Flamsteed Astronomy Society

Professor Richard Crowther

Professor Richard Crowther is Chief Engineer at the UK Space Agency. He was Head of the Space technology Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory until 2008 with primary research interests in manmade orbital debris planetary protection, and Near Earth Objects (NEOs – asteroids and comets that pass close to earth). He is currently head of the UK delegations to the Inter-Agency Debris Committee and the United Nations Committee of Peaceful uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS), in the past acting as Chair of the UN Working Group on Near Earth Objects within COPUOS. Professor Crowther also leads the UK Delegation to the European Space Agency’s International Relations Committee. He is one of fifteen member of the Group of Governmental Experts appointed by the United Nations in 2012 to examine transparency and confidence building measures in outer space. He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and was recently elected to the International Institute of Space Law and the International Academy of Astronautics.

The presentation will discuss the issue of space debris and consider the technical and policy challenges that confront space actors when dealing with the growing man-made collision hazard. He may also comment on the veracity or otherwise of the film “Gravity”.