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UK Reconsiders 1986 Decision To Ban Astronauts
An anonymous reader writes "The British space agency, BNSC, is reconsidering its 1986 decision to reject all human space missions. The decision has dominated British space policy ever since, leaving Britain out of many American and European space projects. The UK is the only nation in the G8 group of leading economies that does not have a human space flight program. But space enthusiast groups like the British Interplanetary Society are trying to persuade the British government to participate in both manned and unmanned space activities."
David Lister.
The real reason we Brits don't send people into space is because you simply cannot get a decent cup of tea there! Manufacturing Bowler Hats to fit over those helmets has proved rather tricky too.
Awful UID - but I have been here ages...
They have too many hands in the British government.
'Same speed C but faster'
How can Britain not have a astronaut program, when a country like Nigeria already has astronauts in space. I got an email from one of their astronauts describing the funds to get him back down were in an account that needed to be transferred out of Nigeria in order to gain access to it.
Theres this thing, im not sure you have much of it over the pond, its called science. There is know need/point in wasting money in some ego race to see who can touch mars first, but by exploring the universe we can expand our scientific knowledge.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Ban or no ban, they ain't drinkin' in this pub!
All that bragging and dragging their heavy kit about. Not to mention the naf hissing sound from the pressure suits - and the smell. Did you ever?
I think that the ban is good for Britain. Next, I think it's time to exclude those blokes who Google the answers to the pub quiz on their mobiles, under the tables.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
No, their position is that government should play no role in sending men into space. Feel free to do it by private effort, if you want.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Maybe they're afraid that they won't be able to keep tabs on the astronauts in space? What's to prevent British astronauts from putting some duct tape over the cameras and engaging in terrorism?!
aggressive wikipeida vandalism is the only way to beat them. "what do you mean Tutankhamen wasn't the star striker when we won the world cup?!"
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
No, read the article. As a Libertarian sort I'd be down with that part about not stealong my money to blast somebody else into space. But yhey are spewing propaganda to British school children. To quote the article:
That is a sign of a civilization that has lost not only the will to live, it isn't even all that curious anymore. If you aren't ever planning on roving over the mountain eventually, why waste the money sending a robot to look around?
Democrat delenda est
That's exactly right. And it kind of annoys me that every time there is a story like this they say "British Astronauts Banned".. like there's some law prohibiting citizens of the UK from going to space.
How we know is more important than what we know.
(Holds up sack.)
England, do you know what these are? Perhaps not. It's been a while, hasn't it. Let me explain: these, dear friends, are your balls. You had them for a while once, back when you were a colonial power, you had big titanium steel ones while you fought the Nazis, and you had pretty good sized ones when you kicked the crap out of Argentina. But ever since you stopped sending humans into space, they've been sitting quietly in a burlap sack, growing old, gathering dust, completely unused while you drink beer and make funny movies and wonder what the hell happened to the England that was.
You know you want them back. You know you want to feel them again, along with the rush and thrill of going places where human beings just weren't designed to go. You know you want it, because that's where we've always gone as a species: where we're not supposed to.
Go on England. Explore space again. Get your balls back.
Until you do, I'll keep them in my lock box, along with the brains of the people who designed City of Heroes. They won't be needing those anytime soon, I assure you.
Love, MAX.
Finding God in a Dog
See hundreds of years ago the equivalent to space exploration was sending a ship around the world. The UK was a leader in this effort. In 1770 a guy called Cook discovered a place called Australia and in 1788 a colonising fleet was sent from the UK to this new world. The new colony succeeded beyond the UK's wildest dreams. It's inhabitants evolved into bronzed, suntanned titans, with physical and mental capabilities beyond anything the UK was remotely capable of. Worst of all they repeatedly whopped the UK at all sports. The final straw was when the Australian colony sent back this thing called Neighbours and destroyed the Queen's English, the foundation of the UK's national identity, culture and pride.
The UK resolved "never again".
:-)
erm, it didn't. Read a journal and you'll see that experiments just happen, e.g 'chemical A was mixed with chemical B and C occurred', not that the tense matters but my point is it doesn't have to be a human doing the experiment to get the data. On earth we tend to try and get humans as far from the experiments as possible, because we lack the rigor of robots.
There is little chance of sending a man to astrological location is the most efficient way to gather scientific data, so why bother when wed be better of spending the money researching stuff like stem cells, evolution or black holes.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Why would they send a man back into space after what happened to Major Tom, and all?
- Eddie Izzard, Dress to Kill
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Are you telling me Moonraker wasn't real???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonraker_(film)
WHAT? But Roger Moore is British! It even says so in Wikipedia, so he's been up in space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Moore
It's on Wikipedia. It must be real!
