AstrotalkUK

Scroll down for the audio and video.

On a cold, bright Wednesday morning, fifty years ago, in the Soviet town of  Turatam, a rocket launched a man into space. A critical initial step for any civilisation that eventually travels to the stars.

Any first is both special and trivial. Special because, by definition, it only happens once and arises from a complex set of circumstances that come together at that point in time.  It is trivial in the sense that there is nothing inherently unique about the individuals involved. They, too, are chosen by circumstance largely beyond their control. Driven perhaps by a desire for personal glory, an overwhelming sense of duty or an innate curiosity to explore, the early space travellers and those who facilitated it overcame personal challenges, exhaustive training and exposure to unrivalled grave danger to bring a new experience to mankind.

Less than a month after his 27th birthday, Yuri Gagarin was launched into space aboard Vostok 1. Fifty years on, there are now around 550 human beings to have experienced spaceflight in Earth orbit. Of all the orbital spaceflights, Gagarin’s 108-minute flight is the shortest. It was his only spaceflight. He died in an air crash in 1968 whilst training to return to spaceflight.

In the immediate aftermath of his flight, Gagarin embarked on what turned out to be pretty much a world tour. In July 1961, he came to Britain at the invitation of the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers because, prior to joining the Soviet Air Force, Gagarin had trained and worked as a foundryman. He ended up meeting the British Prime Minister in London and the Queen invited him for lunch at Buckingham Palace, but he came to Manchester first because that is where the union was based. Gagarin visited the union headquarters where he was made their first honorary member and awarded a gold medal inscribed with the word “together moulding a better world”. He went on to visit a foundry in Trafford Park (the world’s first purpose-built and largest industrial estate) and then Manchester Town Hall for a civic reception where he met Sir Bernard Lovell, director of Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope, who had assisted in the tracking of Soviet satellites and spaceships.

This week’s episode is the story of a short, originally 16mm cine film, partially with audio recorded during Gagarin’s visit to Manchester on 12th July 1961.  The film shows Gagarin’s arrival at Manchester Ringway Airport, the presentation ceremony at the union office in Old Trafford, his visits to the foundry workers in Trafford Park and the Manchester Town Hall. The roll of film was discovered unlabelled in a cupboard in 1986 as the union prepared to move out of the building that Gagarin visited to another.  The discovery was made by Alf Lloyd, a Union Regional Officer and colleague. It had no label and was almost discarded.  Alf Lloyd presented the film to the Manchester-based North West Film Archive in 1987.

In early 2011, by chance, I had been in contact with space historian Francis French, who is from Manchester but is now the Director of Education at the San Diego Air and Space Museum in California. In 1987 he was researching Gagarin’s visit to Manchester when he was shown a cine film in a Manchester union office on a cine projector. During the screening, a part of the film broke off, and he was given the broken segment as a gift.  Fortunately, Francis kept that segment safe and recognised that his segment was part of the same roll of film. Almost a quarter of a century later, the two sections have been once again digitally reunited, and an edited version is available online at Astrotalkuk.org.  The original film resides with the Northwest Film Archive.

Not least because of his humble family origins but also because of his deep communist principles, the empathy and warmth Gagarin experienced during his meeting with the foundry workers in Trafford Park was genuine and sincere. On 12th April 1962, the first anniversary of his flight, Gagarin sent a message to the Foundry Workers in Manchester via Moscow Radio’s English service. The message starts with the words “Dear Brothers”, and goes on to recall his experience of his visit to Manchester and includes the moving statement “The firm handshakes of my fellow workers in the moulding workshops were dearer to me than many awards”.

The original recording had audio on only two sections. The first audio section is a record of the presentation of the honorary membership at the union office by the AUFW president, Fred Hollingsworth. In the second audio section, Gagarin fields questions at the reception in Manchester Town Hall. Gagarin did not speak English; his translator was Boris Biletsky.

________________________

Today’s quote is from Yuri Gagarin himself. When you read the text of his speeches, reports in newspapers and his formal messages, one reoccurring topic is about peace and friendship. Much is, no doubt, simple rhetoric, a response to the prevailing Cold War uncertainties, and even political propaganda. On reflection, however, I think much of it was honest, heartfelt and a genuine expression of his personal desire for peace and friendship. In a New Year’s greeting message of 1962, he states

“May this year be a year of peace on Earth and may the friendship between the British and Soviet peoples develop and grow stronger”.

Scroll down for the audio and video.

