Fifteen pupils from UC4 to SFC2 (Year 10 to 13) successfully gained places to meet some of the brightest and best aeronautical engineers from all over Europe at a Women in Engineering networking event at Rutherford Appleton Space Laboratory (RAL) on Monday 6th March. The event took place in the same week as British Science Week and International Women’s Day. The students' mission was to find out what it takes to become one of the women who are critical to the international launches that happen every year. The pupils were a credit to College, asking incisive questions, and engaging and networking fluidly with the industry experts.
As Space Director Dr Sarah Beardsley said in her opening speech, space really is a growing business at the moment. She’s not joking, and not just because the universe is expanding. As mining meteorites becomes a genuine possibility, and the communications satellites multiply in our skies, the jobs in this sector are increasing rapidly.
Dr Beardsley reminded us, "Space is a team sport. You can’t get into space on your own". She leads over 300 colleagues in their mission to understand more about the universe. It was hard not to see the RAL space team as a slightly less rock 'n' roll version of Guardians of the Galaxy. Their engineers and scientists work to upscale carbon capture technology. They monitor global warming in real time using satellite images and they watch out for dangerous comets, meteors and space debris and track them to check they won't hit Earth. They are working on robots that capture the debris that is growing around our planet. All in all, they are pretty cool.
We found out about the myriad of ways to get into the space business. From former craft entrepreneur, who is now making bespoke insulation blankets to fit inside space mission shuttles, to some incredible engineers such as Sakina Rehan, who is developing scanning technology to failure-test the materials that high-tech engines are made of, to those who are working to scale up carbon capture technology. Many of the engineers at RAL design and build space instruments, from Ariel, which is looking at the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars, to the James Webb telescope, which members of RAL have been working on for over 10 years.
We met a thermal engineer who had done a degree in pure physics. She talked about how it is not a problem if you do not know what you want to do. She was the first person in her family to go to university and didn’t have the money or the family backing to take extra courses. Still, by making the most of the opportunities that were offered to her, and persevering when things didn’t work out, she has now helped send 15 missions to space and is currently making an instrument to warn satellites of solar flares. Her main piece of advice for life was to acknowledge that everyone is lost sometimes. Find the right time and the right person, and tell them you don’t have a clue what’s going on, and they will explain things to you – this made all the difference to her.
We left with our curiosity focussed on finding out more about aeronautical engineering, and inspired to be the next generation standing on the shoulders of giants and reaching into space to find answers, ask new questions and face the world's challenges head on.
Ms Sorrel, Acting 2nd in Physics
