First "Beagle Challenge" group meet

The first meeting of the "Beagle Challenge group" met this evening. I was really pleased that we got about 14 people to attend, all of which have now signed up to the Google group. It was important that everyone realised that you don't need building or scripting skills to take part. The group also needs researchers and authors for the literature that will go with the models. I detailed that it would be nice for the eventual build to be donated to the International Space Museum but the group also felt that this and any other models we may undertake should also be displayed in an exhibition space on the OU/Schome island too.  I'll approach the owners of the island to see if this is possible. It would make sense that we show what the residents of the island are capable of.

I found the discussion quite heavy going at times. I still haven't perfected the art of managing an online conversation where more then two people are involved. The problem is that there is often several different conversations going on at once. This makes it hard to follow. Subsequently,  participants lose track of what is being proposed and accepted. As an example, each person who takes part will have a specific responsibility. Those responsibilities have not yet been assigned but members of the group where already undertaking certain tasks (researching, creating groups etc), which led to a duplication of effort and some confusion.

So the initial outcomes where :

Each member will write a short resume. This will detail skills, interests and what they would like to get out of the group.

A document will be posted that will allow each group member to take on a task. Hopefully, each member will stick to the task given and not encroach on the tasks of others.

The first tasks that need to be completed are those of the researchers. We need documentation, images, dimensions etc. How does the science work? How does the lander operate? all these things need to be clear so the builders have a clear idea of what the final model should look like and how it should behave.

We will meet again in a week to discuss progress. While the build is ongoing, Those builders and scripters that are willing will hopefully let us know when they are working on the project so others can join them and either learn by observing or better still, if the builder/scripter would talk through what they are attempting to do.

So many people with so many skills and such enthusiasm may prove to be quite a challenge.

ESA missions

http://www.rssd.esa.int/index.php?project=ASTRONOMY

This is a rather neat way to present  exploration missions. The next of which will be GAIA in 2011. This mission will produce a 3D map of the Milky Way.

Schome (Spectroscopy, Climate and Habitability from Orbital Measurement of Earthshine)

It seems there are interesting things going on with other Schomers on the island. The "Schome Core team" are proposing an instrument to measure EarthShine and use spectroscopic techniques to analyse the composition of Earths atmosphere and draw conclusions about what this may mean for the spectroscopic signatures of exoPlanets. Take a look at the full project at http://www.schome.ac.uk/wiki/Proposal.

Posted by Becky (19th August 00:45)

2008 London.

I try and get to the science museum at least once in a year. Today was 2008's trip. I had a good reason for going this time of course. Which reminds me. If you are an OU or Schomer, you can now read the new Schomebase Science blog at http://schomebasescience.blogspot.com/. Unfortunately, for this first posting, you'll get this one again. However, there will be a handful of contributors so you should get different perspectives on the topics we are covering.
I was actually quite surprised that the Science Museum wasn't as busy as it has been during the school summer break in previous years. A sign of the recession? OK , It's free to get in but a day on London for a visitor with travel and food can be quite an expensive outing.

The main purpose for my trip was to get some detailed images of the Beagle exhibit for our build group. I felt quite upset that it was tucked away towards the back wall of the "exploring space" exhibition hall. You have to walk around the back to really see it properly. I was struck by some of the comments from some of the people who were looking at it. A few had no idea about what its purpose was. Comments like "It went to the moon"! The vast majority of people though seem to know that it was the lander "that they lost". It heartened me to hear that they didn't say this in any mocking sense.

So I got my images (several tens of pictures actually). And a few of other exhibits too. I was looking around to see if there were others that we could possibly tackle in the future. There really wasn't. They had one launcher as far as I could see but they did have contributions from UK establishments for NASA funded missions. Which reminds me - Where was the Huygens probe??? Not even Cassini. They need to update there exhibits I think. So, they had the SpaceLab 2 X-ray telescope which was built at the University of Birmingham. It was designed to make a map of X-ray sources as they where detected through a mask (picture opposite). It mapped the x-ray sources at the centre of our galaxy. It even detected what was considered a micro quaser (an object that emits very high energy x-rays).

Couple of other things worthy of note. They now have a gallery for the history of science on film (OU, where are you)? I watched a movie from the 50's in which the Astronomer Royal (who's name escapes me), expressed his opinion on Manned space flight. He said it wouldn't happen for hundreds of years! a mere 10 to 15 years later, Russia put a man in space. In the same film, a very young and less eccentric Patrick Moore. An exhibit that is Science Art is the "Listening Post". IT takes real time snippets of chat from the Internet and displays them in a large bank of little displays and also converts the test to speech. it's quite hard to explain so you can look at a video of the exhibit here (youtube). I sat in front of it for nearly an hour. It was a very odd but strangely calming experience. You have to try it for yourself if you find yourself there.

Becky's Forum Post of 16 August 2008

We now have a skeleton Wiki (http://www.schome.ac.uk/wiki/SchomeBase_Beagle_2_Challenge_Activity_Group).
A Google Docs page that we will be using to share things required for the project. If you want to be added to the group, please send me the email addres you would like to use and I'll invite you.
Greg has suggested a blog that we all can contribute to (If you want to). I think this is a great idea but we can discuss this at the first meeting (20th August - Next wednesday at 8pm). Venue TBA. I will be showing you the images I take at the Science Museum on Sunday at this meeting and we can talk about how we can take this forward and the eventual outcomes.

Look forward to hearing from you.


Best wishes
Becky