Reg Turnill joined the BBC in 1956 with the remit to cover aviation and defence. The launch of Sputnik 1 in the following year expanded his remit to include space. He is particularly well known for his coverage of the American Apollo program. In the UK, his name and face, along with that of Patrick Moore and James Burke, is associated with the commentators who covered live the Apollo Moon landings on the BBC.

In April 1961, Reg was sent to Moscow for Gagarin's first post-flight international news conference. It turned out to be a fascinating story of Cold War politics and leading-edge space technology. In his own words, Reg describes this as “ a phoney press conference, an entirely choreographed event designed to humiliate the West” and he summarised the whole press conference as “good humoured evasion”. Interacting through an interpreter and restricted to pre-submitted written questions, he had to put aside his usual analytical approach. However, he recognises that this was “a great achievement”. This interview was recorded on January 19th 2011, at his home on the south coast of England.

________________________

Today’s quote is from Reg Turnill's book “The Moon Landings: An Eyewitness Account”. Following John Glen’s second spaceflight in October 1998, Reg at 83 the oldest working space correspondent, asked John Glen, the oldest man in space, a question. In part, Glen answered

"Old folk have ambitions and dreams too, like everybody else. So why don't they work for them? Don’t sit on the couch. Go for it"

Reg Turnill talks about Yuri Gagarin's first press conference from AstrotalkUK on Vimeo.

Scroll down for the options to play audio and video.

On the third of Gagarin’s five days in Britain, immediately following his meeting with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, on Thursday, 13th July 1961, he had the only private meeting of his visit with Captain Eric Brown, where the press was not invited, no photographs were taken, and no official record was kept.  During this “test pilot” to “test pilot” meeting, Gagarin clearly told Brown that he had ejected from his spacecraft. Although not in the same league as Brown, Brown considered Gagarin to be a test pilot. The Soviets consistently maintained that he had not, but eventually, a decade later, they conceded officially that Gagarin had bailed out and landed by parachute. When I asked Captain Brown why he had never published the details of his private meeting before, “no one asked me before” replied.

At the time, Captain Brown was the deputy director of Naval Air Warfare, and the meeting took place between him, his deputy and a colleague from the Admiralty who could speak Russian, but that was kept secret from Gagarin and Belitsky. Brown sought additional confidence that the translator was translating sincerely.

Captain Brown has had a unique career as a test pilot. He had met many of the key players in aviation and rocket design. Hanna Reitsch, Hermann Göring und Wernher von Braun. Brown’s achievements as a test pilot were well established and it is probably with the knowledge of his accomplishments that the Soviets agreed to such a meeting. Brown still holds the world record in deck landings (2407) and the number of aircraft types flown (487). He also has several firsts (the first deck landing of a twin-engine aircraft and the first deck landing of a jet engine), of which the Russians and Gagarin would have been aware. By 1960, many of his books were available in translation in technical colleges, which young aviators like Gagarin would have come across. It is likely that Gagarin knew of Brown and wanted to meet Brown just as much as Brown wanted to meet Gagarin.

Immediately following the war, Brown was inevitably involved in supersonic flight testing, reaching speeds up to Mach 0.9. He was testing a secret high-performance aircraft designated as the Miles M52, which was suddenly and suspiciously dropped in 1946. Had it not been, it was very likely that Brown would have added first supersonic flight to his collections of firsts. In the event, Chuck Jaeger in the USA claimed that achievement in 1947.

He is considered by some in the aviation industry to be the greatest test pilot ever.

An extensive interview, recorded in his home on 19th January two days before his 92nd birthday, is edited specifically for his recollections about Yuri Gagarin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIvHDMRlVe4

Scroll to the bottom for the audio and video.

Since the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, thousands of unmanned spacecraft have been launched, mostly to Earth orbit, but many have gone to the inner and outer planets, and four of them have pretty much left the Solar System altogether.

European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft arrived at Mars in 2003 and is still operating almost a decade later. It is operated by people in a profession initiated by the space age itself. Spacecraft Operations Engineers are the individuals who quietly take over the responsibility of spacecraft after the nerve wrenching excitement of the launch is over.

Thomas Ormston, a Spacecraft Operations Engineer for VEGA Space GmbH, working at the European Space Operations Centre on the European Space agency's Mars Express mission describes in this episode the steps involved in controlling Mars Express from over one hundred million miles from Earth.

The Hubble Space Telescope is the single instrument that has probably contributed more to science in the last decade than any other. Its success is not the size of its 2.4m mirror, there are many larger telescopes on Earth but its location.

Many amateur astronomers have captured images of Mars using a webcam. Such images are usually tiny but with integration techniques a surprising amount of surface details is visible. What would it be like if you could put that webcam in Martian orbit? Thomas and his colleagues have done just that.

