Southampton space debris expert on BBC2’s Horizon tonight
Dr Hugh Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering, will appear on BBC2’s Horizon programme tonight (5 August) at 8pm in an episode entitled ‘The Trouble with Space Junk’.
The programme investigates the science behind the hit film Gravity and discovers the reality is far more worrying than the Hollywood fiction.
Dr Lewis has more than ten years’ experience in computer modelling of space debris and represents the UK Space Agency on a working group of the Inter Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee.
He says:
“Gravity is a work of fiction but there is a scientific base for the plot, collisions do occur in space, although the scriptwriters took it up another dramatic level.”
Dr Lewis also contributed his expertise on space debris to a documentary accompanying the Oscar-winning movie Gravity on its release on DVD and Blu-ray.
He was one of eight experts included on the extra feature talking about the science behind the story. Producer Abby Lance interviewed him on location at the University for the 21-minute documentary Collision Point: The Race to Clean Up Space, narrated by actor Ed Harris.