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Commission Suggests UK Should End Astronaut Ban
An anonymous reader writes "According to the BBC a British scientific panel has recommended that the British Government should end its ban on human space flight. The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) Commission pursued a 9-month investigation into 'The Scientific Case for Human Space Flight'. Professor Frank Close, Chair of the Commission, said, 'We commenced this study without preconceived views and with no formal connection to planetary exploration. Our personal backgrounds made us lean towards an initial skepticism on the scientific value of human involvement in such research.' The commission concluded that 'profound scientific questions relating to the history of the solar system and the existence of life beyond Earth can best - perhaps only - be achieved by human exploration on the Moon or Mars, supported by appropriate automated systems.'"
Isn't the real question - Why was it banned in the first place?
I mean, seriously. That's all I can say. What the fuck?
I mean shit, I know it's a waste of money but to BAN it? Someone needs to get beat with a billy club.
that the report comes out couple of days after the Chinese astronauts return to Planet Earth.
"Come in Swindon. I'm at the top of the ladder now. Ohhh, it's very high, I can see my house from up here! I'm still a long way away..I think we'll need more ladders."
Eddie Izzard sums out the British philosophy to space exploration.
Because you can't have tea in space?
..as an excuse for not doing something to hard.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Didn't they see James Bond: Moonraker?!
If you send humans into space, evil madmen will form space station communes and plot global genocide!
Perhaps the British wanted their own special cultural name for "Astronaut" like Cosmonaut or Taikonaut. The ban was to give them enough time to come up with a term as stupid as the cosmos is infinite.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
...they just wouldn't fund any projects / research - where's the story?
You do realise that The Exorcist has been aired repeatedly on Channel 4.
Idiot.
I have to admit, I can see their point!
In related news, India, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Maldives, Gambia, Canada, Hong Kong, and all the other former British colonies banded together to send a message to the moon, Mars, and the other planets. It read "Watch out for these guys! They've got a flag!"
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
The council people or whoever the fuck they are must not have gotten the memo from the folks up there to stay the hell off their rock. The reason why people aren't being sent isn't because people just aren't expendable in the military. It's because we were told to go away. Check the transcripts from Armstrong and Aldrin.
If you think we're the only things growin in this Universe with something better than a rocket shitmobile, I have a flat model of Earth to sell you.
That's cool stuff and all, but I'm something of a pragmatist, so hopefully I won't offend too many of the resident idealist when I suggest that the previously enumerated justifications don't hold water as far as spending billions on a space program goes.
Knowing the history of solar system has next to zero humanitarian worth. And while maybe, just maybe finding alien life could yield some pharmaceutical benefits, all present evidence indicates that life is a localized earth phenomena. There is not much reason to expect to find any microbes on Titan or Mars or anywhere else except for hopeful thinking. Which is fine, and maybe there's a full fledged intelligent civilization living under ice sheets on one of the Jovian moons, but you don't send an expedition to the back of the moon looking for the Fountain of Youth just because it might be there.
That's not to say this knowledge doesn't have any worth. It has aesthetic worth, like the Sistine Chapel. Heck, as a student of physics, my defining goal is to further elucidate the nature of the universe. Personally, I assosciate an incredible worth with knowing more about its formation.
But I wouldn't support my government spending billions on an art project, even one I would appreciate, and likewise, I don't think 'history of the solar system' is likely to be the best allocation of the funds.
Now, colonizing space is a whole nother spiel as far as justifying an investment. I think there are immense humanitarian benefits inherit to that--many, as exampled by the U.S. space program, that will arise sheerly incidental to the effort without us having any idea about them beforehand. Zero gravity refinement of synthetic materials, solar mirrors to assist in growing crops (and maybe dissipating hurricanes?), extending our habitat to deal with overcrowding... these all seem like things that a wealthy government might be doing its people a favor by investing in.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
There is a limited supply of it. The question is, do you focus on the automated robotics or on the human missions?
A good example is that GWB is gearing NASA to spend heavily on the moon shot. So they just fired 300 top engineers at JPL. JPL has done a fair number of the automated systems. I would expect that the private enterprise will pick these ppl up. Most have a great deal of talent and interest.
The moon shot will costs more than a 100 billion dollars to get us back there. Hopefully this time, we do not dismantle such an expensive set-up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Perhaps Blair could divert some funds from his new Trident missile replacement system, the one that costs an arm and a leg but will never actually be used? You know, all that crazy 'making a good example for the rest of the world' thing?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
But if the UK ends up inventing things related to space flight, then all they'll have to research after that will be the following:
...