Several ESA spacecraft have an attached Visual Monitoring Cameras (VMC),  usually installed for a very specific purpose. Mars Express had one to monitor the release of Beagle 2, after that it was switched off. Thomas describes the details behind the project that reactivated the camera in a paper published online and the fascinating video compiled from 600 images taken by the VMC webcam during the 7 hour Martian orbit on 27th May 2010. It continues to take images which are posted here.

_________________________

Today’s quote from John Lennon is about the critical importance of the role of human understanding in interpreting the real world, even when you have all the evidence that you could possible desire.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination

_________________________

Audio

 

Episode 39: March 19th 2011 - Spacecraft Operations from AstrotalkUK on Vimeo.

Scroll to the bottom of this post to play the audio or watch the video.

Going in to space was nothing more than a dream for many of us for such a long time. But things are changing profoundly and fast. Once, human spaceflight was only possible as part of a national government project. Then, a decade ago, Denis Tito (on 28th April 2001) became the first self-funding astronaut by signing a cheque for $20 million.

Now in 2011, Spaceflight has never been easier or cheaper. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has now brought the price down to $200,000 for a brief suborbital flight. Imagine spaceflight for a price less than that of a small house in London. In the year that marks the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight, it is about time, isn’t it?

A familiar name in the astronomical community, Nigel Henbest, a writer, broadcaster and television producer, took a not-too-deep breath and signed on the dotted line and is now on the road to his space experience in the next year or two.

As the private sector develops, perhaps the commercial spaceflight market will experience the same rapid innovation and price reduction we saw in the personal computer market. Is it too speculative to imagine that within a few years the price of a suborbital flight will come down, perhaps to that of a family car?

In this episode Nigel, talks about why he wants to go in to space and the steps involved in the process of getting there.  Nigel has written about his flight here. To see a high-resolution image of the huge Virgin Galactic brochure, click the image.

_________________________

This episode's quote

You see things and say why? But I dream things that never were and say why not?

George Bernard Shaw

On November 3rd this year, Professor Jim Al-khalili was to give three lectures in Liverpool on the same day (Quantum Physics, Advances in Mathematics in Medieval Islam and On the Shoulders of Eastern Giants: the Forgotten Contribution of the Medieval Physicists). I did feel a bit of a stalker, I attended all three, but fortunately I was not alone.

It is not often that I get to witness the scientific method in real life personally. The most illuminating part of the day of the three lectures was the Q&A following the second lecture. A questioner put her hand up and stated clearly that she had a correction, not a question. She had heard the professor discuss the concept and symbol of the number zero. During his lecture, the professor had recalled the contributions from the Babylonians, Mayans and Indian mathematicians. The questioner had been researching the substantial Egyptian contribution to this area, which the professor had not mentioned. What happened next was an affirmation of the scientific method.

The professor could have been defensive, confrontational or dismissive. Instead, he listened to her argument and asked her to stay behind to so he could learn details of her research. That is the power of the scientific idea. It stands only on the edifice of evidence and not the economic wealth, social position or academic reputation of those who hold it.

The progress of scientific knowledge is not continuous and linear but evolves through a series of stops and starts. Thomas Kuhn, in his 1962 book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” described the progress of science as periodic “paradigm shifts”. He was referring to the fundamental differences in thinking that have led to leaps in scientific understanding.

Could that stop-and-start concept describe how science develops through the ages, too? Scientific discoveries are frequently lost, forgotten or deliberately suppressed. So the story of scientific discovery is frequently a story of rediscovery. William Harvey 's discovery in 1628 of the human heart and circulation of blood though the human body had much in common with that of Ibn al-Nafis 400 years earlier. Nicolas Copernicus is credited in the 16th century with introducing the heliocentric system (placing the Sun not the Earth, in the centre of the solar system) but this idea had been propounded by Aristarchus in the third century BC.

The omissions are not just in science. One example of technological development lost for over a thousand years that sticks out like a sore thumb is the Antikythera mechanism, a device for calculating and displaying relative positions of the Sun, Moon and planets. The precision of the internal mechanism would not be repeated for over a thousand years.

Why these omissions occur is unclear. History, like science, is always a work in progress. Reflecting on why the ancient Greek tradition of scientific method stalled, Carl Sagan, in his celebrated work, Cosmos, concluded that their society was elitist and self-serving. Key figures like Plato were hostile to experiment and perpetuated the idea that human thought alone was sufficient to explain the physical world. This intellectually corrupt approach sustained their slave, unjust society. Search for truth was not their goal.

