Charles S. Cockell

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Charles Cockell FRSE (born 21 May 1967) is a British astrobiologist who is professor of astrobiology in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh and co-director of the UK Centre for Astrobiology.

Contents

Education

Cockell received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Bristol in 1989 and his D.Phil. in molecular biophysics, University of Oxford in 1994.

Career

Cockell was a National Research Council (National Academy of Sciences) Associate at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field from 1995 to 1998 and then a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He then worked at a microbiologist at the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK from 1999 to 2005, before becoming Professor of Geomicrobiology with the Open University until 2011 and afterwards moving to the University of Edinburgh as Professor of Astrobiology. His scientific interests have focused on astrobiology, geomicrobiology and life in extreme environments. He has published over 300 scientific papers and books in these areas.

Cockell has also published extensively on the exploration of space. For example, he led the design study Project Boreas, which planned and designed a research station for the Martian North Geographical Pole from 2003 to 2006. [1] [2] He was the first chair of the Astrobiology Society of Britain. He has sat on numerous ESA and NASA working groups and panels focused on robotic and human space exploration.

UK Centre for Astrobiology

Cockell established the UK Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh in 2011. [3] It was set up as a UK node, formally affiliated as an international partner with the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) alongside other national nodes until the NAI's dissolution in 2019.

In its first ten years, the UKCA launched and led a number of initiatives. It set up the world's first underground astrobiology laboratory in the Boulby Underground Science Laboratory, running a program MINAR (MIne Analog Research) which brought in international teams from NASA, ESA, India, and universities across the UK and internationally to study life in the deep subsurface and test planetary exploration equipment. [4] [5] [6]

The UKCA led or was affiliated with over 150 scientific papers in this period. Its scientific interests sat at the interface of planetary sciences and biological sciences involving laboratory, field and space mission studies. For example, the Centre oversaw the launch and implementation of the first biological mining experiment in space on the International Space Station in support of long-term human space settlement demonstrating the use of microorganisms to mine economically important elements in space. [7]

The centre also launched education initiatives. For example, the Centre hosted the astrobiology academy, an initiative to bring teachers together to develop curriculum that used astrobiology to teach science in schools. The initiative produced lesson plans that were used to launch astrobiology in Scottish primary and secondary schools in association with the Scottish government's RAISE programme (Raising Aspiration in Science Education). The material became part of the National Resource Guide and the National Education Portal. It has been used to teach astrobiology across India in collaboration with the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Centre, reaching tens of thousands of students.

In 2016, the centre, in collaboration with the Scottish Prison Service, launched Life Beyond, which involved prisoners in the design of settlements beyond Earth. Scottish prisoners published two books on settlement designs for the Moon and Mars. [8] [9] This led to the development of a distance learning Life Beyond course, which can be undertaken by any prisoner around the world, and distributed to English and Welsh prisons in collaboration with the Prisoners' Education Trust. Life Beyond was cited by EuroPris as an example of best education practice in European prisons. [10]

Expeditions

Cockell has led or taken part in a number of expeditions. In 1993 Cockell piloted a modified microlight aircraft over the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia that he designed for catching moths over the canopy. [11] The Barnes Wallis Moth Machine had lights for nighttime flying, UV lights to attract moths and a net for scooping moths from the rainforest canopy. [12] [13] [14] The moth machine was flown during an expedition to the Kerinci-Seblat National Park which also collected plants and insects as part of a biodiversity study. The expedition had the patronage of RAF's No. 617 Squadron. During the expedition the moth machine clipped the top of a tree and crashed. [15] Over 5,000 moths were caught which were sent to Germany for biodiversity assessments. In 1997 he was elected an International Fellow of The Explorers Club. Cockell has led or taken part in other scientific expeditions around the world, including over 20 scientific field expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic, the Atacama Desert, the Namib Desert, Iceland and elsewhere.

Extraterrestrial liberty

Alongside his work on astrobiology, Cockell has contributed to work exploring the social, political, and philosophical dynamics of long-term space settlement, in particular the relationship between space settlement and liberty. In 2022, he published "Interplanetary Liberty: Building Free Societies in the Cosmos", which is an examination of the problems for freedom beyond Earth and how to secure it. [16] In 2015 and 2016, he edited three multi-author volumes on space liberty, dissent, and governance for Springer, as part of the Space and Society series. He also contributed multiple chapters to each of the three volumes.

Earth and Space Foundation

Cockell is chair of the Earth and Space Foundation, a registered British charity (1043871) which awards grants to expeditions that successfully bridge the gap between environmentalism and the exploration and settlement of space by either using space technologies and ideas in environmental fieldwork or use environments on Earth to advance knowledge of other planets. [17] [18] [19] [20] He founded the organisation in 1994. Since its establishment the foundation has supported over 60 field projects around the world. Cockell proposed the inseparable links between environmentalism and space exploration in a book Space on Earth (Macmillan, 2006). [21] The book was winner of the best written presentation in the Sir Arthur Clarke Award 2007.