Future Tech 1
Future Tech 2
Future Tech 3
Ask me about repetitive DNA
That would be Israel, Italy (well, the Vatican City), and Haven't-Got-A-Clue-Land
I thought we were talking about the UK here?
Hugh Macdonald
Ok, but you've got admit he's right that we still ride donkeys.
In fact, with the success rate to date, from Blue Streak to Beagle 2, the chance of a British astronaut getting out of the atmosphere in one piece is so low that anybody volunteering for a space program needs a quick trip to a secure mental health unit instead.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I mean, what's the point? Give me a good reason and I will consider space flight, but until then.... oh, that, and I don't have a launch facility.
The mission to Mars cost next to nothing and was covered by existing scientific budgets.
However the Dome was a financial disaster of epic proportions which, in any sane country, would have brought down the Government.
The answer to both of those questions is: The UK doesn't have any good launch sites. We're in Northern Europe, in case you hadn't noticed, and you can't launch rockets from there (at least, not without considerably higher costs/risks than doing it closer to the equator).
It comes down to empire. The French still exhert ownership over a couple of countries that have good launch sites. The UK does not.
The idea of us ringing up the Australians and saying "What ho! We're going to build a rocket base in your outback. Look, I know you chaps think you're independent now, but Queen Liz says to tell you to bally well stuff off" is just not going to fly, I'm afraid.
True, we're part of the European Space Agency.
But it seems rather pointless to have a space programme when you have to ask other people to launch it for you.
Especially if those other people are the French.
I do hope I don't have to explain quite how horrifying the idea of a British citizen patriotically launching into space to the sound of "Cinq... quatre... trios... deux... un!" sounds to the average Brit.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
This kind of reasoning makes me break out in hives. It's like saying the way to be an innovative company is to look at other innovative companies and copy what they do. Sometimes the thing to do when everyone is doing A is to find something the B that everybody else is not doing, where marginal returns are higher.
So, putting two and two together, this is political and diplomatic rather than scientific an technical. Which is not to say "not worthwhile", but justifications have to be found elsewhere. A couple of hundred million pounds a year is not going to get Britain its own space capability by a long shot, but it will allow it to play with other nations.
As a counter example,engineers on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission found their equipment could be kept functioning well past their orignial goals and decided to keep them doing science until they die. We won't be doing that with astronauts. It might be the next best step for marginal returns is a manned mission, but I doubt it. My point here is that we should not be overly concerned with the apparent flexibility of a mission component, which after all people would be, without taking into the account their impact on the overall flexibility of the mission and the program.
I wonder if some British national pride was hurt by the failure of the Beagle 2. That mission was way outside the box in terms of ambition for funding. It might have been a brilliant success. The lesson of the Beagle 2 mission should NOT be (in my opinion) that robotic missions are too risky. It should be that taking ambitious risks entails experiencing failure, otherwise it's neither ambitious or risky. Put in perspective, Britain could have launched twenty Beagle 2 missions (more if fixed costs are amortized) for the price of the dual Mars Exploration Rover mission; if it had a 10% chance of success they'd be in the same place in terms of mission success, but gained a great deal more technical expertise. Not only would this expertise enhance national prestige indirectly through increased capabilities, I believe that success after a number of failures would yield more prestige directly, ironic though that may be. It would remind people that you're trying something difficult and risky.
I'm not against manned space exploration; I'm for getting the most science out of our buck -- er -- pound. I'm not convinced that a manned mission is scientifically or technically the best marginal investment at this time. Even in terms of national prestige, I'm not convinced that manned missions are what they used to be. If the public wants to see George Clooney in a s
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I really don't get this - they banned it because they couldn't think of a scientific reason to go to space??
Come on! If that's right, then the UK should also ban everything else that is not accompanied by a team of ressearchers, including the average person simply getting out of bed in the morning.
Space exploration has much more to offer than simple scientific knowledge. It is known that the Earth will eventually perish, when the sun explodes into a red giant, so space exploration offers, at least, survival of the species!
Also, there are currently more than 6 billion people on this planet. We cannot sustain that. And I really don't trust that we, as a species, are capable of adjusting our lifestyles to become sustainable. So, spave exploration is inevitable!
