Mississauga Centre RASC

94th Meeting

                                                                                                 Speakers’ Night       

Day:                Friday November 16, 2007

Chair:                Randy Attwood

Speaker:          Ken Money

Dr.  Ulrich Krull of the University of Toronto welcomed Ken Money and the audience on the occasion of the 40^th anniversary of UTM.  He gave a history of astronomy at the Mississauga campus.  The first astronomy class had 3 students.  There are now 70,000 students at the University of Toronto with 11,000  at UTM. .  20 to 25% of the faculty have been recognized with major awards.  Dr. Tom Bolton had the first publication of a black hole candidate.  Also from U of T is Dr. Racine from the CHFT.  Roberta Bondar, astronaut, studied here. David Strangway studied Moon rocks here.

Randy Attwood thanked the University for sponsoring the Mississauga Centre here.  He described the RASC with its history dating back to 1868 with its roots in the Toronto Astronomical society.  Currently the RASC has 28 centres and 4,600 members.   The Mississauga Astronomical Society was founded in 2003 and became a centre of the RASC in 2006.  Randy outlined the benefits of membership such as outreach, publications like SkyNews and the Journal. 

Humans and Spaceflight

Dr. Ken Money has been a RCAF pilot, a bush pilot, Canadian astronaut, physiologist and a member of the Canadian track and field Olympic team in 1956.  He spoke about humans and spaceflight.

Dr. Money first read a letter written by Kepler to Galileo in 1610 mentioning spaceflight.  Kepler was the first person to use astronomical data to develop a theory (planetary motion) underlying mankind’s quest to understand our place in the universe.  Prior to this time, Giordano Bruno was arrested for teaching that there are countless inhabited worlds and that the Earth rotates upon an axis and orbits the Sun. He was executed on February 17, 1600.  The universe is believed to have formed in the Big Bang. Four lines of evidence for this can be seen.  First, Edwin Hubble found that through red shifts of galaxies, the universe is expanding.  Secondly, hydrogen is found to make up 75% of the elements with helium at 23%, and 2% for the rest, compatible with theory.  Thirdly, cosmic microwave background radiation was predicted, and was observed in 1989 by the COBE spacecraft to the predicted value and variation.  Finally, negative evidence that supports the Big Bang is the inability to see anything beyond 15 billion light years. 

Heavier elements formed in stars and were released by supernovas.  We are organized, living, breathing stardust and hence creatures of the stars, and based on 3.8 billion years of evolution on the Earth.  During this times all the environment on Earth was changing except for gravity.  One g of gravity causes us to have tendons, bones, anti-gravity muscles and reflexes, adjustment of vessels to position, and otoliths for balance.  We are thus creatures of gravity.  Our circadian rhythm is based on rotation of the Earth and our breathing developed appropriately to its atmosphere.  Hence the human body is the product of 3.8 billion years of evolution by natural selection and is so well adapted to this planet.  Homo sapiens will probably become Homo spaciens rather than terminus. 

Major purposes of spaceflight are scientific investigations and its spin-offs, exploration and adventure, favourable effect on youth and the demonstration of scientific and economic strength.  Finally there are two more compelling purposes.  We eventually have to build colonies to prevent extinction of the species and building of space colonies is more interesting than what we are doing now.   

What have we been doing to now?  We have been increasing our numbers, our pleasures and comforts and increasing conflicts between groups.  Each year the human population increases by 66 million with 6.2 billion people on Earth right now.  This is causing a huge stress on the environment.  Wars are present all the time.  Many millions of people have been killed by governments of their own people (examples in Germany, USSR, Cambodia, China etc.).   Games and sports stadiums are evidence of group conflicts.  Many efforts to stop conflict have been made such as the establishment of the European Union.  It is more interesting to create colonies in the universe than to do what we have been doing up till now. 

In addition dangerous impacts take place on the Earth including the Mars-like object which hit the Earth producing the Moon, the Yucatan impact causing the extinction of the dinosaurs, the impacts in Sudbury, Lake Manicouagan in Quebec, Wolfe Creek in Australia, Meteor Crater in Arizona. On the Earth’s surface, 150 impact craters are visible. In Alberta alone, over 450 have been discovered underground.  Every 100 years, a devastating impact occurs on the Earth, the last being in June 1908 in Tunguska, Siberia.  Humans will probably have to build space colonies to protect themselves from the globally devastating impact which happens about every 100 million years.

We have made a start in making colonies in space such as with the space station.  We can take parts of the Earth with us but we cannot take its gravity, its shielding from radiation, the spaciousness or social interactions.  However, we can shield, can rotate and take congenial people. 

Finally Dr. Money described his training as an astronaut.  He studied as a scientist, flew airplanes, took weightlessness training, parachuting and was paid for it.  On one occasion he was suffering from tennis elbow and was unable to pull his ripcord.  With the parachute spinning he almost had a fatal crash.  He described safety procedures, escapes, the space shuttle and its toilet.   He has been able to meet famous people like Brian Mulroney, and was photographed a lot.   His favourite photograph is of the Earth rising over the Moon (Apollo astronauts). 

Randy Attwood closed the meeting with images of the Moon taken by the new Japanese spacecraft Kayuga. 

 Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary  Chris Malicki, Secretary                               back to Miss Centre. meeting reports page
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