Send Your Name to Mars with NASA's MSL

NASA invites you to submit your name to be included on a microchip that will be sent to Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, scheduled to launch in 2011. MSL is a rover that will assess whether Mars ever was, or still is, an environment able to support microbial life. The Send Your Name to Mars Web page enables anyone to take part in the mission by sending his or her name to the Red Planet.

Buzz Aldrin and Snoop Dogg's "Rocket Experience"

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has produced a hip-hop song, "Rocket Experience" along with rappers Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli! If you like it, you can buy it on iTunes (a portion of the proceeds will go to ShareSpace Foundation, to further benefit and support the work of the National Space Society, the Planetary Society and the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation).

Kingston student space competition hat trick!

I am very pleased to announce that for the third year in a row a Kingston Astro student has been selected to represent the UK at the International Astronautical Congress in the undergraduate paper competition. Final year MEng Astro student James Arkwright has been selected to present a paper based on his final year project, ‘Development of a Desktop Hybrid Rocket Motor for Classroom Demonstration’, supervised by Barnaby Osborne, at IAC2009 in Daejeon, Korea in October. Congratulations to both of them!

James (shown here at the Big EARS rocketry week-end) is the fifth Kingston student to be selected in the last six years and follows on from Victoria Reid (2008), Alison Gibbings (2007 – Silver Medal Winner), Flis Holland (2005) and Peter Rickmers (2004 – Gold Medal Winner).