08 July 2013

A good day at the office

It used to be that people who were honoured by the Queen had either gone above and beyond the call of duty, done things out of pure altruism, or dedicated a life to public service. But things are changing.

So when Prime Minister David Cameron declared that Andy Murray deserved a Knighthood after becoming the first Briton to win the Wimbledon men's singles since 1936 wasn’t he riding the anti-authoritarian bandwagon, just as Tony Blair did before him?

I watched Murray on Sunday and was as thrilled as everyone else that he won an extraordinary game of tennis. I’m not convinced, however, that it merits a Knighthood.

The next day when Murray appeared at 10 Downing Street, Cameron certainly maximised the opportunity to bask in another’s reflected glory and deliver his ill-thought popularist riposte to a nation still riding a tide of emotional delight.

"I can't think of anyone who deserves one more," said Mr Cameron, in prose that somehow seemed rather weak and bereft of occasion for the political leader of our country.

Murray responded later, saying: "It's a nice thing to have or be offered but I don't know if it merits that."

Our modern-day obsession with celebrity probably has something to do with it - but Cameron ought to know better than jockeying for cheap, short-term popularity with words that hardly sounded sincere.

Should we be rewarding our sporting heros for ‘just doing their job’? Well the precedents have already been set, so it may be hard to pull back.

Remember, for example, our yatching heroine Ellen MacArthur who was made a dame before she had even set foot back on dry land?

In a similar, distorted vein we’ve been ‘rewarding’ bankers and heads of giant corporations with mega bonus’s, even when they’ve been serving a string of corporate or fiancial faults.

So fast-forward to the summer of 2014 and let’s indulge in a little ‘what if’ speculation around an unlikely outcome of the World Cup in Brazil.

Suspend reality for a moment and imagine that our lads in the England team finally get it together and play for the mother-land like never before, emulating Murray and winning the elusive soccer trophy for the first time since 1966.

A big ask I grant you - but while we are at it let’s take this topsy turvy idea a giant leap further and imagine that Wayne Rooney is the superstar hero of the tournament, scoring a series of stunning goals and rounding it all off with a hat-trick in the final.

Yes Siree - you’ve got it! Arise Sir Wayne!

20 May 2013

British astronaut flight

"This is Ground Control to Major Tim - congratulations on your selection as ESA’s first British astronaut to undertake a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015; you are cleared for takeoff!"

At a press conference in London this morning (Monday, 20 May) ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain will officially name the first official British astronaut to undertake a space mission for 20 years.

Major Tim Peake, Britain's first ESA astronaut, became eligible for space missions in 2010 after completing more than a year of intensive training with the European Space Agency (ESA).

Peake, a former army helicopter test pilot from Chichester, England, was one of six other astronauts selected from across Europe in 2009.

The first place aboard a Russian Soyuz for launch this spring went to an Italian astronaut and it was widely expected that Britain’s astronaut would have to wait until 2017 for a ride into space.

11 May 2013

Emergency spacewalk

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) embark on an emergency spacewalk today to try to fix an ammonia leak in a cooling system on one of the Station's solar arrays.

The crew spotted a steady stream of small, white frozen ammonia flakes floating away from a coolant line outside the orbital outpost on Thursday.

Mission managers reviewed images and data gathered overnight and said yesterday that they planned to send American astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn out to try to seal the leak by replacing a pump on the cooling system.

"The crew is not in danger, and the Station continues to operate normally otherwise," a NASA spokesman said.

Ammonia is used to cool the power systems that operate the solar arrays, which provide electricity to the Space Station. Each of the eight solar arrays has its own independent cooling system.

The leak is on the far left side of the Station's truss structure, in an ammonia loop that astronauts previously tried to troubleshoot during a spacewalk last November.

While Cassidy and Marshburn are working outside the ISS, crew commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut, will choreograph their movements from inside. Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov, Alexander Misurkin and Roman Romanenko make up the rest of the crew.

Work was undertaken to re-route the remaining power channels to maintain full operation of the systems normally controlled by the solar array that is cooled by the leaking loop.

After making their way 150 feet or so from the airlock to the far end of the P6 truss, Marshburn and Cassidy will visually inspect the area around the pump module to see if there are any obvious signs of micrometeoroid damage or any other problems.

