Unexpected astronaut encounters

New Scientist Live, ExCeL Centre, London. September 2017.

Through being in the right place at the right time I made an unexpected trip to the Thursday of the 2017 New Scientist Live (sorry Natalie - hope you had a productive day in the office!)

The highlight of going on this day was that astronauts Tim Peake, Helen Sharman and Al Worden were headline speakers and giving an hour long session.  Even getting to the theatre 30 minutes early for this I wasn't too near the front but this didn't matter as the stage was also shown on two large screens raised above the stage so you didn't miss anything.

The astronauts didn't give talks as such but were asked questions by various people - the host, Stephen Hawking, school children and each other - and this lead to some wonderfully relaxed chat that was nicely balanced between all three speakers (and kudos to the host who let the chat flow!).

The three talked a little of their missions and then a lot about the future of space flight and the debate whether we should go back to the moon or on to mars was fascinating as was the chat on who should go on whichever mission happens.

All three speakers had great stories to tell and also displayed a lot of humour, as ever I was very pleased to hear from a female astronaut and am very excited that Helen Sharman will be in Norwich in October so that I can hear more from her, and hopefully get to meet her in person.

After this talk I spent a lot of time walking around the show, talking to people from all sorts of science and technology backgrounds as well as listening to talks on a variety of topics. I was lucky enough to get to meet Al Worden later in the day and get him to sign a copy of his autobiography for me. I also met (and got a signed book) from Libby Jackson who is head of education at the UK Space Agency, played with robots, learned about gene manipulation and played on the science fun fair.

I've looked at the programme for New Scientist Live before and debated whether it is worth it and now I can categorically say yes and that I'm already looking for details of next year's show so that I can go again - and this time with more people, especially my nephew!

Armchair Astronaut event with Michael Foale

An Afternoon with retired astronaut Michael Foale.

While Tim Peake might be the first British astronaut but the first British-born male astronaut was Michael Foale and I was very excited to get the chance to meet him - this time a little closer to home in Milton Keynes rather than Pontefract.

It was a great afternoon with the event was split into three main parts. In the first hour Mike Foale spoke about his missions on the space shuttle and then on ISS - he talked us through his early life and how he became an astronaut and then aspects of each mission. There were lots of little anecdotes and film clips to bring everything together and it was fascinating listening. To be honest if the event had stopped there it would have been brilliant but it continued...

Part two was all about Foale's eventful time on the MIR space station exactly twenty years ago. This was at the start of American/Russian cooperation in space, at a time when the MIR space station was ageing and when the differences in approach from the two nations were at their most divergent.  A resupply ship, which was being docked to the space station manually, crashed into part of the MIR puncturing it and causing a slow depressurisation, loss of power and loss of control.

Even though I knew the outcome of this accident (spoiler alert - eventually all was fine) Foale's presentation was tense and dramatic - I don't remember seeing the actual footage of the moment the accident happened - and then his account of the slow saving of the the MIR showed just how much of the 'Right Stuff' astronauts still have.

After another short break there was a lovely long question and answer session which covered all areas of Foale's career, his thoughts on the future of space travel and also great advice for anyone looking to get into their dream career.

After all of this some of us had premium tickets which meant we got to stay a little longer, get an autograph and then chat more with Foale.

It was a lovely afternoon and so well organised by the Armchair Astronaut and very nice to catch up with other space friends.

I feel the need, the need for speed...

Meeting Scott "Scooter" Altman, retired astronaut with Space Lectures, Pontefract. April 2017.

Another trip north to meet an astronaut and this one had me feeling a little nervous. Before Altman became an astronaut he was a naval fighter pilot and whilst on active service he was also Tom Cruise's stunt pilot for the film Top Gun. I only watched this for the first time recently and mentally I'd made the mistake of equating Altman with Tom Cruise's arrogant character in the film.

As soon as Altman started talking I knew I'd made a mistake - this was an articulate, funny and pretty humble man who had some great stories to tell. While he had flown into space four times this lecture concentrated on his military career and then his final mission in which he was the Commander for the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.

As with all the best tales there are problems to overcome and some real cliffhanger moments and another member of the audience has a better memory for these things than me (I just get star struck!) and has written up a great account of the talk here. My main takeaway points were that necessity really is the mother of invention (who knew that a chisel, hammer and brute force work in space too!) and also that space is perhaps the way to maintain peace here on earth.  If Altman, a trained combat pilot, can work with and admire his former enemy then cooperation in orbit will hopefully smooth the way to cooperation everywhere.