What do you mean that's not real life? I don't understand! That can't be right. If it is how can I ever aspire to having sex in zero G with a gorgeous Russian spy?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Why not? They banded my little tabby here - and I got 'er back after she run off once, when the man who pours linseed oil into the duck's carcasses forgot to slam the lid shut on th eold coal-chute. That's another story there, that is. But it worked for my tabby, and I hear there gonna' band schoolchildren, too. That'll show 'em. Something to find the criminals in jeans, they're saying on Sky. An Astronaut ought to be easier to band than a tabby. And I bet they don't sit under the couch, trying to rub the thing off over their ears all night long, either!
What? You said "ban"? What's that, then? Well, If they're Astronauts or not, I don't think we should let foreigners in, if they can't respect our ways, now. They're no better than the rest of us and that's the truth.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
At this point human spaceflight is at best a propaganda exercise and at worst a complete waste of money. Why should the UK change their stance on the issue? Has human spaceflight become more interesting in the last 20 years? More strategically important? More affordable?
I realize human spaceflight is inspiring but that in itself isn't enough to justify the expenses.
This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Firstly, doesn't the fact that those engineering challenges would have been overlooked if not for manned space travel mean that they aren't really that important for anything else? And secondly, doesn't the same logic apply to all sorts of other things like living on the bottom of the ocean, growing wheat in Antarctica and diving into volcanoes? Not that I'm advocating any of these, I just don't see what's so special about space travel in this respect.
Actually G7 is when the Finance Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States of America meet to discuss economic policy.
G8 is when the heads of government of those countries plus Russia meet to talk about a wide variety of things.
So what is the point of sending people to different planets?
As Sir George Mallory said, when asked why he wanted to climb Everest, "Because it is there."
Or even, as Robert Burns put it several hundred years earlier -- A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Human spaceflight is risky, ponderous and expensive. But there is a very deep, very meaningful reason to push on. See, I've always held on to the frail hope that one day we will leave this rock. It's why I read science fiction. I mean, who does not? I can't imagine it another way. I find contemplating the inevitable extinction of the human race utterly depressing. It's our deepest instinct to survive, after all.
Square one is always going to be expensive. But it's certainly not a waste of money. The peripheral benefits are enormous. Advances in engineering, industry, science and enough to inspire so many. Can you imagine if a woman was the first to step on Mars? She'd inspire us all. I'd like to see that in my lifetime.
We got hundreds of pounds of Moon rocks back to Earth was via the manned missions. A lot of those samples were selected Harrison Schmitt a geologist, based on geological significance, once he got there. They were thereafter distributed to leading geologists around the world, many in the Soviet Union even. The samples have probably done more to advance our understanding of the Moon than any other thing. The last Apollo mission was the most scientifically significant. We were just getting started.
It did not crash the US federal budget. It caused no wars. It employed 400,000 people. It gave Boeing and Locked Martin something to build besides bombs. Apollo was almost invariably, a great thing. Without Vietnam, perhaps it would have continued on.
I don't have a problem racing to Mars. In fact, I think we should be there already. We've been sitting on our laurels since the 70's. The apatite for realizing the Arthur Clarke type human future in space will vanish in a few generations if we don't give those generations anything to look forward to.
You realise that NASA is a US government agency, don't you? Those 'worthless bureaucratic tax feeders' were responsible for just about every advancement into space that the US has ever made...
...with the exception of SpaceShipOne of course. Well done. Of course, SpaceShipTwo will be a joint venture with Virgin Galactic, a British company.
Ironically, you could say that British manned flight is more skewed towards private enterprise than it has ever been in the US.
The NHS if horrifically inneficient, at every level. Just like a government agency in fact.
It gets cheaper healthcare, sure, but there's nothing to crow about. It's just tight budgeting. It's not 'better'. The staff are demoralised, the patients are lucky to get 5 minutes with a doctor these days (they're on quotas and must get through as many as possible) and because of this the standard response has become 'take these antibiotics and go away' - leading to other problems - not only rampant misdiagnosis, but the growth of antibiotic resistant diseases.
Case in point - prescriptions. A consultant puts you on a long term drug, but he can't issue it. That has to be done by a GP. For this they require written notice (no email, web, or phone allowed and they don't open weekends of evenings so you have to take time off work to do it). Having received this request it takes them 3-4 days to sign a little piece of paper, which you then have to take more time off work to collect, and manually walk 20 feet to the chemist next door to have it dispensed (which typically takes over an hour). This has to be repeated every month. I know, I go through the whole charade repeatedly.
The amount of waste in just that simple process is horrendous. There's also the lost work time, which doesn't get counted in the cost of the NHS but is a cost nontheless.
It's not just at the patient level - I have friends in the NHS and they talk about the stupid rules where something 1 person could do very quickly but because of the beaurocracy takes days and has to go through multiple people.
We like to think the NHS is the best in the world, but that's just the propoganda. I'd rather be treated in a 3rd world country than some of the hospitals I've seen.