Tag Archives: Space Travel

Podcast #25: Clyde Foster at ScopeX 2017

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Welcome to the 25th episode of the Urban Astronomer Podcast, which is also the 1st episode of 2018. Happy New Year!  Over the past few episodes, I’ve been running a series of public lectures that I recorded at ScopeX 2017.  ScopeX is an annual telescope and astronomy expo held every year at the Military History museum in Johannesburg.  This is the last lecture in the series, on the topic of the Apollo Program. Clyde Foster was the speaker. News Next … Continue reading →

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Podcast #23: Phila Sibandze at ScopeX 2017

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Welcome to episode 23 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast! This week we feature the third in our series of public lectures given at ScopeX earlier this year, which was presented by Phila Sibandze of the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). Phila Sibandze Phila works for SANSA as an earth observation scientist, and his talk was titled “A journey through the life of a satellite”.  In it he walked us through the process of designing, building, launching and operating a satellite, … Continue reading →

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Podcast #5: Mercury

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Welcome to the 5th episode of the Urban Astronomer Podcast! We’re well on our way in the grand experiment of deciding how exactly to format the show, and today we’re trying yet another combination! We’ll start off by answering the question first asked in a classic Urban Astronomer article, one originally written back in 2010 and that’s been consistently popular with our readers:  Will an astronaut explode if they take off their helmet? Our feature item introduces my new co-host, and … Continue reading →

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What do astronauts eat in space?

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Apparently the two most popular questions people like to ask astronauts are how the toilet works in zero gravity, and what the food is like.  The answer to the first question is “reasonably well”, but the second deserves a little more time.  Happily, this infographic recently landed in my mailbox from the good folks at Labely.com which looks at the evolution of food in space from Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering first orbit up till the modern meals served on the International Space … Continue reading →

Mission to Mars: Why we must go

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This entry (Mission to Mars: Why we must go) was originally written for my Now Look Here! blog, but I reckon it’s relevant for Urban Astronomer too: I listened to a series of Naked Scientists podcasts recently, on the various competing plans to launch a human mission to Mars. One episode stood out in particular, asking whether this was something that we need to spend money actually doing.They assembled a panel of various experts and authorities to debate the issue, and while … Continue reading →