An RAS Specialist Discussion Meeting organised by Professor Ian Crawford (Birkbeck)*, Professor John Zarnecki (Open University), Dr Jill Stuart (LSE/Space Policy) and Mr Jeremy Curtis (UK Space Agency)
* Contact: i.crawford_AT_ucl.ac.uk
Under the auspices of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG), in September 2011 twelve of the world’s space agencies, including the UK Space Agency, came together to produce a plan for the international human and robotic exploration of the inner Solar System. Beginning with the International Space Station (ISS), this Global Exploration Roadmap (http://www.globalspaceexploration.org/web/isecg/news/2013-08-20) reflects the international effort to define feasible and sustainable exploration pathways to the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, and Mars over the next 25 years.
Many diverse areas of science represented by the RAS would benefit from implementation of the Global Exploration Roadmap, including planetary science, astrobiology, and aspects of observational astronomy. This interdisciplinary meeting will aim to cover all of these areas, and to raise the profile of the Global Exploration Roadmap among the UK scientific community. By demonstrating widespread community interest in the Roadmap, it is hoped that the meeting will strengthen UKSA’s continuing engagement with ISECG in the development of international space exploration policy, and help ensure a strong scientific focus for these activities.
Tea and coffee will be available from 09:30 (talks start at 10:00) and again after the meeting at 15:30.
The programme for our RAS meeting on "Science Enabled by the Global Exploration Roadmap" is now available on the web at:
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucfbiac/GER_meeting_programme.pdf