In his new book “Pathfinders” Professor Al-Khalili attempts to fill “a” gap in the history of science by revisiting the work done by the Arabic scholars during the period known in Europe as the dark ages. It is not a story of Islamic science but of science conducted in the Arabic language which has its roots in Islam. For around 600 years (from 9th to the 15th century), sandwiched between Greek and Latin, the international language of science was Arabic.

A professor of theoretical nuclear physics in the University of Surrey, he was born in Baghdad to a Christian mother and a Muslim father. As an atheist, Jim Al-Khalili emphasises the role of Islamic, Persian, Christian and Jewish scholars who not only translated the work of the ancient Greeks but also enhanced and developed it. Just as the ancient Greeks took the concept of an alphabet from the earlier Phoenician civilisation and developed the written language, the scientific (re)discoveries we traditionally associate with the European Renaissance were built in turn on the progress during this golden age of Arabic science.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili has his own podcast, but here is a recording we made for this one just prior to the start of his three-lecture session. To start off with, I asked about his personal interest in astronomy.

_________________________

The quote for this episode is from the Prophet Mohammed and is in chapter 2 of Pathfinders.

“The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr”

Next year, April 12th  2011, marks the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's,  mankind's,  first steps into space. It was a product of the accumulated technology of many countries over many years, but particularly driven by the political landscape resulting from the 2nd world War. Since then, successful robotic missions have visited the planets, asteroids and comets. 24 men have gone to the moon and a dozen have even walked on its surface.

Subsequent achievements have fallen short of the expectations raised by Gagarin's flight. Gagarin himself openly spoke of his desire to go to the moon and Mars. That sounds like a pipe dream now but back in 1961, he was absolutely serious and realistic.

So what happened? Had the space race been won when Neil and Buzz landed on the Moon? Had the motivation borne out of political rivalries of the Cold War finally been exhausted? Perhaps, the problems closer at home of poverty, population growth, and environmental concerns raced to the top of the political agenda and forced governments into a pragmatic reconsideration of how they spent their cash?

Big questions. Too big for this episode, where Dr Chris Welch from Kingston University provides a brief outline of the current status of the Space policy here in the UK.   Dr Welch  also happens to be the chair of the of recently launched YuriGagarin50 group which has amongst its aims:

Stimulate celebration and recognition of the global significance of Gagarin and his flight - 'the first person in space, the first person to see the Earth as a planet'.

After his flight, Yuri Gagarin embarked on a world tour that included a 4-day visit to the UK, during which he surprisingly visited Manchester on 12th July 1961. By chance, Gagarin's first job was as a moulder in a foundry in Moscow.   He came to the UK and Manchester at the invitation of the Manchester-based Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers. I will be producing another episode focusing on Gagarin's UK visit next year. Did you see Gagarin in July 1961? Do you know someone who did? Share your memories. Drop me a note at [email protected].

With many months to go to next year's 50th anniversary, there are several events already being planned  to celebrate mankind's first steps into space. Keep an eye on the events calendar at  www.yurigagarin50.org

________________________________________________

The quote for this episode is from the Soviet government in 1961 following Gagarin's success in Vostok 1. Perhaps they were deliberately winding up the Americans but there is something warm and reassuring to see a couple of familiar words in the quote  “all mankind” that are on the plaque left on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts. A 1961 official Soviet Government and Communist Party announcement said.

“We regard these victories in the conquest of outer space not only as the achievement of our people but as an achievement of all mankind”

A video version of this podcast is available on Vimeo here.

A man playing golf on the moon is one of the images permanently etched into the collective memory of humanity's first exploration of the moon. The so called “golf player” was Alan Shepard the guy with him was Dr Edgar Mitchell whilst Stuart Roosa orbited the moon in the command module. Today, Ed Mitchell, two months away from his 80th birthday is the only remaining member of the Apollo 14 crew.

On a recent visit to Pontefract, organised once again by Ken Willoughby, he describes his personal journey to the moon. Amongst other things he highlights his javelin throw which, by a narrow margin, beat the golf ball, as a picture in his presentation illustrates. He spent nine hours on the surface of the moon during two EVAs on February 5th and 6th 1971. Apollo 14 was his only space flight and he left NASA in the following year.

Ed Mitchell is perhaps best known for his epiphany moment on the return journey to Earth when he experienced a unique spiritual sensation which has dominated his professional and personal life ever since. To help understand it, he left NASA and establish the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Over the last few years he has frequently spoken publicly about his interest in the paranormal, ESP and UFOs. He asserts that the Roswell incident was real, aliens have landed on the Earth and the US military is responsible for a cover-up.