You simply can't ban something which is inevitable!
Dont forget, that managers get paid top $$ to go to meetings and go "Now why are we doing this..." "We need another meeting to confirm that"
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
What's hard to understand? There was a ban placed on the use of public funds to do manned space exploration because it was considered a waste of money by the scientific community. When you consider how much money is wasted on the ISS every year you gotta appreciate they may have a point.
No they don't have a point. The ISS it self has had a number of problems but calling the basic idea of an ISS a waste of money because one of the implementations of that idea sucks is plain stupid. Like any other elementary scientific research (be it in physics, genetics, mathematics, computing....the list goes on), studying the problems of manned space exploration requires the vision to see that the knowledge gained from experimental installations we are building today will perhaps only be useful some 50 or even 100 years from now. In fact some of the uses we find for this knowledge will be things we cannot not dream of today. The ISS and manned space flight in general may not serve much of a practical, profit generating purpose today and this will probably be true for decades to come but that is not the point. The point is that the ISS and manned space flight in general is fundamental research that we are going to need the day we have advanced far enought to enable us to economically travel to other parts of our solar system. It is easy to point a finger at projects like this one and call it a waste of money the tough bit is opening your eyes and seeing the benefits farther down the road.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
There has been one British astronaut flying under a UK flag, Helen Sharman, on a Soyuz, in 1991.
Looks like we're getting jealous of the Chinese.
I live there, but what a typical European move, they have one so we've got one. I'd bet that if the manned Chinese flight had fucked up, we be hearing "Oh! Well, we have a non manned flight policy!"
Secondly, which Briton in his right mind will volenteer for a manned Brit spaceflight, the last unmanned one we sent up (first in like 20 years, my god the hype they made about it), The Beagle, just went wrong! Not one part worked...
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Forgive me for not having a source for this, but I had thought that Earth has more than enough resources to sustain its population (and then some), if those resources were to be distrubted properly, rather than the top X percent having 99% of resources and wealth.
That could be true right now, but the population is exploding. I think it was Scientific American which recently had an issue dedicated to this. It guessed that the population of the earth would level out at 15 billion, simply because the Earth could not cope with more than that. And then... Soylent Green.
Cycling in motorways/highways ("autostrade") is outlawed in Italy too. Actually, no mean of transportation that can't go faster than 60 km/h is banned. And not because they are dangerous, but because they slow traffic down.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
Thanks. I had a positive outlook on the future of sustaining a large population, but your reply leaves a bad taste in my mouth ;(
They only banned it in the sense that they have a policy of not providing government funding for it. They didn't make it illegal.
they banned it because they couldn't think of a scientific reason to go to space??
No, they banned funding astronauts because they couldn't think of a reason that justified the expense to the British tax-payer. More wealthy nations may well belive that they can justify it, given their relative wealth. As scientific focus has shifted, and Britain has moved on from frontline-cold-warrior status, it looks like the old British view is changing.
This is where the serious fun begins.
The article didn't seem to have a link to the actual report, and judging by the comments I've seen so far, nobody here's read it yet. The RAS's report can be found here:
t &task=view&id=847&Itemid=1
http://www.ras.org.uk/index.php?option=com_conten
Here's a portion of the summary....
The main conclusions of the RAS report are as follows:
* The essential scientific case for Human Space Exploration is based on investigations on the Moon and Mars. There are three key scientific challenges where direct human involvement will be necessary for a timely and successful outcome:
- Mapping the history of the solar system (including the young Earth) and the evolution of our Sun by studying the unique signatures left on and beneath the lunar surface;
- The search for life on Mars;
- Detailed, planet-wide exploration of Mars.
* Scientific missions to the Moon and Mars will address questions of profound interest to the human race. These include: the origins and history of the solar system; whether life is unique to Earth; and how life on Earth began. If our close neighbour, Mars, is found to be devoid of life, important lessons may be learned regarding the future of our own planet.
* While the exploration of the Moon and Mars can and is being addressed by unmanned missions, the capabilities of robotic spacecraft will fall well short of those of human explorers for the foreseeable future.
* Assuming a human presence, the Moon offers an excellent site for astronomy, with the far-side and polar regions of the Moon being shielded from the 'pollution' from Earth.
* Medical science will benefit from studying the human physiological response to low and zero gravity, to the effects of radiation and in the psychological challenge posed by a long-duration mission to Mars.