We had a (sort of) personal connection to Altman's missions. Way back in 1998 we made our first trip to Florida in the hope of seeing STS-90 launch. We missed the launch by about 2 weeks (darn those slipping schedules!) but this would have been Altman's first mission.  To top this my sister and her husband saw STS-125 launch in 2009 - this was Altman's final mission.

STS 125 launch view from Jetty Park, Fl. Taken by my sister

Sadly we can't make the next event in June, where Space Lectures will be hosting Alexei Leonov and tickets are available - if you are at all interested in space history I recommend going. The team organise the events wonderfully and Leonov is a great speaker.

Not a space oddity

An afternoon with Colonel Chris Hadfield, National Space Centre, Leicester. October 2016.

After the joys of meeting and hearing the Kelly brothers at the weekend we were on the road again to meet another astronaut - this time the Canadian Chris Hadfield.

We got to the National Space Centre in plenty of time and had a little look around before the event - yesterday however it was full of school children (all of whom seemed to be inspired and enjoying themselves) and so we let them explore and retreated to the quieter areas before heading into the Sir Patrick Moore planetarium for what had been advertised as a q&a with Chris Hadfield.

We were however thoroughly spoilt as we got a wonderful talk and slide show from Hadfield. he has a great sense of humour and this came through in the anecdotes he told and the slides he showed - from the space heroes he thought he'd emulate to the little boy sitting in a box pretending to fly! I'm not sure what the Space Centre team thought of his demonstrations of how water behaves however...

After the talk there was time for questions and again these were answered with great thoughtfulness. He made sure that the children in the audience got to speak as well and again deflected some of the more 'interesting' questions with great humour.

After the talk we also had tickets to the signing session and here we were really surprised and impressed.  Chris Hadfield wasn't sat behind a table just signing but was wandering around and really chatting to everyone who was getting a book signed.  Mum got to ask him about boredom - and again he said that you can't be bored in space (before adding that there are only boring people not boring things!) before signing her book, shaking her hand and giving her a hug. I'm not sure she's stopped smiling yet!

My question was something that occurred to me at the Kelly talk when they talked about their medical training as astronauts. I was reminded of this when Chris Hadfield took a break in signing to talk about his medical training - how would you give CPR in space with no gravity to hold the giver in place and apply the pressure.  Apparently there are two ways. Both people are strapped down, the giver by the thighs, so that the compressions can be given. The alternative is to put your feet on the ceiling and push down on to the unwell person.  After this I also got a handshake and hug so like mum I've also got a silly grin on my face.

This was a great afternoon, and it was so nice to find that Colonel Hadfield is as nice in person as he seems on screen and page. I'm now off to re-read his autobiography.

The Sky Is Not the Limit

Space Lecture's Autumn Event: Mark and Scott Kelly. October 2016.

Another first for the amazing Space Lectures team - not one, but two astronauts to give the talk.  Not only that one of the guests only returned from space on 1st March this year.

As ever the event was wonderful, the Kelly twins make a great double act as they tell their stories with a great deal of humour and self-deprecation. There was also a great deal of light-hearted sibling rivalry on display.

Two people telling their life stories when these people have eight space flights and 500+ days in space between them mean that the talk is always going to be on the superficial side but I felt that I got a good feel for who these men were and how important their military and astronaut careers have been for them.

Both men were refreshingly open - Mark about the terrible events surrounding the assassination attempt on his wife, and Scott regarding the health issues he has (and still is to some extent) experienced following spending almost a year in space.

They took lots of questions - including mine (well mum's) about boredom in space: no they don't get bored on the ISS however long they are up there, many other feelings but not boredom.

The hour and a half event just whizzed by and although this was more of a motivational talk than in-depth biography/history as Tom Stafford treated us to in April but I found it just as interesting and gripping. I'm hoping that both men do write their autobiographies in the next few years.

Tickets are booked to the next event already - another Shuttle commander - and I can't wait.

Failure really wasn't an option

Space Lectures' Spring 2016 Event: General Tom Stafford.

Months and months ago the brilliant Space Lectures team in Pontefract announced that their guest in April 2016 would be a moon walker. In the autumn it was revealed that the guest was in fact Gene Cernan - the last man to have walked on the moon.  Mr Norfolkbookworm and I had booked seats long before the name was announced and were looking forward to our next trip up north.

On the Wednesday before the event I checked twitter on my lunch break to read that Captain Cernan was unwell and unable to travel.  One tweet later I saw that the team had managed the incredible...

With just 2 days before the first event they had secured another Gemini/Apollo era astronaut to travel from the USA to talk to us - General Tom Stafford.  These gentlemen are all in their eighties at least so this was incredible reading.

