UK – astroengine.com

I, For One, Welcome Our New BritSpace Overlords

The Habitation Extension Module (HEM) proposed by UK engineers (University of Bristol)

The UK has started its own space agency (at long last) and the agency has a logo. The latter is the big news here.

At a time when motivation for manned spaceflight by NASA is dwindling and yet private industry is forcing its foot in the door of getting stuff into space, it’s nice to hear that the UK government felt the need to keep up with the rest of the world and set up an agency of their own. That’s not to say the UK hasn’t been involved in space programs before now, it’s just that our involvement has always been a piecemeal approach; hitching rides on other nation’s rockets with occasional probes (erm, well, the Mars Beagle 2 lander is the only one that comes to mind). Personally, I blame Maggie Thatcher (I have my reasons).

Awesome, so we now have an agency rather than an office cubicle tagged “Space.” This is a bona fide agency that has lunar aspirations (yep, really, we’re that original) and a funky logo to boot.

However, not everyone is impressed with the logo. In fact, Ken Carbone, a graphic designer who writes for the website Fast Company, thinks it’s dull:

The design recipe is simple, right? Take a square, add a Union Jack, thrust an arrow through it and BAM!

This logo is anything but tasty. The net result looks terribly fractured and unstable. Not the ideal visual for space flight.

To make matters worse, the U.K. Space Agency will have the inevitable and unfortunate acronym “U.K.S.A.” which sounds like something translated into Pig Latin.

But say if “fractured and unstable” is exactly the impression we were trying to give, huh? But, in all fairness, he does point out that all space agency logos are dull.

Let’s have a look the offending logo. Prepare yourself, it’s a disgrace:

Woah! Hold on a second. I thought it was supposed to be crap? As far as logos go, that’s one I can believe in. I mean, it’s a re-worked version of our proud national flag. It also has a gert red arrow, pointing up. What more do you need?

Admittedly, I think the acronym isn’t much cop. U.K.S.A. sucks cheese, “BritSpace” is far superior in my humble opinion (Science Minister Lord Drayson, consider that a suggestion), but as for the logo, I’m proud of that, I think it means business. Look at that arrow. It’s red. Pointing up. Masculine. Grrr.

That’s the logo of an aspiring space faring nation if I ever saw one.

And now for my least favorite space agency logo. Ladies and Gentlemen, please avert your eyes for the Croatian Space Agency:

But hey, what do I know, I’m not a graphic designer.

In all honesty, I like the UKSA logo, but I’m especially happy that the UK actually has an agency now rather than being just a player in the European Space Agency (ESA). But will it motivate a solution to the summering STFC debacle? That remains to be seen.

UK Snow: Where Did My Hometown Go?

A Terra Satellite view of the UK snow (NASA)

I just saw this stunning image on Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy and I assumed it was a fancy bit of art… or a computer generated view of glacial Britain… or UK-shaped frosted cake. Nope, it’s the UK as it looks from space, right now.

The UK is experiencing record low temperatures and I just got off the phone to my mum to hear that Bristol (my hometown, somewhere in the south-west of England) hit a bone shattering -15°C low last night. Yikes! And here I am looking out of my office window feeling the heat of the Sun of a 24°C California day. Truth be told, I’m a little jealous, I haven’t felt sub zero cold for years. In fact, the last time I saw negative temperatures in double figures was when I lived in the Arctic in 2002.

For now, I’ll just have to enjoy the view from space and hope this cold spell doesn’t cause too much hassle for my family and friends. My advice: Stay indoors, only go outside if you have a warm local pub within walking distance.

Interestingly, nearly a year ago, I was admiring views taken by the same Terra satellite of the British Isles of the snow fall back then. Needless to say, this year is worse, far worse (but a lot prettier).

The UK’s Brain Drain (been there, done that)

Professor-Stephen-Hawking-001

Back in 2006, I remember sitting in my local UK Job Centre finding out how I could claim for unemployment benefits.

I can see it now, the moment I explained to my liaison officer that I had been looking for work but received little interest. She looked at me and said, candidly, “Have you thought about not mentioning you have a PhD? It might help.” She smiled.

What? I now need to hide my qualifications if I want to get a job? Isn’t that a little counter-intuitive? Actually, as it turned out, she was right. Many of the jobs I had applied for didn’t require a postdoc to do them; why would a company hire me when they can hire a younger postgrad with lower salary expectations?

Up until that moment, I was still hopeful that I might be able to land an academic position; possibly back in my coronal physics roots, but funding was tight, and I hadn’t done enough networking during my PhD to find a position (I had been too busy scoping out the parties and free booze at the conference dinners).

So there I was, with all the qualifications in the world with no career prospects and a liaison officer who deemed it necessary to advise me to forget the last four years of my academic career. It was a low point in my life, especially as only a few months earlier I had been enjoying one of the highest points in my life: graduating as a doctor in Solar Physics.

Fortunately for me, I had another option. My girlfriend (now lovely wife) was living in the US, and although searching for a job in the UK was a priority for us (we were planning on living in the UK at the time), I knew I could try my luck in the US as well. So after a few months of searching, I cancelled my Job Centre subscription and moved to the other side of the Atlantic.

I had just become a part of the UK’s “brain drain” statistic. I had qualifications, but I was in a weird grey area where companies thought I was over-qualified and funds were in short supply for me to return to academic research.

A lot has happened since those uncertain postdoc times, and although I tried (and failed) to pick up my academic career in solar physics in the US (it turns out that even the sunny state of California suffers from a lack of solar physics funding), the job climate was different. Suddenly, having a PhD was a good thing and the world was my oyster again.

