04 October 1957: Launch of Sputnik 1 and the birth of the Space Age.

04 October 2007: Join the UK space community at Hamilton Place as we celebrate Fifty Years in Space at a special evening session featuring two unique lectures.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Space Age. On 4 October 1957 the then-Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into Earth orbit. This galvanised the USA and led the formation of NASA, the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programmes and eventually, the first human landing on the Moon a mere twelve years later on 1969. Since the start of the Space Age other nations have developed their own space capabilities. Eight countries plus the European Space Agency have developed their own launch vehicles while numerous countries have had satellites placed into orbit. Furthermore, more than four hundred and fifty humans from more than nearly forty countries have flown into space. In the same period, looking outward from the Earth, spacecraft have observed the Universe at a wide range of frequencies, many not possible from the surface of the Earth and flown to different bodies in our Solar System, landing on and exploring some them and also returning samples from deep space. Looking back at Earth, remote-sensing spacecraft have given us enormous insight into the nature and the working of the Earth, the mechanisms that control its environment and the effects we have had on this.

Dr Chris Welch will begin our evening by presenting a wide ranging review of the past fifty years, and setting that first tentative step in 1957 into the wider historical perspective.

Dr Welch is Principal Lecturer in Astronautics and Space Systems at Kingston University in London. His research interests include non-chemical spacecraft propulsion such as ion engines and solar sails. Dr Welch is a former Chair of the UK' Space Education and Outreach Committee and a faculty member of the International Space University and frequent commentator on space and astronautics. Dr Welch's other claims to fame include that he made it the final twenty candidates to fly to the Mir space station on the UK-USSR Juno mission in 1989 and has written what he believes to be the first ever paper on extraterrestrial garden design.

Our evening continues as Dr Julia Tizard provides us with an overview and update on the whole Virgin Galactic programme, before specifically concentrating on the preparation of their passengers for spaceflight.

2008 will be "The Year of the SpaceShip" as Virgin Galactic plans to unveil WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo and to herald the start of test flights.

Dr Tizard gained her doctorate in astrophysics at the University of Manchester in 2005 and is currently working as the Operations Manager for Virgin Galactic. After attending the winning X-Prize flight back in 2004, Dr Tizard is now an active lead in the set up of the Virgin Galactic spaceline, managing the build of the spaceline flight and ground operation and the medical and training program for the passenger astronauts. Aged 28, she has experience of micro-gravity through parabolic flight, is familiar with macro-gravity having been spun in a centrifuge to seven times the gravity experienced on earth, several times! Dr Tizard is a keen explorer and mountaineer, having just recently summited Mt Blanc. She has worked with the European Space Agency as a science expert on a project studying the feasibility for human lunar exploration missions and has also worked for the NASA Johnson Space Center exploration office as an intern. Dr Tizard was awarded the Arthur C Clarke award for the best student space contribution in the UK in 2005. She acted as the UK representative to the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs on the Space Generation Advisory Council from 2000-2002 and held the UK chair of the SEDS chapter in 2000. She has a keen interest in exploration, has travelled extensively and coordinated education expeditions in rural sub-Saharan Africa as student summer programs. Dr Tizard has co-authored four scientific papers in her academic area of specialisation and has contributed to many national and international conferences in both astrophysics and human space exploration.