If I am brutally honest I was more excited to meet/hear General Stafford that I was Captain Cernan. There is a new film out all about the latter and after previous visits to the Kennedy Space Center where he was prominently featured on lots of the films I felt I knew more about him but General Stafford was more of an unknown.

When we got to Pontefract we heard that the woes with this event had continued as Stafford's plane had been delayed due to bad weather and he's made the Friday event with only an hour or so to spare. shades of Apollo 13 or what?

The compere (one day I will catch his name!) explained this, read a message from Capt. Cernan and then explained the format of the event.  We were going to see a film about Gen. Stafford's career, he'd talk for a little while, there would be a break, a raffle, an auction and then a q&a before the signing session.

Again it didn't quite go that way but this time very much in our favour. We watched the film and then Gen. Stafford talked about his four missions and subsequent career for an hour and forty spellbinding minutes!

Much to Mr Norfolkbookworm's delight much of the talk covered the often over looked Gemini program with much emphasis on how important these flights were. Having read a lot about the manned space program from this era I have come to appreciate this but it was nice to hear Gen. Stafford admit that without these flights (and all that was learnt on them) there is no way that the Apollo missions would have succeeded, especially within the time frame laid down by President Kennedy.

After the insights into Gemini 6A and 9A we then heard about Apollo 10 - the flight that did everything Apollo 11 did *except* land on the moon. Interestingly he didn't seem at all bothered that he wasn't a moon-walker, I wonder if the thrill of flying and testing new things was enough?

Gen. Stafford also flew on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, this was another overlooked mission that saw the Soviets and the Americans meet, dock and visit each others spaceships while on orbit.  Again this is a mission that fascinates me, not least because I have had the chance to meet Stafford's opposite Alexei Leonov.

Unlike many of the early astronauts Gen. Stafford continued his military and NASA career after leaving the astronaut corps and his subsequent postings remind you that the early space pioneers really were military men. I did find it interesting to hear about this side of Stafford and it reminded me that the space program only came about because of the Cold War.

It wasn't all serious stuff however, Stafford has a wicked sense of humour, and wasn't afraid to show it even when well behind the Iron Curtain in the 1970s.  I'm not sure I'd have the courage even now to set off fireworks anywhere near the UK police let alone the Soviet ones, 4th of July or not!

You got the feeling that given half a chance General Stafford would have talked quite happily for another hour or two and to be honest I'd have sat there rapt. I think the thing I will remember the most from this talk is Stafford's humour, self-deprecation and his obvious deep friendship with Alexei Leonov - all delivered in Oklahomski!

After the talk over ran it was decided to skip the q&a in favour of starting the signing, I was a little disappointed as I had two questions I would have liked to ask but I'd not have cut his talk short just to ask them!

There was still a raffle and I won a new book - oral histories from all sorts of people involved in the space program - and General Stafford kindly signed both a copy of his autobiography for us and my rocket.

I say this every time we go to a Space Lectures event but this really was the best yet and I feel really lucky that the team managed the impossible and got a true legend to come at such short notice but as this event finished with this clip from the International Space Station
 https://twitter.com/Space_Lectures/status/719170286076211206 all I can do is look forward to the autumn with growing excitement!

The 'Right Stuff'

Buzz Aldrin in Conversation with Brian Cox, The Science Museum, London. February 2016.

We didn't think we were going to get to this event as the day the tickets went on sale the Science Museum's website crashed and by the time I gained access all of the tickets were gone.  Talking with the museum's social media team on Twitter lead me to registering our continued interest on a waiting list and then two days before the event patience paid off and I got a call offering me the four tickets I wanted.

The drama continued as on the day of the event Mr Norfolkbookworm was poorly and this necessitated a huge change of plans, a mad dash to the train station and then an awkward cross country journey to London.  It was all worth it when I made it to St Pancras and met my brother-in-law and nephew. A very sad husband however as he is the original space-nut in the family.

On arriving at the museum we collected our tickets and then went to explore the space gallery, it wasn't too crowded at this point and we spent a lot of time looking at the exhibits and explaining to N about the Apollo program. We also spent some time watching the floating globe waving at Nanny and Grandad who are currently in Australia!

From here we went into the big gallery and looked at the trains, planes, cars and of course the Apollo 10 capsule.  After a short break for lunch we made our way to the IMAX gallery and waited until it was time to take our seats for the talk.  Buzz's children's book about Mars kept us occupied during this wait and the museum's free Wi-Fi helped us look things up to add more details to what we were reading.

