UK ESA’s first ever open day!

Hi Spacecats, I’m Dr Maggie Lieu and welcome to my channel, where you can find all things space, astronomy and physics! This video was taken on Harwell Campus open day, also being the first ever open day of the European Space Agency’s UK site ECSAT.

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I went to Issa UK’s first ever open day hey Space Cats I’m Dr Maggie L and on Saturday the 29th of June issa’s UK headquarters exat opened its doors to the general public for the first time for a day of exploration and fun the event was part of a larger Harwell campus open Day called science up close that opened its entire campus all of Harwell up to the General Public [Music] howwell for those of you who don’t know is the UK’s space cluster it’s an integral part of the UK space sector and Europe as a whole it’s a hub for space related businesses research organizations and institutions to collaborate and to drive Innovation and Commercial growth in the space sector but Harwell isn’t just space the science and Innovation campus is home to over 240 organizations employing over 6 thousand people in sectors across space clean energy Life Sciences so things like drug Discovery and medical technology and also Quantum Computing Harwell is also home to some of the world’s most advanced scientific infrastructure so particle accelerators supercomputers and Laser facilities and on the open day they were all open everything was open to the general public well at least if you got a ticket whil the event was free to attend we had to register for tickets these came out about 2 weeks before the big day and let me tell you it was a huge pain to get hold of them maybe even more of a sellout than Taylor Swift tickets if that’s even possible Taylor Swift is dangerous they did free staggered releases of tickets one in the early morning one at midday and then at late evening even though I was there every time on the ball at my laptop I somehow didn’t manage to get tickets on the first two releases so it was a huge relief that I managed to secure two on the third tribe for me and my brother who was also Keen to see Issa an organization that I’m always talking about we drove and the entry times were staggered but if you’re doing this I would highly recommend you getting the earlier time slots even though they didn’t check on the day trust me this place is so big it’s not even near enough time to see everything on the day it was 1 and 1/ half hour drive down but we also got stuck in traffic and on arrival to the site it was absolutely Mayhem it took 1 hour just to park up so even though our entry time was 11:30 we didn’t actually get in until 1: p.m. we’re here so if you’re planning to go make sure you plan early we get wristbands and a map and make off to the only place that matters isa’s EXA the European space agency’s European Center for space applications and Telecommunications weaving through the m massive crowds and endless food trucks on arrival a local DJ DJ Axel blasted Tunes [Music] endlessly it seems a bit random but Issa have a long-standing relationship with music with their annual space Rocks concert mixing space and music they’ve had a DJ set in the anaco chamber in estc where they test spacecraft and they even sent DJ Steve Aoki on a zerog g flight we Dart over to the shiny new magalie vaser Conference Center it’s named after the former head of exat where most of the firm was happening and it came with a warm welcome from a massive inflatable astronaut you may have noticed my past post of the same one at my old workplace Isa isach at the entry they have a spin the wheel game so anyone who fills out a quiz gets a free spin to win a prize but to be honest the quiz was pretty difficult but it’s okay they didn’t check it’s the effort that counts prizes included t-shirts stickers posters and more inside the building there were drones there were models of spacecraft including a miniature aolis which I was proudly supporting on the day mostly missions relating to xat though there was also a chance to try on a space suit which I of course couldn’t miss out on these obviously aren’t the real space suits that you would go to space with they’re just made out of a thick Fabric and not quite airtight but the astronauts training here on Earth might be trained in something similar just to get them used to it deeper into the building there was a conference room filled with activities where you could TR your hands at catching space debr or play around in augmented reality with VR headsets there were interactive displays of the earth as well as a climate fashion display in the foyer geologists from exat Vulcan facility had an exhibit of rocks and dust from the moon but unfortunately there was no touching and there was a whole range of space Rovers including Roslin Franklin Rover previously known as exomars this mission was put on indefinite hold but now back on track for a 2028 launch and if you were small enough you could even get a ride on the remote control Rover but the main conference room was where it was all at at first it was a Q&A session given by Issa experts including David Parker isa’s director of human and robotic exploration and the former director of the UK space agency honestly he was the best part of my day David really surprised me with his knowledge about the broad aspects of Issa answering science questions about things like gravitational waves and the lease submission and also about the exoplanet finder aerial missions he answered everything excellently the other Engineers were great too though and then there were talks from isa’s newly selected ashar Rosemary cougan on her training so far one year after selection and Reserve astronaut Manan Christian who talked about why she thinks she was selected her background was pretty impressive from her PhD to working in Antarctica and testing materials on zerog G flights as part of her research the day ended at 4 p.m. so with what little time we had left we did do a bit of exploring of Ral space the UK’s National Space laboratory that’s helped over 210 instruments into space and also a bit of space applications catapult we did see some other bits and Bobs not relating to space cosmic ray detectors and Cloud Chambers in the more generic Visitor Center they also had a live stream from a scientist from Ser but I was pretty disappointed that we didn’t have time to check out the other things like the Isis pulse Neutron muon Source where beams of particles allow scientists to study materials at the atomic level or the diamond synchron that produces intense beans of Light by accelerating electrons to near the speed of light anyway overall if you get the chance to go next year I would highly recommend it especially if you have young children there are tons of activities for the little ones and loads of food and ice cream trucks it’s fun even if you want to hang out there for a picnic that’s all for me this week thank you to my YouTube perks members for supporting this video If you enjoyed it please don’t forget to leave me a like share and subscribe [Music] fing [Music] Unos expore F star