* There appear to be no fundamental technological barriers to sending humans to the Moon or Mars.
* A major international human space exploration programme involving a return to the Moon and the longer term aim of sending humans to Mars is likely to involve the US, Europe, Russia and Japan. There are also growing ambitions in China and India. Under present government policy the UK would not be involved and would look increasingly isolated.
* The cost of the UK playing a full role in an international human space exploration programme to explore the Moon and Mars could be of the order £150M per year, sustained over 20-25 years. It is not realistic for the bulk of this to be taken from the existing Government-funded science budget. Rather, a decision to be involved should be taken on the basis of broader strategic reasoning that would include commercial, educational, social, and political arguments as well as the scientific returns that would follow.
* There is compelling evidence that the outreach potential for human space exploration can be a strong positive influence on the interests and educational choices of children.
* Involvement in technologically advanced exploration of the solar system will provide a high profile challenge for UK industry, with consequent benefits in recruitment of new engineers and scientists. Evidence from NASA and ESA surveys have shown a significant economic multiplier from investment in space projects, with an additional overall gain in competitiveness.
Maybe if they'd had a cold war to deal with, it woulda gotten them off their asses earlier.
So all the US air bases and listening posts scattered throughout the land are part of an occupying force?
He won't even divert funds from trident to the rest of the cash starved *military*. What chance science?
No need to be so cynical. We're the world leaders in telephone sanitising, while-u-wait tyre fitting and New Age Alternative Therapies.
its just to save face. just look at their record on space/rocketry after ww2. it was a disaster. they couldn't pull it off or afford it. they used to be a great empire and it was after ww2 they finally realized it was all in the past that they were no longer able to compete as a great power. its very easy for them to rationalize a ban on human missions in space:P national pride after all. they used to be the empire where the sun never set...
Yes, not a day passes that I don't mourn the loss of our empire, by jove. A few chaps we'd be jolly pleased to blast into orbit though, what what?
Yes dear fellow, the loss of our empire's just not cricket is it.?
I think that the GP has forgotten that there are many here in the UK, like myself, who couldn't care less about the days of empire; me being a 3rd Gen Indian immigrant and all. The loss of empire really hit me and my family hard.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Of them all, the UK is the one where, in my experience, the biggest failures either to capitalise on R&D or to fund projects adequately have taken place. I firmly believe that this is because the UK is still, after so many years, run by the aristocracy and its relatives. (For information, the current Prime Minister, despite pretences to the contrary, comes from a well-off Scots family and went to the top Scots private school: the most likely next leader of the Opposition is the son of an aristocrat and went to Eton. Neither of them would recognise a law of physics if it came and bit them in the testicles.) As a result, British scientists mostly work abroad, the British defense industry is either French-owned or part of a company which is heavily invested in the US (BAE Systems), the Internet infrastructure is held back by the near-monopoly of the old style telecoms provider BT, and any space research is done on an absolute shoestring (Beagle 2.) It's therefore laughable to suggest that the UK is likely to send astronauts anywhere soon.
Much of the British aristocracy is where it is because of large scale land theft - in India, the West Indies, and Africa. (Some people would add the US, Canada and Australia to that list...). Hence my unkind suggestion about the only thing that would get them interested in space programs.
On the other hand the UK is very good at biotechnology. Given the challenges facing the world, that's where I would invest UK PLC's R&D money.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
The European Space Agency will participate in Russia`s new Kliper manned shuttle program.
My gosh...
if we only knew the origins of the Solar System...
if we could walk on the surface of Mars...
if we had the answers to "many of the questions we want to ask about the origin of the Solar System and the evolution of life within it" (from the article)...
THEN maybe we would be able to eradicate poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote human equality, improve maternal health and child mortality rates, eradicate malaria and much much more!!! Yeah! Someone said $100 billion? Sounds good to me!
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Thanks to the ONION, those garlic stinking motherfuckers have to do what we say now.
They're not a bad lot really even if they did sell Exocet launch codes to the Argees during the Falklands (after the Eupopean Union ban to Argentina had come in to force). Still made for a more exciting war so it wasn't all bad - it's boring when you win all the time.
Oh and by the way, we don't say 'five' during countdowns because it sounds like 'fire'.
Or more specifically, a dramatic change in the distribution of money in the UK/European planetary community.
