Talks by Duncan Lunan

 

 

 

Duncan Lunan, M.A., Dip. Ed., is the author of “Man and the Stars”, “New Worlds for Old”, “Man and the Planets”, and editor of “Starfield”, plus over 700 articles including contributions to 19 other books. He was Assistant Curator of Airdrie Public Observatory, 1987-97 and 2002-2008; as Manager of the Glasgow Parks Astronomy Project, 1978-79, he designed and built the first astronomically aligned stone circle in Britain for over 3000 years.

Duncan has given hundreds of talks to a wide range of organisations in the UK and USA, including many astronomy and space conferences and societies, Round Tables, Rotary Clubs, Scout groups, branches of the Workers Educational Association, writers’ groups, science fiction conventions, schools and community groups and many more. He was the only amateur scientist ever to be invited to speak during the nine-year series of IBM Heathrow Conferences.

1. A Stone Circle for Glasgow. Planning and building the Sighthill megalith, the first astronomically aligned stone circle in Britain for at least 3000 years, with solar and lunar observations made there since.

2. Archaeoastronomy from the Air. 1982 aerial archaeology flight organised and navigated by DL, mostly over astronomical sites.

3. Archaeoastronomy. Ancient astronomy, including extracts from talks 1 & 2.

4. Earth, Sun and Moon.

5. The Sun and the Planets.

6. New Worlds for Old. The new look of the Solar System - artwork and photos.

7. Man and the Planets. The resources of the Solar System.

8. The Politics of Survival. Using space technology to protect life on Earth.

9. Waverider. The man-carrying vehicle for the British space programme cancelled by Harold Macmillan, saved from oblivion by ASTRA (The Association in Scotland to Research into Astronautics) with low-speed flight tests and future applications proposals, now flown by the US Air Force; new concepts and long-term prospects.

10. Flight in Non-terrestrial Atmospheres (the Hang-Glider’s Guide to the Galaxy). Aircraft for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Titan and imaginary earthlike worlds.

11. The Sun and its Effects on Earth.

12. Probes to the Sun.

13. Mercury.

14. Venus.

15. Venus: Life in the Clouds?

16. Earth

17. The Earth from Space.

18. The Earth from Orbit 

19. The UK from Space

20. The Moon – history and features.

21. Unmanned Lunar Probes. All missions to date.

22. Manned Lunar Missions. Project Apollo and the Exploration of the Moon.

23. Mars – history and features.

24. Mars Exploration. All missions to date.

25. Manned Mars missions.

26. Building the Martian Nation. The first thousand years of human settlement.

27. Mars Terraforming.

28. The Gas Giants.

29. Jupiter and its moons.

30. Saturn and its moons.

31. Uranus and its moons.

32. Neptune and its moons.

33. Comets, Asteroids and Meteorites.

34. Keep Watching the Skies. The impact threat to Earth and ways to counter it.

35. Tunguska and Science Fiction.

36. The Search for the Tenth Planet.

37. The Outer Solar System: Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.

38. Life on Other Worlds. 

39. Planetary engineering and terraforming. The Sahara, the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, other earthlike worlds, the future Earth.

40. Mythology of the Planets (in preparation).

41. Exoplanets.

42. The Hubble Space Telescope and Infra-red Astronomical Satellite (IRAS).

43. The Deep Sky. Stars, nebulae and galaxies.

44. The Milky Way.

45. Stars and Nebulae.

46. Stars and Galaxies.

47. Nebulae and Galaxies.

48. Compass Points in the Sky. Finding our way around.

49. Northern Constellations.

50. Southern Constellations (in preparation).

51. US Launch Vehicles.

52. European Launch Vehicles.

53. The Corporal missile at the South Uist Rocket Range, 1959. A personal account.

54. Duncan’s Rockets. The Corporal, Mercury capsule, Space Shuttles Discovery and Challenger, Houston Shuttle Simulator – personal accounts.

55. Rocket Aircraft.

56. The Russians in Space.

57. Chinese, Japanese and Indian launchers (in preparation).

58. Manned Spaceflight.

59. Animals in Space.

60. Project Mercury.

61. Project Gemini.

62. Aspects of Apollo. Apart from the Moon, what else happened? Preliminaries, first flights, Skylab, the Apollo-Soyuz Rendezvous, what might have been.

63. Skylab.

64. The Apollo-Soyuz Rendezvous.

65. Space Stations. From early designs to O’Neill habitats.

66. Project Starseed. ASTRA’s integrated programme for nuclear waste disposal

and space solar power.

67. Spacesuits.

68. Space Shuttle Origins. Early history, the Enterprise and Rockwell artwork.

69. Space Shuttle Missions. 

70. Applications Satellites. Weather, communications, navigation, Earth resources (in preparation).

71. The Future of Space Flight. Interplanetary and interstellar travel over the next 30 million years.

72. Project Daedalus: The British Interplanetary Society inter­stellar probe study.

73. Epsilon Boötis Revisited. Has the Earth been visited? Long-Delayed Radio Echoes, Epsilon Boötis, Stone­henge and the Pyra­mids. Circumstantial evidence from the astronomical alignments.

74. “Man and the Stars” - The Fermi Paradox. Is interstellar travel possible, and if so, where is everybody? Inter­plan­etary and Interstellar Propulsion - solar sails, ion-drive, fission and fusion drives, photon drive, interstellar ramscoops.

75. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (in preparation).

76. The Search for Extraterrestrial Technology.

77. The Green Children of Woolpit. A mediaeval mystery (with Sydney Jordan and Andy Paterson artwork.)

78. Astronomy History. (in preparation).

79. The Science in Science Fiction. Particularly the interactions with space technology and space science.

80. ASTRA History. Including:

(1) Exhibitions.

(2) Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

(3) Waverider.

81.  Scottish Space Artists.   James Nasmyth, Ed Buckley, Gavin Roberts,
Brian Waugh, Tom Campbell, Sydney Jordan, Andy Paterson, Lorna Napier,
Gordon Ross.

82. The Truth about UFOs (Some of Them). Cases which have been identified.

83. Truth and 2012. Will the world come to an end?

 

Why not book one of the Talks mentioned above?   The Talks can also be tailored to suit your organisation.

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