Liftoff!

It's a pretty vicious cycle, trying to blog about the SSP in Florida; the program is so busy that you can't find anytime to write a blog post; but the longer you delay writing the post, the more things you do in the mean time and so the more time you need to actually fit everything into a post..! a vicious, vicious cycle.

As a result of this, I've got about two weeks jam-packed with activities that I'm yet to write about, but to save my typing hands, and sanity, I'm only going to mention a few of the more spectacular things which I've experienced recently.

To date, there have been 24 Space Studies Programs ran by the ISU, this being the 25th, all held in different locations across the world. Maybe it's just bias but I really don't see how the other venues could compete with the space coast of Florida for the ultimate reason that in the last two weeks alone, I have seen two spectacular rocket launches!
Two NRO top-secret satellites have been launched into orbit whilst I've been here. Although information on the payloads is classified, the rockets used to launch them is very freely shared information. I've witnessed the launch of an Atlas V rocket and  Delta IV Heavy, the most powerful rocket in use in the world! Both of these have exceptionally positive launch histories and are very reliable. It was pretty cool being able to watch these launches from the same balcony that the President uses to watch launches when he comes down.

Atlas V

Delta IV Heavy

Another highlight in recent days was the TEDx event organised by the ISU. TED talks have a reputation for excellence and they have since expanded to allow independent organisations to host TED talks (this is signified by the 'x'). At this event, we had speakers such as Astronaut Colonel Ron Garen and Jeff Manber, the ex-CEO of MirCorp. On top of this, Davy Knowles, a Rhythm and Blues guitarist, gave a great musical performance. I helped out as a volunteer during the event, working to register the guests and then I moved backstage to simply hang out with the speakers and make sure they had everything they needed - a pretty cool job!

Some of the TEDx volunteers along with the event organiser and some speakers. I'm second from the left, on the top.

In my blog posts, I have a tendency to overlook some of the academic events at the SSP and seem to focus more on the fun, social trips that we go on. Recently, our core lecture series (60 lectures in total) came to an end. The lectures were given by a host of experts and were definitely a lot more interesting than your standard University lecture (no offence Imperial College London lecturers...). To round off the lecture course and to ensure everyone followed what was being taught, we were set a 4-hour (ouch!) exam on the subject material; consisting of one question focusing on each department (7 departments in total) and one multidisciplinary question. The whole 4-hours were not needed and the exam is actually quite engaging, asking very interesting questions - for example the multidisciplinary question was more or less asking 'what problems need to be overcome for SpaceX to take people to Mars?' (You need to draw points from all 7 departments to get a good mark on this question). In the end, I managed to achieve 89.5% in the exam.
Our Department activities are now in full swing and I am assigned to the Business and Management department. So far we have had a swathe of fascinating talks from guest lecturers; ranging from CEO's to scientists to journalists. One talk in particular that was great was from the Vice President of Special Projects for Virgin Galactic. Space Tourism is definitely an interesting topic and I plan on writing a super short blog post on a few aspects of it in the coming days.
We're also currently working on our Team Projects. As mentioned previously, I am a member of a team exploring the 'Next Generation Space Station'. Recently, we sub-divided the project into a few areas that need addressing and people have been volunteering to work on specific areas. I am working on the engineering aspect, focusing in particular on the Power and Thermal systems that we will need to consider. My final year project at University was on Space Radiation and its associated health effects, so I am hoping to apply some of this knowledge to the design of a Space Station as well.

Although there is much I haven't covered, tiredness and some computer issues are persuading me to sign-off for the night. Keep an eye out for a post in the next few days regarding Space Tourism and be sure to check out my Flickr account for some new photos that I have uploaded (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacejosh/).

P.S. Tonight I saw a screening of the film/documentary 'Orphans of Apollo' which follows the events surrounding the formation of 'MirCorp', a company which leased the Mir station for commercial use by a group of visionary entrepreneurs; spurning the wishes of NASA and the US government. It's a film showing a fascinating story which should not be forgotten. I highly recommend watching it.