Britain remains the only country in the world to have developed a working space program and then cancel it. The reason was because of the mantra that has been argued ever since: it is better to develop science-based programs than 'waste' money on putting people in space. If science is your driver, robot missions are much better value for money, which is why you get huge UK involvement in, for example, Cassini, while there remains only one official UK astronaut.
But coming soon is a huge change in the way money is going to be fed into the European space program. It's called Aurora, and it basically says Europe should do what Bush has said the US should do: people going to the Moon, then Mars, and all that entails (tellingly, it said this before Bush).
Many countries in Europe are very positive about a human spaceflight mission, but the current UK position is that we intend to put in money only for the robot mission part of getting to Mars. In the long run, however, joining the club all the way and signing up for the aim to get people to Mars, would allow us to dip into a much larger pot of money. Especially if the scientists convince the politians that they should put up the money for political reasons.
There will be a lower percentage of science for the money, but the gamble is that there'll be enough of an increase in the total funding to mean more money for direct reasearch. As it is, the planetary community is already gambling their current research money to buy into the robotic part of aurora, hoping to get a large return on Mars science (at the cost of a small reduction for research of other planets) by getting more money than they put in back from ESA and the UK government. This is just a radical and markedly different extension of that.
-- IANAL, BIPOOTV
At an average cost of $15,000 per kilogram to launch materials into space, I estimate the British will save loads by not sending toothpaste or toothbrushes into space with their astronauts. In fact, it might give them a competitive advantage!!
In both cases, the end result is the same (inconsequential to the big picture).
Prosecutors in Britain today dropped extradition proceedings against Neil Alden Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin for 'Willful Human Space Flight'. The accused expressed their relief.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
It was banned because Jules Verne (1828-1905) came up with the idea first ... and he was FRENCH!
Because it was considered by just about every scientist alive at the time of Apollo that there was absolutely no scientific value in sending a man to the Moon. Not just British scientists but Americian scientists too held this opinion. Many still hold this opinion today.
This is such a sad statement, and inaccurate. The Apollo missions were incredibly productive. The first geological exploration another world? 6 missions exploring amazingly diverse sites. Apollo contibuted greatly geomorphology, volcanology, geochemistry, isotope studies, remnote sensing, mapping... The Apollo mission reports are still available. Read them. I doubt you will feel the same way. As a former planetary geologist I can assure you that that opinion is not widespread in that community.
If you say this about Apollo, what do you think about the pointless research on the even more expensive space station?
an ill wind that blows no good
Um...aren't the SRBs already human-rated? They are used on the Shuttle Transport System, after all, the entirety of which is human-rated.
I think what you meant to say is that the second stage for the "Scotty" rocket, or single stick booster topped by humans, will need to be built and human-rated.
Also, you are underestimating the work that is involved with the Heavy Lift vehicle. You say: That is nothing more than moving the 3 engines from the shuttle to 5 on the bottom of the fuel tank. There's a LOT of engineering that has to go into that. First of all, the O2 and the hydrogen go through feul conduits on the side of the external tank, not down to the bottom; the feul lines (which are 12" diameter) will have to be routed through the tanks. Since the tanks are built to withstand the pressure of the warming cryogenic liquids, this is no small task. Additionally, the structure of the external tank is built to withstand forces from hanging the weight of the Orbiter on the side; the entire tank will need to be tweaked very carefully to withstand longitudinal loads of having engines on the bottom but the payload on the top.
Finally, your comparison of the Shuttle's payload to the heavy lift's payload isn't a good one either--the orbiter weighs something in excess of 60 metric tons, and should be included in the payload amount. It does go into orbit, after all, that's why they call it the Orbiter. If you just removed that and side-mounted a payload bay right now, you could get 80 metric tons into orbit no problem, without redesign of the external tank, and without extending the boosters to five segments, and you'd be using the safest, simplest parts of the Shuttle system..
Pity that it's only around 80 tons, that's not really enough to get to the Moon with the architecture that NASA has right now.
Oh, and the difference between 60 miles and 300 miles isn't actually 240 miles--orbital velocity is sideways velocity, otherwise you just go up and then fall back down into the same general area. The ide is to move sideways fast enough that when you fall, you fall around the Earth, not back to it. To do a suborbital flight you don't need to go very fast. To go into orbit, the minimum velocity is about 7.5 km/sec, and a Lunar flight requires about 11.5 km/sec. The differences are staggering, especially when you think about the problem of slowing down from 11.5 km/sec!
