Moving On: What is the space engineering industry like as a whole? Is it quite a big community?
Anthony Haynes: The space industry isn’t very well known, because the UK has never developed its own consistent launch system. A lot of people think because there aren’t regular rockets taking off that the UK must have a small space industry and that if you want to be an astronaut, you have to be American. But we have a healthy state of satellite technology in particular.
At Reaction Engines Ltd we have employed quite a lot of people through knowing them already, with us being part of a small team – how we work together is really crucial.
That’s why networking and space societies are so useful.
A simple, cheap infrared camera which can measure plant health — for geek gardeners, farmers, and open source DIY scientists.
What could farmers, gardeners, students or environmental activists do with an infrared camera that costs as little as $35?
What is Infragram?
Infragram is a simple, affordable near-infrared camera produced by the Public Laboratory community in a series of collaborative experiments over the last few years. We originally developed this technology to monitor wetlands damages in the wake of the BP oil spill, but its simplicity of use and easy-to-modify open-source hardware & software makes it a useful tool for home gardeners, hikers, makers, farmers, amateur scientists, teachers, artists, and anyone curious about the secret lives of plants.
In addition to microlensing to detect exoplanets, a coronagraph
will block out a large fraction of the light of target stars. With much of the glare of parent stars suppressed, the telescope will be able to directly image any planets orbiting that star. The goal is to produce as narrow an image of the space around the star as possible. This is referred to as the Inner Working Angle (IWA). The more that the IWA can be shrunk, the more inner planets can be imaged. It is possible that the enhanced WFIRST may be able to view planets as close as 1 astronomical unit (AU) to their parent star, depending on their distance from our solar system.
The ISC 2013 will provide a high-profile platform for analysis and discussion of topics ranging from the key factors in the commercial development of space pertaining issues like ‘space property’, international exploration, ‘national security strategy’, economic benefits of space travel, capabilities of space development and tourism, space utilities, satellite technology and many others.