My name is Hayden Watkins, and I'm a student of Physics with Astronomy at Southampton University, England. I'm in my final year. I've worked with some of the High Energy Astrophysics staff at Southampton over the summer which was concerning research with x-ray and gamma ray astronomy sources. This work directly led to the release of a research paper. (More details will be included later, when its published).
After graduating, I would like to either persue a PhD in astrophysics / space science, or to go straight into working for a space science company (ie, Astrium would be fantastic). Either way, I hope whichever route I take leaves available the option to travel, as there is a lot of the world I would like to see. (Not forgetting to see it all from space!)

I have keen interests in space, science-fiction, flying, travelling and tinkering with things. I spend time tinkering with computers, simple aspects of electronics, and given time and money I would like to persue interests in learning to fly and learning to sail.
I enjoy good company, good music, good films, good television shows, although good shows seem few and far between these days. Some exceptions being Lost, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica and Boston Legal.

Computer wise, I enjoy getting creative with image software, creating webpages as well as working and playing modifications to games, specifically for the Command and Conquer series of games. Online, my alias is usually "Muldrake". While it could be regarded as a waste of time making changes to a computer game, I feel I have developed several skills by working on this. Not only do I make use of my creative side but also work through an idea from a specific problem, conception of ideas, problem solving and troubleshooting to a final development, a quality which would be useful in many jobs.

You can find me on facebook, or message me via

Why Phoenix Expanse? Well, for the Phoenix, I've always light flight, and space.. and when Star Trek's first ship with Warp Drive was called Phoenix, I latched on to it. I just liked what it represented and it showed me the direction I wanted to go in (although Star Trek in general had already sold me into the route of science and space). And Expanse? Well I needed a descriptor for the website, something related to space and expanse did the trick. Also its generally not used much, so helps make the name a bit unique.