (my boyfriend, also on the Cambridge University Spaceflight team) spoke briefly to David Wright, who organises the conference, and there's a chance we might be presenting next year. There was a Leicester Uni session and an Open University session - it would be great if enough people from the IoA were interested that we could have a Cambridge session next year.
Talk 1:
The first talk I went to was by Steve Owens, UK co-coordinator for the International Year of Astronomy 2009. It's the anniversary of Galileo's discoveries in 1609 and the Moon landing in 1969. There was a mention of the Galileoscope $1 telescopes they're hoping to produce to encourage kids to learn about astronomy, and the website is www.astronomy2009.co.uk.
The second half of the talk was by David Williams, Director General of the British National Space Centre. I learnt how to pronounce the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. (Dee-uss, not diy-uss.) He talked about how much of our day-to-day life relies on satellites - not just satnav, but TV and broadband and weather forecasts. His powerpoint presentation needed proofreading - we muttered about the missing apostrophes and other typos and American spellings. He mentioned the National Space Centre in Leicester, and the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, Sep 29-0ct 3 this year, which is organised by the British Interplanetary Society. He talked about both the ESA projects that the UK is involved in and bilateral projects we're doing. Mars Express was launched in 2003. The main thing in the Aurora Programme is ExoMars. ESA are putting out an astronaut call this year. (I later learnt that this will be within a few weeks; they are recruiting 4 more astronauts to join their team of 6. Selection is from any ESA country, including the UK, and takes ages. They want you to be doing or have done a Masters or PhD, and piloting or SCUBA diving skills help, as does physical fitness.) The spectrometer that was designed for Beagle 2 is now used as a TB detector in Africa - space technology has wide-ranging applications. Satellites can help in disaster relief, with weather forecasting and spotting areas that have been devastated after a natural disaster.
The last bit of the first talk was by Anu Ojha, who works at Space Academy in Leicester. He is the Education Director for the NSC (Space Academy is the education outreach bit of the NSC). He started off with a Simpsons clip of space. To get kids and teachers interested, linking space to climate change and the curriculum is pretty effective. They do both academic and vocational stuff. He gave various examples of how learning about space can be used to teach parts of the National Curriculum as well. He's a good speaker, and seems like a businessman more than a geek, though I think it later emerged that he is a part-time physics teacher. Space School UK is a summer school in Leicester for secondary school pupils to learn about space. They have 25 places. There's also an ESA summer school in Norway, and they've just funded 15 UK places for that.
Part 2: http://cesy.livejournal.com/174263.html