After years of not funding astronautical training, a body in the UK found that it might be time to start investing in astronautial training.
The report warns Britain risks being isolated on the international stage if it continues its longstanding refusal to fund the human exploration of space.
The RAS expert panel says the cost of joining other nations with astronaut programmes could be some £120m a year.
But the scientific, educational and economic benefits would be worth it, it argues.
"Recent developments across the world strongly suggest that, after a 30-year lull, space-faring nations are gearing up for a return to the Moon and then to Mars," said panel member, Professor Ken Pounds, of the University of Leicester.
"It is hard to imagine that the UK, one of the world's leading economies, would not be fully involved in a global scientific and technology endeavour with such strong potential to inspire.
"We therefore recommend that the government re-evaluates its longstanding opposition to British involvement in human space exploration."
Scientific merits
Current policy only allows for tax payers' money to be spent on robotic missions, which means the UK, although a member state of the European Space Agency (Esa), gives no funds to Esa's astronaut corps.
Those UK-born individuals who have made it into orbit recently, such as Michael Foale and Piers Sellers, have done so by taking out US citizenship and joining the American space agency (Nasa).
As well as space physicist Professor Pounds, the panel includes Dr John Dudeney, deputy director of the British Antarctic Survey; and Frank Close, a physics professor at Oxford University, who acts chairman.
Their nine-month investigation into the scientific merits of having British astronauts finds "compelling" reasons to change present policy.
The men say robotic missions to the Moon and Mars can answer many of the questions we want to ask about the origin of the Solar System and the evolution of life within it ¿ but machines do not yet have the ingenuity and flexibility of people.
Industrial rewards
The panel believes the industrial and educational rewards from joining other nations on manned missions beyond low-Earth orbit in the coming decades could be huge.
"Surveys have shown a significant economic multiplier from investment in space projects, with an additional overall gain in competitiveness," the panel reports.
And they add: "The outreach potential for human space exploration can be a strong positive influence on the interests and educational choices of children."
Professor Close commented: "We commenced this study without preconceived views and with no formal connection to planetary exploration.
"Our personal backgrounds made us lean towards an initial scepticism on the scientific value of human involvement in such research.
"However, while fully recognising the technical challenge and the need for substantial investment, we have, nevertheless, been persuaded by the evidence presented to us that the direct involvement of humans in situ is essential if we are to pursue science of profound interest to humankind that can only be undertaken on the Moon and Mars."
As part of its fact-finding exercise, the RAS panel tested public opinion through the BBC News website.
An analysis of responses to a Have Your Say debate found 61% were in favour of the UK having its own astronauts, 26% were against and 13% were undecided.
So why notAustralia when we haave so many resources?
Meanwhile I spotted this rather bleak little article
But much has changed. The Cold War that provided the initial motivation for our space program is long over, and human space exploration has been overtaken by technological progress. Astronauts on Mars, locked in their space suits, would be unable to venture far from shelter against the constant bombardment of energetic particles that are unscreened by Mars' thin atmosphere. Beyond Mars, there is no place humans can go in the foreseeable future.
The great adventure of the 21st century is to explore where no human can ever set foot. The great quest is to find life to which we are not related. Could nature have solved the problem of life in some other way in some other place? When we find out we will know much more about ourselves.
Two mechanical geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, are searching for evidence of water, the key to life, on opposite sides of Mars. They don't break for lunch or complain about the cold nights, and they live on sunshine. They've been at it for nearly two years, yet sending them to Mars cost less than sending a shuttle with a new astronaut crew to the International Space Station. The brains of Spirit and Opportunity are the brains of geologists back on Earth.
Human space flight is a terribly old-fashioned idea. It's about over. It's too expensive and provides too little return.
The president must know all this. He must also knows the American public identifies progress in space with human astronauts. The solution is to create an impossibly expensive and pointless program for some other administration to cancel, thus bearing the blame for ending human space exploration. The moon mission will never take place because it has no purpose. It's just a poison pill.
Robert L. Park is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland.
Yeah, we also ought to perish on this world too. What a dick.
No comments:
Post a Comment