On the assumption the leak is located is the 250-pound PFCS (Pump Flow Control Subassembly) box, Marshburn and Cassidy will install a replacement from one of three onboard spares. They also will carry out a detailed inspection of the bay where the pump is housed.

If the leak is still present after the pump module is replaced, engineers will have to go back to the drawing board to come up with a different solution.

Whatever the outcome, three of the station's six-man crew - Marshburn, Hadfield and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko - will undock as planned on Monday and return to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry craft to end their 146-day stay in space.

Three fresh crew members - NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin - are scheduled for launch to the ISS later this month, boosting the crew back to six.

If an additional near-term spacewalk is needed to resolve the coolant leak, it would fall to Cassidy and Parmitano, who already are scheduled for previously-planned spacewalks on July 9 and 16.

The ISS is a £65 billion research laboratory that orbits 250 miles above Earth, and is jointly owned by the United States and Russia in partnership with Europe, Japan and Canada.

24 December 2012

Earth rise

Forty-four years ago tonight on Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 was taking men around the Moon for the first time in history.

From lunar orbit Commander Frank Borman turned the camera toward Earth and gave mankind the first look at itself from deep space.


The crew then took turns reading from Genesis 1 to a mesmerised audience of millions back home.

William Anders: "For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."

Jim Lovell: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

Borman: "And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good."

Borman concluded the broadcast with the words: "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth."


05 October 2012

Moonwalker's tribute

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, received a standing ovation after offering a moving and poignant personal tribute to his former colleague Neil Armstrong on the final day of the 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy, today (Friday, 5 October).

The presence of Aldrin, alongside two European astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut, guaranteed there was standing room only in the International Astronautical Federation's (IAF) Global Networking Forum (GNF) meeting room.



Aldrin said that he had hoped that all three members of the Apollo 11 crew - Armstrong, Mike Collins and himself - would have been around to celebrate together the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing in 2019.

"His one ‘small step' changed the world and will forever be remembered as a landmark moment in all of human history," said Aldrin.

He also showed his film ‘The Apollo Dream', adding that Armstrong, who died in August, had left the world a strong and lasting legacy which everyone had a duty to fulfill.

After his presentation, European astronauts Christer Fuglesang and Paulo Nespoli, along with cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, gave short presentations on their spaceflight experiences and then answered a variety of questions from the audience.
 
The GNF, an evolution and transformation of the former IAF Cluster Forum, proved a big success throughout the week, attracting a large number of delegates to a range of meetings and sessions.

It included several dedicated days and sessions, including a Heads of Agencies press conference, an Industry Day, and sessions looking at the Social Impacts of Human Spaceflight and Space Careers, as well as the Astronauts' Day.

During Industry Day (Tuesday, 2 October) panels of industry and space organisation experts debated the economic impacts of Satellite Navigation Systems, Earth Observation challenges and the new European-developed rocket Vega.

Among the items that came up for discussion during the session on ‘Economic impacts of Satellite Navigation Systems' was the dispute over satellite navigation frequencies between China and Europe.

Paul Weissenberg, Deputy DG, Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General of the European Commission, stated that it had been agreed to take their dispute to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) by the end of this year.

The GNF was also the location on Wednesday for the IAF's extraordinary session at which space-flown flags were handed to member organisations to commemorate the Federation's 60th anniversary.

The flags - flown on Soyuz TMA-20, the International Space Station, Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134), and China's Tiangong-1 and Shenzhou-9 spacecraft - were presented to IAF member organisations by President Berndt Feuerbacher.


The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website





SpaceX on target

Delegates at the 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy, were treated to a first-hand update on the latest news from commercial space company SpaceX on Friday, 5 October - just two days before the planned launch of its latest mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Introducing the third ‘breaking news' session of the week Barry Matsumori, Senior Vice-President of Commercial Sales and Business Development at SpaceX, quipped that he and his colleague Robert Feierbach, Vice-President of Business Development, were the only two employees not working on Sunday's launch.

On the heels of a successful debut flight to the Space Station in May of this year, SpaceX launches its first commercial Dragon resupply mission to the Space Station under a contract that will see 12 such missions.

