Flight Daily News space correspondent Tim Furniss has launched a entertaining and thought-provoking 90min presentation for theatres and companies.
Called Spacewalking, the presentation looks at the past, present and future of spaceflight through the eyes of a lifelong enthusiast whose interest in space was fired by Gagarin's flight in 1961.
Spacewalking, a spin-off of lectures he gives to schools, follows the development of space and Furniss's career through stories, anecdotes and thoughts.
Furniss was 20 when he flew to the USA in 1970 on one of the first jumbos.
Travelling to the Kennedy Space Centre by Greyhound bus, he got himself badged up (with the help of two Florida Today reporters) to watch not just Apollo 13's launch but also that of a Titan 3C from Cape Canaveral.
Space heroes
Gate-crashing astronaut parties at Cocoa Beach with a local radio reporter, Furniss met space heroes whose pictures used to hang on his bedroom wall.
His first book of more than 30 was published in 1971 when he also watched Apollo 15's launch. After a number of years in PR and advertising, Furniss turned to writing more books, contributing to publications and doing local radio work.
He was contacted by Flight International in 1984 and asked if he'd "like to do some work".
He took over the space brief and has been doing it ever since for the weekly magazine and the daily newspapers published at the Paris and Farnborough airshows.
"It's a buzz working with such a great team. We have a good laugh as well," says Furniss.
He remembers meeting the late and sadly missed astronaut Pete Conrad outside a chalet at a Paris airshow. "Pete was walking toward the chalet when the door burst open outwards, pushing him against the wall. Out came a pair of recent heroic pilots who had flown around the world non-stop. As the press went wild, a hero of the past remained plastered behind a door."
By 1988 when he moved to Devon to operate from an ‘electronic cottage' he was a regular on TV and radio. "Some fellow writers thought I was daft, but it has worked well," says Furniss, who also operates the Genesis space photo library.
He was one of the first British journalists to watch a manned launch from the former Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome in 1988 and has also reported on location on Shuttle and other launches. One of his vivid memories of Baikonur was watching, from a coach on its way to the Soyuz launch pad, a lady with a shopping bag waiting by a bus stop only miles for the launch pad!
In 1994, he joined a Space Shuttle crew for simulation sessions. Says Furniss: "Everything seemed to go wrong. We had engine failures, aborts in the ocean, depressurisation… ending with smashed windshield during landing. It was exhausting just sitting there." The pilot told him, "after a simulation, a launch is a piece of cake."
Source: Flight Daily News