Brief political career

In 1992 Cockell stood as a parliamentary candidate in Huntingdon for the "Forward to Mars Party" against incumbent Prime Minister John Major. The party advocated the increased involvement of Britain in the exploration of Mars, the European Space Agency's human exploration programme and the construction of a station on Mars. The party received 91 votes in the election.

Books

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The UK Centre for Astrobiology was set up at the University of Edinburgh in 2011 by Charles Cockell. It was set up as a UK node, formally affiliated as an international partner with the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) alongside other national nodes until the NAI's dissolution in 2019. It was established as a virtual centre to sit at the interdisciplinary boundary of planetary sciences/astronomy and biological/earth sciences investigating numerous aspects of life in the universe, specifically 'how habitable worlds form in the Universe and how life emerges, proliferates and leaves traces on these worlds' as well as engaging in work on the robotic and human exploration of space and in space ethics, philosophy and governance.

References

  1. ↑ Cockell, C.S. (2006) Project Boreas: A Station for the Martian North Geographical Pole. British Interplanetary Society, London
  2. ↑ Baxter, S. 2008. Project Boreas: A Base at the Martian North Pole. Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2008
  3. ↑ Cockell, C.S. et al (2018) The UK Centre for Astrobiology: A Virtual Astrobiology Centre. Accomplishments and Lessons Learned, 2011–2016. Astrobiology 18, 224–243
  4. ↑ Payler SJ, Biddle JF, Coates A, Cousins CR, Cross RE, Cullen DC, Downs MT, Direito SOL, Gray AL, Genis J, Gunn M, Hansford GM, Harkness P, Holt J, Josset JL, Li X, Lees DS, Lim DSS, McHugh M, McLuckie D, Meehan E, Paling SM, Souchon A, Yeoman L, Cockell CS. 2016. Planetary Science and Exploration in the Deep Subsurface: Results from the MINAR Program, Boulby Mine, UK. International Journal of Astrobiology 15, 333-344.
  5. ↑ Cockell CS et al. 2018. Subsurface scientific exploration of extraterrestrial environments (MINAR 5): Analogue science, technology and education in the Boulby Mine, UK. International Journal of Astrobiology 18, 157-182.
  6. ↑ Payler SJ, Biddle JF, Sherwood Lollar B, Fox-Powell MG, Edwards T, Ngwenya BT, Paling SM, Cockell CS. 2019. An ionic limit to life in the deep subsurface. Frontiers in Microbiology 10, 426.
  7. ↑ Cockell, C.S., Santomartino, R., Finster, K., Waajen, A.C., Eades, L.J. Moeller, R. et al. 2020. Space station biomining experiment demonstrates rare earth element extraction in microgravity and Mars gravity. Nature Comms. 11:5523.
  8. ↑ Cockell CS (editor) 2018. Life Beyond: From Prison to Mars, British Interplanetary Society, London
  9. ↑ Cockell CS (editor) 2020. Life Beyond: From Prison to the Moon. British Interplanetary Society, London
  10. ↑ King, J. 2019. Review of European Prison Education Policy and Council of Europe Recommendation (89) 12 on Education in Prison, Europris/
  11. ↑ George McGavin. Expedition Field Techniques: Insects and Other Terrestrial Arthropods. Royal Geographical Society, 2007
  12. ↑ Nick Nutall: Those men in their moth machines, The Times, 13 March 1993, TM62
  13. ↑ Roger Highfield: This is the world's first and finest flying moth-collecting machine. Daily Telegraph, 1 April 1993, 5
  14. ↑ Expeditions to Indonesia Handbook: Expedition Sumatra 1993 (The Barnes Wallis Moth Machine). ISBN   0951702114
  15. ↑ Bernard Levin. 'Of Moths and Flames' The Times, Editorial, 23 November 1993, p. 18
  16. ↑ Charles Cockell. 2022. Interplanetary Liberty: Building Free Societies in the Cosmos. Oxford University Press, Oxford
  17. ↑ Archived 12 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine of Earth and Space Foundation webpages
  18. ↑ Charles Cockell, Don White, Douglas Messier, Dale Stokes. 2002. Fostering links between environmental and space exploration: The Earth and Space Foundation. Space Policy 18, 301-306
  19. ↑ Oliver Morton. 2002. Mapping Mars. Harper Collins
  20. ↑ Robert Zubrin. 2003. Mars on Earth. The adventures of space pioneers in the high arctic. Penguin
  21. ↑ Chung SY et al. 2010. Synergies of Earth science and space exploration. Advances in Space Research 45, 155-168
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