If you missed the live show but would like to listen to the interview then click the link below and hit the listen to the show link. The Space Show - Thais Russomano Interview

If you have nothing better to do and you have 90 minutes to spare this coming Sunday 13th June 2010 then you might want to listen in on The Space Show, where I will be chatting to host Dr David Livingston about space, research, life and whatever else takes our fancy!

The internet radio show program is from 12-1.30pm PDT which I think equates to 4-5.30pm in Porto Alegre, Brazil and 8-9.30pm in London, UK.

Go to www.thespaceshow.com and click on LISTEN LIVE and you will find options for listening via internet radio. Interviews can also be listened to at a later date or downloaded in mp3 format.

The Space Show is more than 7 years old now and has conducted nearly 1,500 live radio interviews. The focus of the program is to further space commerce, space development, science, space tourism, and above all, realistic space education relating to all of these subjects and more.

(Interview will be in English)

In FLORENCE, Italy this week a science museum re-opens after two years of renovations, sporting a new look and a new name – The Galileo Museum.

Named after the Italian physicist, mathematician and astronomer Galileo Galilei, known as the ‘Father of modern science’, who died in 1642, the museum contains the only surviving instruments designed and built by him, including the telescope lens he used to discover Jupiter’s moons.

But more bizarrely, also on display will be two of Galileo’s fingers – more precisely his thumb and middle finger from his right hand, mounted in a glass case, as well as another of his fingers and a tooth! In 1737 these items were taken from his body as it was being moved to a monumental tomb in Santa Croce Basilica, Florence. They stayed in the possession of one family for generations until disappearing in the early 20th century, before turning up at an auction last year.  

The Roman Catholic Church condemned Galileo and he was tried by the Inquisition after his most famous book ‘Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems’ was published in 1632, in which he publicly agreed with the idea of Copernicus that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the centre of the Universe. He was kept under house arrest for the rest of his life.

It was only in 1992 that Pope John Paul II expressed regret about how Galileo had been treated by the church and admitted that errors had been made.

It was a marvelous surprise this week to receive an email from my editors EDIPUCRS to say that the book 'A Gravidade Esta Grande Escultora' had been selected for consideration for this years Jabuti Premios 2010 in the category Natural Sciences & Health Sciences. This prestigious award, sponsored by the Brazilian Chamber of Books, has been running since 1958 and is possibly the most well known and important literary prize in Brazil.

Written together with Dr Joan Vernikos, former Director of Nasa's Life Sciences division,  the book shows how adopting a lifestyle that optimizes the use of gravity as an ally, can help reverse or slow down the changes that come with the so-called aging process. By looking at the results of space research, we can gain a better understanding  of the effects of Earth's gravity on our human physiology and use this in a common sense way to help improve the quality of our lives.

Results of the selection process should be announced in August and October this year, so fingers crossed!
 

The 6 crewmembers of the Mars 500 mission waved goodbye to the outside world for the last time this week (June 3rd 2010) at the start of what will be 520 days of isolation as they try to simulate as accurately as possible a manned flight to Mars and back.

Diego Urbina and Romain Charles from Europe, Sukhrob Kamolov, Alexey Sitev, Alexandr Smoleevskiy and Mikhail Sinelnikov from Russia and Wang Yue from China will live and work as the astronauts would in reality, also eating the same food and exercising in an identical manner as crew members onboard the International Space Station.

Their days will be divided up equally between work, leisure and rest time, and as well as an 18 month supply of food and equipment on board the ‘spacecraft’ they have taken films, books, games and musical instruments with which to entertain themselves.

The men will have to rapidly adjust both mentally and physically to being contained within a closed environment with restricted space, and a regime of daily exercise for up to 2 hours will be important to maintain physical condition. Unfortunately though they will only be able to shower once a week so a poor sense of smell would probably be a good thing!

The Mars 500 experiment will be excellent for simulating the living conditions, work routine and stresses of living as a small group in a confined space and should therefore give some valuable feedback and data. However, there are important factors that cannot be simulated in this way on Earth, such as the effects of long term exposure of astronauts to radiation and microgravity. It is imperative for the safety of crew members on any future long-term manned mission that we gain a better understanding of the physiological processes that lie behind such effects.