At the 7th July meeting Colin John gave a talk on the subject of 'Technology in Space'. He covered the technology behind the Space Shuttle Tile Repair procedures and the means of tile surface inspection. He told of how future missions to Mars might include flying craft in the form of fixed wing or balloon. A future Mars lander may include some sort of burrowing device and solar panel dust removing systems. He told us that the current Mars Orbiter has just deployed the Ground Penetrationg Radar antenna and soon this may reveal sub-surface water. There were plans for a return to the Moon with a habitat system incorporated into a long distance vehicle. He looked at currently placed space telescopes and showed pictures of what they see and rounded off the presentation with a gallery of Hubble Telescope images.
There will be no August meeting so the next meeting to be held as usual at the 'Friends Meeting House' in Granville Road, Clacton will be on 1st September. We are extremely fortunate to have as our main speaker Dr Jonathan Shanklin. As a Professional Astronomer he will talk about his experiences as 'An Astronomer in Antarctica.