Mr Casey's lunch time talk on Politics and Space for the Batchelor Society was bursting at the seams with pupils eager to learn more. Pupils learnt about the little-known Russian, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, whose research and published papers formed the foundation of space travel - he was the first to show that rockets had the ability to push through the atmosphere in 1903.
Pupils learnt about rocket launch sites around the world and how satellites influence us in our daily lives: enabling the emergency services to find people, our online shopping deliveries, weather predictions and the military amongst others. There are a few thousand satellites in space, with the USA, China and Russia having the most and sizes varying from a pickup truck down to the size of a watermelon! It's getting crowded in space and inevitable that space will descend into spheres of influence as rivalries, alliances and conflicts on earth spill out into space.
The talk highlighted the importance of the moon and how last summer India were the first nation to touch down on its southern pole. It seems we are destined to spend more time on the moon as it is the home of rare minerals that are used in many of our advanced technologies and is set to become a garage/staging area holding valuable fuel for rocket return journeys to Earth and hosting ships launching on long distance missions.
An insightful and thought-provoking talk - thank you Mr Casey!
