Abdul Ahad - His works of astronomy and space science

Abdul Ahad

Astronomer & Space Science Researcher
* * * Born in Bangladesh * * *

"...there can be no goal in the human heart more noble and higher aspiring than to reach for the high frontiers of Space." - Abdul Ahad on usenet thread "First Arab rockets..." (March 2004)

Ahad, Md. Abdul (1968 - ) Astronomer and Space Science Researcher.
Md. Abdul Ahad was born in the Sylhet district of Bangladesh on 15 December 1968. When he was 9 years old, he moved across to the UK accompanying his mother and two sisters to join his father, late Haji Abdur Rahman, and has been mainly resident there ever since. Ahad obtained his secondary school education in the United Kingdom and graduated from the University of Luton in 1994 with a Higher National Diploma in Business & Finance. He has since held a number of executive and management posts in industry, developing a wide business career within multi-national bluechip companies, across such functions as operations planning, supply chain process management and brands marketing.

His interests in astronomy took off in the early 1980s at the age of 12, when he showed a notable leaning toward mathematical and positional astronomy. When he was just 15, at the dawn of the present era of home computers, Ahad compiled his own celestial mechanics algorithms for the precise computation of positions of planets, comets and minor planets from orbital elements.

Abdul Ahad's scientific interests later branched out into such fields as space technology, spaceflight simulations and models, space science missions and robotics. In January 2002, he founded the 'AA Institute of Space Science & Technology', a conceptual research institute dedicated to his own creative works and research projects. He has since undertaken a NASA-inspired program of self funded, self initiated pursuits in areas like rocketry and aerospace and remote sensing via tele-robotics. In August 2002, he joined the California based, Planetary Society to further his participation in and outspoken advocation of global space exploration. Ahad is a member of the British Astronomical Association and his spare time interests include astrometric measurements of visual binary stars and proper motions of nearby stars, observation of deep sky objects and study of variable stars. In 2004, he was the first person in scientific history to define an analytical approximation of the cosmic night sky's total integrated brightness ("Ahad's constant" of circa 1/300th of a Full Moon equivalent). Ahad put forward a hypothetical human interstellar spaceflight proposal ("Ahad's virtual bridge to Alpha Centauri") for reaching our nearest star, by systematically relying on the safety of overlapping Oort clouds for possible mining/refuelling. He conceptualised the mechanics for excavation, capture and interior habitation of an asteroid - the "Celestial Titanic".
In that article, he offered a compelling third option for future human spaceflight that would supplement a base on the Moon and one established later on Mars. Using the 4-km diameter main belt asteroid #887 Alinda for illustration, Ahad showed how such a construct could initially serve as a permanent Earth-orbiting colony that could subsequently be also used as a propelled platform for long term Solar System-wide, and even interstellar, exploration.

In his epic sci-fi novel and would-be feature film "First Ark to Alpha Centauri" (published online in 2004), he envisioned the world's first life-like human colony starship and spaceflight concept for sending a community of people from our planet to the nearest stars in the year 2275 AD. In his own words: "An epic fantasy voyage carrying the hopes and dreams of everyone who ever was, everyone who ever is and everyone who ever will be... on a journey spanning 2,000 generations and lasting for no less than 50,000 years into the future!" He designed that entire ship architecture, simulating its gravity, weather and life support and thought through the countless multi-generation mission obstacles, devising the best solutions through his own imaginative thought and research efforts. As a result, the article proved immensely popular across the world's online science and science fiction communities, and was viewed in over 50 countries.

He was the first person in scientific history to draw an imaginary sphere around the Sun of approximate radius 11,500 AUs (known as the "Ahad Radius" of "Ahad's Sphere of Solar Illuminance") which marks a boundary of equilibrium between solar flux and the net integrated flux produced by the surrounding cosmic night sky.

Ahad determined a net integrated brightness of -5.0 for the Milky Way's glow stretching across the whole night sky. He derived a magnitude model for estimating the visual brightness of an extra-solar planet shining in the habitable zone around its parent star. Abdul Ahad was also the first person to point out and demonstrate analytically that a particulate ring system around planet Earth could not possibly remain stable in the complex Earth-Moon-Sun gravity interactive environment - quashing previous world opinions to the contrary. Many experts had hitherto believed that past climatic effects on the Earth were due to a thin ring system existing around our planet for hundreds of thousands of years. Ahad's dynamical calculations showed that those ideas were flawed and his paper will change the future course of orbital engineering programs and the way in which near Earth spaceflight is conducted, forever.

Abdul Ahad can be contacted via his public profile on MySpace.Com

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VIEW A FULL TREATMENT OF "FIRST ARK TO ALPHA CENTAURI"

Above: Abdul Ahad's insterstellar ark ship (the 'Centauri Princess') on its silent march through the dark, foreboding territory of the solar Oort cloud, en-route to the distant Alpha Centauri system. [Image courtesy: www.headstartproject.org]

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