Space: The ups and downs of modern exploration

When:
March 5, 2015 @ 6:30 pm
2015-03-05T18:30:00+00:00
2015-03-05T20:30:00+00:00
Where:
Burlington House
Piccadilly, Mayfair, London W1J 0BD
UK
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Royal Society of Chemistry
+44 (0) 20 7437 8656

Space travel, whether human or not, has become so commonplace that most rocket launches pass unnoticed by the world’s media. It usually takes a catastrophe like the break-up of the VSS Enterprise over the Mojave Desert in 2014, the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003 or the catalogue of adrenaline-fuelled problem-solving activities that saved Apollo 13 to ignite public interest.

Given the complexity of space missions, failure rates are amazingly low. However, the number of astronaut deaths is high for a mode of travel that is about to be commonplace and satellite insurance policies are often too costly for organisations to include them in their budgets. Has space travel lost its way?

This talk by Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut and a chemist by training, will explore some of the issues and how they are solved, looking forward to a time when space travel will be a joyful (and safe) experience for many.

This is the Chilterns and Middlesex Local Section Humphry Davy lecture.