The Scientific Case for Human Spaceflight


A one-day symposium held to commemorate the 40th anniversary of manned spaceflight, as part of the UK National Astronomy Meeting, Cambridge, UK, on Thursday 5 April, 2001


Organised by: Dr I.A. Crawford (UCL) and Dr S.K. Dunkin (RAL)
Email: iac@star.ucl.ac.uk, S.K.Dunkin@rl.ac.uk


space station



Forty years ago, on 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin initiated the era of human spaceflight with his single, 108 minute, orbit of the Earth on board Vostok 1. Coincidently, 12 April 2001 was also the twentieth anniversary of the launch of the first US Space Shuttle, Columbia. In order to mark these key anniversaries in the history of human space exploration, and to explore the scientific benefits of human spaceflight, this one-day symposium was held as part of the UK's National Astronomy Meeting for 2001.

The proceedings of this meeting have now been published in a special issue of Earth, Moon and Planets (vol. 87(3), pp. 119-231, 2001).


Scientific Programme

(Click here for abstracts of the talks)



50
Time
Speaker
Affiliation
Title
09:00 Dr Ian Crawford University College London Introduction and Welcome
09:05 Dr Kevin Fong University College London Life Sciences Research on the International Space Station
09:55 Dr Olivier Minster European Space Agency (ESTEC) Basic and Applied Research in Physical Sciences in Space
10:45 COFFEE
11:15 RAS Session
Dr Arvind Parmar European Space Agency (ESTEC) High-Energy Astronomy from the International
Space Station
12:45 LUNCH
14:00 Dr Paul Spudis Lunar and Planetary Institute, The Case for Renewed Human
Houston Exploration of the Moon
14:50 Dr Alex Ellery Queen Mary College, London A Robotics Perspective on Human Spaceflight
15:30 TEA
16:00 Dr Julian Hiscox University of Reading The Human Exploration of Mars: an
Exobiological Perspective
16:40 Mr Nick Cross University of St Andrews The Case for Mars
17:05 Dr Andrew Coates Mullard Space Science Limited by Cost: the Case Against
Laboratory, UCL Humans in the Scientific
Exploration of Space
17:25 Dr Ian Crawford University College London The Scientific Case for a Human
Spaceflight Infrastructure
17:45 General Discussion
18:00 END OF MEETING