Launch of the SpaceX CRS-1 flight was set for 20:35 EDT on 7 October from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

After arrival at the ISS on 10 October, Dragon, grappled and berthed to the complex for an expected two-week visit, is scheduled to return to Earth on October 28 for a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of southern California.

Dragon is currently the only Space Station cargo craft capable of returning a significant amount of supplies back to Earth, including experiments.

For this mission, it is filled with about 1,000 pounds of supplies, including critical materials to support the 166 investigations planned for the Station's Expedition 33 crew.

Dragon will return with about 734 pounds of scientific materials, including results from human research, biotechnology, materials and education experiments, as well as about 504 pounds of Space Station hardware.

Matsumori explained that SpaceX had been in existence for just a decade, making it a young company in aerospace terms. "We have come a long way in that time and now have 1800 employees which are growing at around 200 per year," he said.

SpaceX currently launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California but Matsumori said the company is looking at the possibility of an additional commercial launch site.

"We want to ensure we have plenty of capacity and a new launch site would be used particularly for sending payloads into geostationary orbits," he said.

Potential sites under evaluation are in South Texas, where the company also has an engine test range, Florida, and "other locations" on mainland USA.

Matsumori wasn't able to provide further details but said that the timing of any new site coming on stream would be largely dependent on the length of time required for environmental approvals.

He described SpaceX as an ‘internet' company and said that it had a reputation in the industry for being very competitive, and was driven by the goals of achieving high reliability and lost cost production.

The company's current product line comprises the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, the Falcon 9 with a 5.2 metre fairing, and the upcoming Falcon Heavy - essentially made from three Falcon 9's strapped together - which is under development.

"The Falcon 9 - so-called because it has nine engines and after the Millennium Falcon spacecraft of Star War's fame - is a two-stage vehicle for reliability and simplicity," he explained.

During the session, Matsumori also gave a technical overview of the summer's COTS 2 (Commercial Orbital Transportation Service) mission carrying cargo to the ISS for the first time and showed a short film of mission footage.

Afterwards, he said the simplicity of the film wasn't able to convey the true complexity of the flight in all its detail. "It was our first mission to the ISS and we didn't want to make any mistakes," he told delegates.



The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website

04 October 2012

Unique space flags

The only objects on Earth to have flown on all spacecraft belonging to all nations with an active human spaceflight programme formed part of an extraordinary presentation by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) at this year's 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Naples, Italy.

Special IAF 60th anniversary flags - flown on Soyuz TMA-20, the International Space Station, Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134), and China's Tiangong-1 and Shenzhou-9 spacecraft - were presented to IAF member organisations by President Berndt Feuerbacher.

The flags, in commemorative frames along with mission logos and flight authentification certificates, were handed out to IAF member organisations as tokens of recognition and gratitude during an Extraordinary Session of the IAF General Assembly on Wednesday (4 October).

In his introduction to the presentations Prof Feuerbacher said this was the first time the IAF had arranged an extraordinary session for such an "extraordinary event".

He explained that for the IAF's 60th anniversary in 2011 the Executive Director at the time, Philippe Willekens, had wanted something unique and of value for members and came up with the plan for an anniversary flag to be flown in space.

Sergey Savelyev, Deputy Head of Roscosmos, said it had been in everyone's interests to support the initiative. "There is no limit to what we can do as an international team and the IAF helps us to do that. It was our privilege to fly these flags," he stated.

Zhasya Wang, head of China's manned spaceflight programme, added his own endorsement, saying: "We believe this event is an example of how IAF efforts can help advance the human spaceflight programme.

"Our agency is honoured to part of this great event and we gave our support, even though it came to us at short notice.

"Even though we had payload limitations we finally got approval from central government to complete the full circle of flying the flags on all of the space vehicles of the world."

Before handing out the frames flags Prof Feuerbacher expressed his sincere thanks to Roscosmos, NASA and the Chinese Manned Space Agency for this "wonderful cooperation".



The above is one of a series of daily reports from the International Astronautical Congress 2012 held in Naples, Italy, written by Clive Simpson for the Paris-based International Astronautical Association (IAF) and first appearing on the IAF website

Villagers seek urgent action over flooding threat

Flooding caused by storm Henk at Little Hale (Jan 2024).     Photo: Clive Simpson RESIDENTS of a Lincolnshire village want to call time on...