AstrotalkUK

Episode 65: ISRO – The early years

December 05, 2013 06:00 - 1 Byte

Prof. UR Rao The Indian Space Research Organisation formally came in to being in 1972. By then, India had been developing its space program for almost a decade. The first launch to space from Indian soil was a two stage Nike-Apache rocket supplied by USA with a sodium payload from France. The rocket delivered a vertical trail of sodium vapour in space above the twilight sky of the south eastern coast of Kerala on 21st November 1963. In this episode, professor UR Rao talks about his rich a...

Episode 64: Bangalore Astronomical Society

November 17, 2013 00:27 - 500 Bytes

BAS Coorg Start Party 27 Mar 2011 Photo credit- BAS Another episode in the current series about space and India. Bangalore Astronomical Society (BAS) is probably the most industrious astronomical societies in India. Founded in 2006, it has nearly 200 paid up members based in and around Bangalore but a huge number of national and international followers online. In this episode, BAS president Naveen Nanjundappa, describes BAS's origins, achievements and future goals. I have added a few li...

Episode 63: Rakesh Sharma India’s first and only spaceman

November 03, 2013 22:56 - 500 Bytes

With a population of 1.2 billion people, India has just one national with first hand experience of spaceflight. Rakesh Sharma, a now retired Indian Air Force wing commander in 1984 spent eight days in space aboard the Soviet space station Salyut 7. This account of his spaceflight was recorded at this home in the Nilgris region of India in August 2013. MP3 audio below and Youtube video below that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up_ANSNTB-U

Episode 62: Vikram Sarabhai

October 30, 2013 11:35 - 500 Bytes

Amrita Shah Vikram Sarabhai is unanimously accepted across India as the "father" of its space program. Not really known well outside India, he died suddenly and prematurely at age of 52 in 1971. He had studied cosmic ray physics and gained his PHD from Cambridge in 1947 the same year India became an independent nation. He spent the rest of his life implementing a vision that the prosperity of India and all of its people lay in science. The scientific institutions he built still play key ro...

Jim Reavis – Cloud Security Alliance

May 01, 2013 12:35 - 500 Bytes

Jim reavis A short interview with Jim Revis recorded in London on 24th April during InfoSec 2013. In this interview Jim talks about the evolving definition of of Cloud Computing, the CSA's Star Registry, CSA's Cloud Computing Security Knowledge certification and his take on how cloud Computing has been and is evolving. During the interview, Jim refers to a collaborative program between the CSA and (ISC)2 to create a new professional certification in Cloud Security. More details here. For ...

Episode 61: Reg Turnill on Wernher von Braun

February 15, 2013 10:34 - 1 Byte

Reg Turnill with Wernher von Braun 1977 Like so many in the “space community” I was saddened to hear of the passing of Reg Turnill. He was the BBC’s aerospace correspondent but is best known for covering the American Space program throughout the 60s and 70s that he documents so well in his book Moonlandings: An eye witness account. He was the BBC’s representative in Moscow at Gagarin’s post flight press conference and told me in episode 41 of his experience when I went to meet him in Ja...

Episode 60: Square Kilometre Array

January 09, 2013 19:54 - 500 Bytes

Artists impression - from http://www.skatelescope.org/ The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a global science and engineering project to build a revolutionary new radio telescope with extraordinary scientific ambitions. With funding from ten nations the building of the SKA will start in 2016 and be fully operational in 2024. It will tackle some of the profoundest questions of cosmology associated with organic molecules, gravitational waves, pulsars orbiting black holes and light from the ear...

Episode 59: Astrophotograpy

December 31, 2012 17:54 - 500 Bytes

Nik Szymanek If you have ever been to London and used the underground Tube service, it may well have been driven by the speaker in this episode. That is his day job but Nik Szymanek is one of Britain’s best known astrophotographers. This interview was recorded during National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Manchester in 2012. Nik collaborates with Ian King and in this episode discusses how he got started, issues to consider for those moving in to astrophotograpy and how things have...

Episode 58: Astronauts Joe Engle and Ron Garan

October 20, 2012 13:05 - 500 Bytes

The first interview in this episode is with astronaut Joe Engle was recorded during his visit to the UK in 2008. Joe Engle was at the front of the queue to go to the Moon when NASA cut its Apollo program. His place was taken by the geologist Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17 – the last manned mission to the Moon. In this interview Joe talk about his work before and after Apollo - on the X-15 and Space Shuttle programs. The second short interview with astronaut Ron Garan was recorded at TedXS...

Episode 57: 15 October 2012 – Cassini Huygens Mission

October 14, 2012 23:01 - 21 minutes - 19.5 MB

Launched 15 years ago today, the Cassini Huygens mission has been one of the outstanding successes of solar system exploration and a model of NASA ESA collaboration. In episode 14 Professor John Zarnecki spoke about the science conducted from the surface of Titan by the Huygens lander in January 2005. The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe had hitched a lift to Saturn aboard the Cassini orbiter. Six years after its arrival at Saturn, Cassini is still making spectacular discoveries about ...

Episode 56: 7th October 2012 – SpaceguardUK

October 06, 2012 19:06 - 500 Bytes

As the dinosaurs on the Earth 64 million years ago discovered, comets and asteroids have the potential for unexpected arrival with devastating consequences. The spectacular collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in July 1994 dramatically raised awareness and no doubt a little concern amongst the heads of governments across the planet. Since then, the British government has not really got engaged and so it is left to a handful of skilled and dedicated individuals through Spaceguard...

