April summary: USA, South Africa and sad news from Canada

Two events of international importance took place this month in USA.

On April 2nd the Artemis II rocket, the biggest ever built, took off on its successful manned mission around the moon.The mission highlights just how extraordinary the original Apollo landings were over 50 years ago, revealing both how far technology has advanced and how challenging lunar exploration still remains. Despite today’s cutting-edge computing, advanced materials, and global collaboration, returning humans to the moon has required years of planning, massive investment, and the development of entirely new systems, highlighting the sheer ingenuity and boldness of the 1960s missions, which achieved the same goals with far more limited technology. Artemis not only builds on that legacy with ambitions for sustained lunar presence, but also serves as a reminder that the achievements of the past were not just historic, they were astonishingly ahead of their time.

Source: The Times April 4th

Another extraordinary event took place in America this week, with King Charles III's visit to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence. Considering the strained relations between the UK and USA at the moment, and a third suspected assassination attempt on Trump a few days earlier,  it is a visit that he probably did not relish.

Source: The Times April 2nd

He needn't have worried. His visit stabilised relationships and the King received standing ovations in Congress and at a formal state dinner, his speeches emphasising democracy, NATO, climate, and unity, subtly pushing back against divisions without being overtly political.

In 1991 our first overseas conference, Minerals Engineering '91 in Singapore, was seriously affected by the first Gulf War, many delegates withdrawing due to travel restrictions.  Thirty five years later the present Gulf War also depleted our two conferences in Cape Town this month, Physical Separation '26 and Mineral Processing Circuits '26, many delegates, including presenters, being forced to withdraw due to problems with international flights, particularly those calling at Middle East hubs such as Dubai and Doha. But although the registration lists were depleted, delegates were able to enjoy unusually long breaks for networking and what was lacking in quantity was made up for with quality. And it is always great for Amanda, Barbara and me to catch up with Luxembourg-based Jon.

The Wills family at the Physical Separation '26 dinner at Kirstenbosch 

We missed the monthly Cornish Mining Sundowner in Falmouth, but it was good to have seven of the regulars in Cape Town.

Cornish Mining Sundowner regulars: Amanda and Barry Wills (MEI),
Cameron Dyer, David Cadwell and David Mildren (Gravity Mining),
Doug Caffell (Sepro Systems) and Dave Goldburn (Holman-Wilfley)

Amanda and Jon flew home after the conference, while Barbara and I spent a week on the Garden Route, relaxing at Plettenberg Bay.

It was interesting to visit Monkeyland Primate Sanctuary just outside Plettenberg Bay. This is the world’s first free-roaming, multi-species primate sanctuary, the monkeys and apes  living in a large indigenous forest and move around freely in natural social groups. The sanctuary was founded in 1998 and now cares for over 500 rescued primates across multiple species, including lemurs, capuchin monkeys, gibbons, spider monkeys, and langurs.

Some sad news from Canada this month, of the death of Dr. Gordon Agar, aged 94. Gordon was the Section Head of Mineral Processing at the former Inco Research Laboratories in Mississauga, Ontario, where he worked until his retirement in 1992.

Over his career, Dr. Agar made many significant contributions to mineral processing and published numerous technical papers. His work on flotation kinetics, locked‑cycle testing, and the scale‑up of laboratory results to flotation circuit design was pioneering and remains widely practiced today. His contributions to pyrrhotite depression and Cu/Ni separation in nickel sulphide ore processing continue to influence operating plants.

I first met Gordon at the NATO Advanced Study Institute in Bursa, Turkey, in 1984, where he inspired me with a lecture on flotation circuit design which I incorporated in the latest edition of Mineral Processing Technology. Gordon was a truly remarkable character, who didn't suffer fools too easily. Four years after the ASI I founded Minerals Engineering journal and he was one of the first people that I recruited to the Editorial Board. He became one of my most valued reviewers, although I sometimes had to edit his reviews a little to protect the sensitivities of some authors! 

I still have vivid memories of a hard drinking session with Gordon, and another of the NATO lecturers, Dick Burt, during a weekend break from the conference in Istanbul.

By the Bosporus,1984: Raj Rajamani, Bedri Ipekoglu, me, Cornelius Ek, Dick Burt,
Gordon Agar, Mrs. Ipekoglu and Jaques du Cuyper

#MEIBlog