To cut a long story short, I’m happily married, we own five rabbits (don’t ask), we live just north or Los Angeles and I have a dream job with Discovery Channel, as a space producer for Discovery News.

Although I’d like to think that if I was currently living in the UK, I might have landed an equivalent career, I somehow doubt I would be as happy as I am right now with how my academic qualifications helped me get to where I am today.

Why am I bringing this up now? Having just read about Stephen Hawking stepping down as Lucasian professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University and the Guardian’s report about the risk of losing British thinkers overseas, I wonder if employment opportunities have improved since 2006. What’s most worrying is that there appears to be this emphasis on making money as quickly as possible, rather than pursuing academic subjects. However, in my experience, having a PhD doesn’t mean you can even land a job in industry, you might be over-qualified.

“Giving up on that tradition of deep intellectual discovery in favour of immediate economic benefit is a huge mistake. You lose the gem of creative, insightful, long-term thinking. That is what Britain has done so spectacularly in the past, and to give that up is a tragedy.” —Neil Turok

A special thanks to Brian Cox, who tweeted the inspiration to this post.

The Fear of God Could Reverse Global Warming. Oh Yes

The Flying Speghetti Monster. I wonder if this is what Lord May had in mind? (Church of the FSM)

This one comes direct from the UK’s Department for Wacky Ex-Chief Science Advisors, and I’m not too sure which I’m more shocked with; the fact that Lord May actually suggested that religion (i.e. fear of the All Mighty) could save the world from a climate meltdown or that the Telegraph reported May’s views so candidly.

Ex-government officials certainly are not afraid to share their views with the world, and that’s fine, but sometimes they sound a little crazy in doing so. Take last year’s discussion between Prof. Brian Cox and Sir David King.

King, Chief Science Advisor for the UK government from 2000-2007, came out with the astonishing statement that the Large Hadron Collider was “more navel searching than searching for potential future developments for the benefit of mankind.” He made this astounding point during a discussion on the BBC’s Newsnight, on the day the LHC was switched on. Buzz kill. Fortunately, Cox offloaded a round of common sense in the direction of Sir King, proving that it probably should have been a practising scientist, not a guy with a knighthood, advising the Prime Minister about UK science between the years of 2000 and 2007.

Unfortunately, a Lord might not be up to the task either, judging by this most recent statement by the UK Chief Science Advisor who reigned from 1995-2000.

“Given that punishment is a useful mechanism, how much more effective it would be if you invested that power not in an individual you don’t like, but an all-seeing, all powerful deity that controls the world,” he said

“It makes for rigid, doctrinaire societies, but it makes for co-operation.”

And how would this supernatural being help modern society? We’ll all be so scared to avoid getting struck down by “God” that the whole planet will band together, human cultures would stabilize and cooperate to find a quick solution to carbon emissions and climate change.

Yeah, ‘cuz that’s how religion works: scare the crap out of the commoners! Tell them that if they don’t recycle, or use public transportation, they’ll piss off God so much that he’ll fry them with a thunderbolt from heaven. That will solve all our climate woes!

The odd thing is that May is apparently an Atheist, so I’m even more confused as to where his faith in religion comes from. Sure, religion is integrated into society, and yes, it’s provided a structure to people’s lives for thousands of years. But this is not a solution for the international community to suddenly become best of friends. I’m not even sure how May thinks believing in a “supernatural punisher” will change a thing. Who’s going to evangelize this God? How do you drive the fear into the hearts of billions in an effort to save the planet? He does point out that fundamentalism isn’t good either, and that he’s not a big fan of the Pope.

This sounds more like a description of some conspiracy-driven New World Order than an answer to rising carbon emissions.

No, don’t confuse the world’s inability to coordinate an effective plan to slow (or reverse) the effects of greenhouse gases with a world without a “supernatural punisher.” Besides, shouldn’t Lord May be promoting good science rather than thinking religion might save us all? As, let’s face it, religion isn’t the best catalyst for world collaboration (no matter how moderate it is).

My belief is that science is our best bet at finding a solution. Unfortunately it’s international politics that often lets us down, not a world that doesn’t have the fear for a divine being.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Satellite View of UK Snow Storms

Snow cover over east England up to the Scottish border on February 4th (Terra MODIS/NASA) — Snow cover over east England up to the Scottish border on February 4th. *Left:* A visible light view. *Right:* Visible/infrared wavelengths, the snow cover is in red (Terra MODIS/NASA)

UPDATE: This post is from the snowstorm in February 2009, for the satellite view of the UK in the grips of record low temperatures in January 2010 go to “UK Snow: Where Did My Hometown Go?“

In case you were wondering what the recent snow storms in the UK looked like from space, NASA has released imagery from their Terra satellite for our viewing pleasure. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured images down to a resolution of 250 metres/pixel, showing the detail in the snow cover and urban areas.

The MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this view of snow in England on February 4, 2009. The snow stretches from the English Channel north under a bank of clouds near the Scottish border. The winter storm that brought the snow in the first days of February blanketed southeast England with the heaviest snow the region had seen in 18 years, said BBC News. As much as 20 centimeters (8 inches) of snow fell on London. The poor weather closed transportation, schools, and businesses throughout southeastern England, reported BBC News. — MODIS website

I know for a fact this huge amount of snow caused all sorts of inconvenience for the entire country, but I would have liked to have been in my hometown of Bristol (in the south-west–bottom-left–of the image above, under all that cloud cover) to experience a good old fashioned British winter. According to my mum, her street wasn’t lined in snow men, it was filled with snow giants, an entire town of them! Oh well, I’ll just have to admire the scene from space…

Source: MODIS/NASA