Ben Kepes – Future of Cloud Computing

September 26, 2012 23:01 - 500 Bytes

Ben Kepes When I speak to anyone in a time zone with a 12 hours difference and in opposite hemispheres it implies we are about as far as two people on the planet can be. You can play or download the recording at the bottom of this page. Ben is known for amongst other things, as the curator of CloudU. He has been speaking about Cloud Computing from a business perspectives long before it became trendy to do so. We spoke about CloudU, CSA's CCSK and the future of Cloud Computing and its rela...

Episode 55: 4 August 2012: Mars Curiosity Rover

August 04, 2012 16:22 - 1 Byte

Since the mid 1970s six spacecraft (Viking 1 & 2, Sojourner, Opportunity, Spirit and Phoenix) have successfully landed on the surface of Mars. In probably the most audacious, breathtaking and risky space missions, in less than two days, another Mars Curiosity Rover will arrive on Mars. Using a technique never used before, NASA has described the Entry Decent Landing as the seven minutes of terror. Launched in November 2011, the arrival of Mars Curiosity will for the first time make a high p...

Mars Curiosity’s seven minutes of terror – in less than 3 minutes

August 03, 2012 20:58 - 1 Byte

Mars curiosity entry, decent and descent from http://www.extremetech.com/ Mars Curiosity landing in a nutshell (less than 3 minutes audio below) by Dr Anita Sengupta from the Entry Decent & Landing and Advanced Technologies group at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Full interview in Episode 55 - tomorrow.

Episode 54: 23 July 2012 – Manchester Interplanetary Society and Stanley Davis

July 23, 2012 16:43 - 7 minutes - 6.58 MB

Stanley Davis The August 2012 edition of Spaceflight, the monthly magazine from the British Interplanetary Society carried an article where I discuss the Northwest of England’s contribution in Rocketry during the 1930s. An extended version of that article is available for free download on Astrotalkuk.org - here. So on to today’ episode. In 1937, two teenagers Harry and Stanley with an outrageous ambition to design and build rockets for space travel joined a newly formed group with a name t...

Episode 53: 28th June 2012 – The Chinese Space program

June 28, 2012 19:40 - 500 Bytes

Brian Harvey is a Dublin based writer, author, broadcaster and probably the most informed specialist on Chinese and Soviet/Russian space program in Ireland today. This conversation recorded during the Shenzhou-9 / Tiangong-1 mission orbiting the Earth with the three crew including the first Chinese female astronaut on-board. At the end of the interview Brian Harvey talks about the Space Cooperation Memorandum signed last week.

Episode 52: 7th June 2012: Michael Wood Historian and Gagarin’s visit to Manchester

June 07, 2012 09:21 - 16.3 MB

Historian Michael Wood's documentary, The Great British Story - A People's History, is currently being screened in the UK. Michael is from Manchester and was visiting Liverpool last weekend where he made time for this recording.

Episode 51: 5th June 2012: Profile – Author David Shayler

June 05, 2012 11:23 - 500 Bytes

You know what it is like, you buy a book on a subject of interest and enjoy it. Later you see a book on a similar subject that you probably were not going to buy but do so because it is from that same author. Gradually, you end up with several books from that author in your collection. David Shayler is one such author for me. During the Space Day event in Droitwich earlier this year organised by British Interplanetary Society West Midlands branch, I finally got to meet David. This is a short...

Transit of Venus and the Great British Story

June 01, 2012 16:00 - 500 Bytes

The last hour of so of the transit of Venus on 6th June 2012 will be visible during sunrise from northwest of England. The following links should answer most if not all your queries. Listen to a short interview above on Radio Merseyside with Roger Phillips today. For details of the Yuri Gagarin talk download this flyer. Liverpool Astronomical Society Venus transit event see bottom of page and details about the Great British Story event at Liverpool Museum where Roger Phillips and Michael Woo...

Episode 50: 26th March 2012: Manchester first Rocket Scientists

March 27, 2012 00:17 - 12.9 MB

27th March 1937 - Foreground (left to right): Eric Burgess, Bill Heeley, Trevor Cusack, Harry Turner (Picture – Philip Turner) Robert Goddard in America , Sergei Korolev in the Soviet Union and Herman Oberth in Germany are three names credit with the development of rocket propulsion during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Each led a very small group with more dedication then resources working on a shoestring budget usually in their own time after work. Their collective work eventually lead to...

Episode 49: 17th March 2012: National Astronomy Meeting 2012

March 17, 2012 13:34 - 8.09 MB

This episode has no specific astronomical topic but draws attention to a very special astronomy meeting later this month. The Royal Astronomical Society’s annual National Astronomy Meeting last year was held in Wales, next year it will be in Scotland but this year it is in Manchester. National Astronomy Meeting 2012 or NAM2012 will be hosted by the University of Manchester in partnership with Germany’s equivalent to the RAS, the Astronomische Gesellschaft in the last week of March 2012.

Episode 48: 13th February 2012: Mat Irvine, early BBC Special Effects Department and Sky at Night episode from 1963

February 14, 2012 00:30

The same year that the first woman made it in to space in 1963, a quaint children’s sci-fi series called Dr Who started on BBC television in the UK. Eventually it became popular around the world and has enjoyed success once more since it restarted again in 2005. Mat Irvine worked in the special effects […] The post Episode 48: 13th February 2012: Mat Irvine, early BBC Special Effects Department and Sky at Night episode from 1963 appeared first on AstrotalkUK.

Episodes