Why was it banned in the first place?
It wasn't _banned_ so much as starved to death. During the early post-WWII/coldwar year the UK developed it's independent Blue Arrow/Strike, a dual technology programme for ICBM and Satellite launchers.
The Government sponsored programme civil programm was starved to death before being cancelled to save cash, or more accurately to divert to government social programmes like the NHS.
Check it out --- the sun still never sets on the British Empire. It's a damned close run thing, though, since the loss of Hong Kong.
IIRC, the worst case overlap between the sun setting in Pitcairn and rising over Diego Garcia and others in the British Indian Ocean Territories is something like 37 minutes.Paul
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
Hmmm, yes. Where ever did all that money and land go ?
The UK doesn't have old floating oil rigs? Zenit-3SL Orbital launch vehicle. Family: Energia. Country: Ukraine. Status: Hardware. Library of Congress Designation: J-1e. From the beginning of the program a Zenit-3 version was proposed for geosynchronous launches using the N1/Proton Block D third stage. This had the potential of replacing the Proton in the role of geosynchronous launcher. It was considered for launch from Australia / Cape York in the 1980's. Finally a joint US-Norwegian-Ukraininan-Russian consortium was formed to launch the three stage commercial Zenit from a floating launch platform in the Pacific Ocean, Manufacturer: Yuzhnoye. Launches: 14. Failures: 2. Success Rate: 85.71% pct. First Launch Date: 28 March 1999. Last Launch Date: 29 June 2004. Launch data is: continuing. Payload: 5,250 kg. to a: Geosynchronous transfer trajectory. Apogee: 40,000 km. Associated Spacecraft: FS-1300, HS 601 , HS 702. Liftoff Thrust: 740,000 kgf. Liftoff Thrust: 7,300.00 kN. Total Mass: 471,000 kg. Core Diameter: 3.90 m. Total Length: 59.60 m. Launch Price $: 90.00 million. in 1999 price dollars.
Oh well, what the hell...
Seriously, if a hypothetical British space program did want to launch in Australia it's highly likely Australia would want to get involved in some way, but if the astronauts were British and the rockets were built primarily by British engineers I think the world would figure out who was responsible pretty quickly.
And, frankly, if the British government said "we want to lease an area of your desert, spend a pile of money in it, create a bunch of jobs for Australians providing logistics for this joint, and this time we're not going to leave nuclear fallout behind" the Australian government would jump at the chance.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Space and the military are the biggest generators of new technology.Well, the Military anyway. Space hasn't given us much since memory foam. But military technology, well, we have retort packaging ( precooked meals in plastic pouches, ala MREs ), and many other examples. Innovative surgeries, optics, etc.
Plus, whoever gets there first, well, eventually someone is going to mine the moon and the asteroid belt. And that means money. You'll need a space project to to stae your claim. And let's face it, while prices have fallen, no company has $100 billion in the bank to fund it. Even Microsoft doesn't have that much cash. So like any infrastructure project ( Such as the highways, rural phone networks, public water utilities ), it requires involvement by the govt.
Don't forget kids, 1 iron asteroid in the belt probably has much gold in it as exists in Fort Knox. And merely being able to control that material allows one to regulate the global gold market. Nevermind the prices of other materials. Transportation of the material back to earth will only get cheaper. There are potential huge economic impacts on the prices of various expensive raw materials ( and concomittant geopolitical implications ). Gold, Titanium, fusible Helium isotopes, various other precious metals.
So why do you think the US is all of sudden interested in Space again, when China has announced planned manned missions to the moon? He who controls space has the potential to control the pursestrings of the world economy.
"Country Foobonia has a gold based monetary system, and we don't like them. Let's dump 20 tons on the market..."
Not only can you have tea, but you can drink (eat?) it with chopsticks!
All the article says is that the British government refuses to fund human space flight. It says nothing about banning British citizens from going up on their own penny (pence?). Maybe what Britain needs is civil human spaceflight to kick things up a bit and make for some good competition for our own burgeoning civil human space flight market here in the 'States.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Because it was considered by just about every scientist alive at the time of Apollo that there was absolutely no scientific value in sending a man to the Moon. Not just British scientists but Americian scientists too held this opinion. Many still hold this opinion today.