It is strange that someone (a navy pilot and an Apollo astronaut) with a professional life dominated by leading edge science and technology can hold such an unscientific position. He appears oblivious to the contradiction in referring to himself as an astrophysicist and yet accepting Fred Hoyle's Steady State explanation of cosmology, for which there is little evidence, over the Big Bang. I wonder how he explains Hubble's law and the expansion of space, Cosmic microwave background radiation and the relative abundance of primordial elements.

I really should have asked him. I did not in part out of deference. Despite his age and unusual views, he remains a member of a unique group of individuals with a special contribution to human history. Who knows, he may well turn out to be right. In the meantime, the main road of science, directed by the sign posts of  observational evidence, is probably still the  best path to a more accurate understanding of the cosmos.

Dr Mitchell was kind enough to share his power point slides which I have incorporated into the hour long video presentation. Links to that presentation and a video version of this episode below.

====================================

An increasingly familiar quote from someone else who made a huge contribution to how we should go about understanding the cosmos. Carl Sagan.

“I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” .

Episode 35 - Video (10 minutes)

Dr Edgar Mitchell 2nd July 2010 from AstrotalkUK on Vimeo.

Nestling in a valley amongst the rolling green hills of the Eifel region of western Germany is the 100m Effelsberg steerable radio telescope. Similar to the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank which is on the plains of Cheshire in northwest England which can be seen from miles away. The  Effelsberg telescope  is situated in a valley so it easy to pass close by and not see it.

It is an international facility. Participating in Very Long Base Interferometry (VLBI) where physical links are necessary with other countries it also hosts astronomers from many other countries  and participates in global research projects. Although its website may appear a littel dated, Effelsberg has a surprisingly rich online presence including the current schedule and of course the now mandatory webcam.

Effelsberg is a leading player in a new international project called LOw Frequency ARray or LOFAR.  Lofar targets the low frequency range between 10MHZ and 250MHZ. However, for many years commercial FM radio stations, the local emergency services and the aviation industry have been using frequencies between 90MHZ and 108MHZ so Lofar range is split in to two bands. Low (10-90MHZ) and high (108 - 250MHZ). Thus there are in fact three telescopes at Effelsberg.

On a recent visit, Dr Norbert Junkes talked about the previous, current and new activities taking place at Effelsberg.

If you had the task of gathering all of humanity’s knowledge of cosmology in one place, how would you do it? Answers to questions such as, How big is the Earth? At what date and time will the Moon be full again? What makes the Sun shine? How old is the Universe? Today a good place to start the project would be to scour the sources online. In about 150AD Claudius Ptolemaeus, better known as Ptolemy, a Greek national with Roman citizenship living in Egypt, attempted to do just that. He is best known for his encyclopaedic work written in ancient Greek “Syntaxis Mathematica”, perhaps better known as the Almagest from the Arabic Al magisti “the greatest”. He was an industrious author of many scientific and mathematical treaties but he also collected works going back hundreds of years.

The Almagest was the premier source of knowledge for describing the cosmos for almost two thousand years. Nothing of the original survives, only hand written copies of hand written copies.

Today's episode is partially about one such copy, A seven hundred year old manuscript identified recently in the special collections of the Brotherton Library in the University of Leeds. Only parts of it is the Almagest. The manuscript was kept by Anthony Askew,   Joseph windham and then  lord Brotherton who donated it to the University of Leeds.

This episode is also about how information is transmitted through history. The value that successive individuals, societies and civilisations put on them. The inevitable errors in the mishmash of translations over hundreds of years from one language (Ancient Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Latin and English) to another or the periodic attempts by one scribe to diligently copy the work of another. In early 2009 Dr Regine May and Professor Malcolm Heath came across a 14th century manuscript catalogued as a work of Astrology and discovered it contained elements of Ptolemy's Almagest. The manuscript in three volumes has yet to receive detailed  scholarly scrutiny.

In today's episode there are 4 contributors.  Dr Regine May outlines how the almost accidental discovery of this manuscript came about and Dr Oliver Pickering, the keeper of the special collections describes how the library acquired the manuscript. A live recording of Professor Malcolm Heath, Dr Allan Chapman and Dr Oliver Pickering inspecting the manuscript in the Brotherton Library.

====================================

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who read and wrote about the ancient Greek culture. Perhaps it was the writings from the ancient Greek civilisation which lead him to conclude The future influences the present just as much as the past.