Once we were in our seats we got comfortable and then out came Brian Cox and Buzz Aldrin:

The event was then a conversation between the two men and started with the first selfie in space aboard Gemini 12, then talked about the Apollo program and the moon landing then went on to Buzz's plans for colonisation and 'universal' space cooperation.

If I am being honest this wasn't the best astronaut event I have attended, Cox tried his hardest to moderate and to keep the talk suitable for the audience (about half children under 10 - which was brilliant!) but Aldrin was a little vague and rambling. I was very impressed with the behaviour of the children in the audience however - my nephew included - as everyone was very quiet and respectful. After the moderated session the audience got to ask questions and although N and I had one we sadly weren't picked to ask it.

After this came the book signing and it was run brilliantly, I think that the Science Museum have been taking lessons from Space Lectures, and very quickly we were in line to meet Buzz and we were allowed to ask him our question in person "how did the moon smell?" It was very noisy and we think the answer was 'terrible' but Buzz made really good eye contact with N and they seemed to really connect.

We all enjoyed the event and meeting the 2nd man to walk on the moon is something we will all remember, I had heard him speak before but hadn't got to meet him.  

Before we went to the talk however N posed in front of the Apollo 10 capsule in a real astronaut pose alongside his class mascot Jelly the Giraffe:

We'd also talked about space travel and N had decided he didn't want to go to Mars right now as the journey is 8 months long and he'd miss his birthday, however he did want to go and visit Tim Peake on the ISS. I tweeted this on the way home and incredibly Tim Peake noticed the tweet and liked it which just made an already magical day even more special.

Birth of the Space Age

Cosmonauts Birth of the Space Age, Science Museum, London. February 2016.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am pretty interested in the history of manned space flight and that I'll travel all over the place to see new things and meet new people.  Apart from the one trip last year to see Alexei Leonov I've not had the chance to see or learn much about the Russian Space Programme, mainly thanks to the secrecy surrounding it.

Mr Norfolkbookworm (and my dad) did make a trip to Russia a few years ago and got to see Star City as well as some other space sights and museums but the chance to see many items all curated together wasn't to be missed and so we found ourselves at the Science Museum shortly after the museum opened ready to explore this exhibition thoroughly.

I found it to be utterly fascinating, from the early ideas and drawings of those who had no idea of what space would be like (but who were unnervingly accurate with their predictions) right through to Soyuz capsule identical to the one that Tim Peake will return to earth in later this year the exhibition was well laid out and fascinating.

From trips to Florida I knew how primitive the early space program had been but this was a whole new level, the imperative to be first just caused so much innovation and bravery as well as luck...

Highlights for me included seeing the capsule that carried the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, into space and also the proposed lunar lander.  Thanks to a very knowledgeable guide the utter bravery (or lunacy) of the proposed Soviet moon landing really came to life, and her advice to go into the main space gallery after the exhibition and to compare this lander with the American one was brilliant.

Seeing items that are familiar from watching more recent missions to MIR and ISS was also interesting and I particularly loved the dining table, complete with hot plate that was used on MIR.  I can't tell which space program had the better food however.

Coming out of the exhibition the last item on display was a mannequin that Soviets sent around the moon to see what the effects of space travel would have on the human body, it was life sized with areas for human tissue equivalents to be included which were then studied on return to Earth.  This mannequin was launched shortly after the death of Gagarin and in tribute to him the face was a detailed model of his own. This gave the 'phantom mannequin' a really spooky presence and really reminded me of the body casts from Pompeii.

We spent a long time in the exhibition reading and studying everything closely and at no point felt like we were being encouraged to move on.  After meeting Leonov it was really nice to see his own art work especially the image of sunrise in space that he drew while on orbit but the thing that stays with me the most is that if perhaps the two space programs had been more open then some of the disasters and deaths that have occurred really could have been avoided.

After leaving the exhibition - via the gift shop naturally - we went into the main part of the museum to see the model of the US lunar lander and also the Apollo 10 capsule.  This was doubly poignant as in April we will be (all being well) meeting Gene Cernan who flew to the moon in "Charlie Brown" and also because a couple of days before our visit Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, sadly died - 45 years minus one day since he landed on the moon.

Update to an earlier space blog

I am so pleased to find that there are people out there who don't be come quite so awestruck as me in the presence of space legends!

The second lecture that Jim Lovell gave on 1st November (that is the one we didn't attend) was recorded by an audience member and is online to view.  If you have 60 or so minutes to spare and are interested in why we travel to Pontefract for essentially just an hour's talk now you can see...

I hope I have this much energy and enthusiasm at 47 let alone 87...

To find out more about forthcoming Space Lecture events you can find them on twitter @space_lectures, on Facebook and at their dedicated webpage.