I agree. I mean, why send people into space. After all, don't those satellites fix themselves. Hubble almost certainly has required no human interaction. Even if it did, it was of no scientific value. Obviously sending and/or building on our only natural satellite could only end up just as fruitless. And, sex only for the purpose of procreation. Otherwise it has no value. Jam on toast? I'll take the dry white toast any day! Computers for the common peasant, but what would they need with a computer?
Yes, that's sarcasm. If it wasn't, someone shoot me.
An unimaginative scientist that can't find the scientific value in the exploration of the unknown... I think that disqualifies them for the title "scientist". One can argue the cost all day, but to argue the scientific value of exploration... unscientific exploration is the very definition of oxymoron. It is, I looked it up and everything.
I8-D
The fortune at the bottom of the page from which I post this reply says:
"Those lovable Brits department: They also have trouble pronouncing `vitamin'."
Maybe that's what's holding them back.
--
make install -not war
The comparison with shuttle IS fair, because its 60 tons to orbit is not really useful payload. True, its a life support system, but its also a crew return mechanism with features that aren't useful at all in orbit. Why count the landing gear or wings of the shuttle as payload to orbit? The new strategy is to significantly reduce the mass of the return mechanism in exchange for payload that doesnt need to be returned to earth.
The side-mount launch configuration of the shuttle IS the least safe feature of the system. Columbia is a direct result of that configuration, and its debatable if Challenger would have resulted in a loss of crew if they were being launched on an in-line system.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
Britain can simply build a floating launch plataform, go to some point of the Equator over international watesr and launch the rocket. Sea launch is already used, at least for launching satellites.
Bad puns aside, the current thinking on population growth mostly predicts a maximum well below 15 billion, more like 9, maybe 10. Some sort of dieback still looks likely, but specific areas are affected, not the whole world. (I.e. India hasn't gotten a grip on its population growth, and will most probably have massive famines and lose 500 Million people in a single bad year, but China has managed to curb its growth rate and will probably be able to sustain its current population. Mexico and most of Central America will have relatively minor problems, while Brazil will get hit hard. Several Central African nations will see huge 80-90% diebacks (but those are comeing anyway now, from HIV, so they are effectively doubly inevitable.).
On your bright side, 'sustainable' doesn't look nearly so bad as it did in the 60's. Now planners are mostly talking about focusing economic growth into sustainable areas, rather than the Club of Rome's older 'no growth at all' model. Many countries are finding it possible to leapfrog around building themselves a 20th century infrastructure and jump right to the 21st. It's a lot cheaper to build cell-phone like networking than to lay copper wire everywhere. Training up a lot of PA and RN grade health care providers can raise the typical life expectancy much more than spending the equivalent on full fledged MDs. Some very traditional tech, like slash and burn agriculture is being changed, and not to the US massive industry farms, chemical fertilizers approaches that are nearly as bad in the long run, but to very cheap methods of protecting both locally optimal crops and the land underneath them.
Who is John Cabal?
Ooo! Ooo! I've got it! "SPACE man".
Seriously, just look at similar US/UK differences ("airplane" vs "areoplane", etc.), and use the British spelling: "Aestreounaught".
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Science: Commission Suggests UK Should End Com Poo Ter Ban
Because "Great" Britain won't do anything by itself any more. The entire policy of the government is based on appeasement of foreign powers and containment of its own people "for their own protection against terrorism". It alternately fears and fawns up to any large political power and its people hate the government because of it - but there's no point changing the ruling party, because the alternatives would behave the same way. Up until a few months ago, Britain had its own rocket technology. But it chose not to bother with it lest it inadvertently offended anyone by having its own space program. Go figure.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
I can't imagine that folks saw it as having _no_ scientific value. Very little scientific value given the outlay - completely agreed.
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Indeed I see space exploration as being way down the list of things that my tax £ should be being spent on.
It's like the Olympics for me. I don't mind it, in fact I can quite enjoy it but given the option as to whether or not to stump up the cash - I'd choose not.
PS: Space exploration fascinates me, my favourite game as a child was probably "battlestar galactica" and I still have a collection of space lego; I even did a project in high school on the Saturn 5 and I know the 3rd man was Michael Collins. So, it's pure economic realism that's behind my statement - just like me not buying a porsche and having to sleep in a lay-by
If other countries want to do that, great, but make sure your people have food and accommodation first please.
Is it really that expensive to rebuild Aardman studios? They've already had one successful extraterrestrial trip...