It is forty years since the first moon landing, and over here in the UK, we are being treated to a whole host of programmes, articles and interviews about that great event forty years ago.
And one debate that is heating up this week is whether we should be sending more people into space. British Astronaut Helen Sharman has given a rare interview in this week´s Daily Telegraph in which she calls for the government to start funding human space travel again. Dr Sharman accuses the government of being too interested in short term gains. She describes how everyone from tiny children to pensioners are fascinated by space travel, and how seeing more manned space travel would inspire Britons to be interested in science, and to be proud of what we can achieve scientifically and technologically.
I think she is right – the public excitement and interest that manned space travel inspires is incredible and must surely justify the (admittedly huge) cost to the taxpayer. A colleague of mine, who must now be nearly 60, once told me how disappointing it was that the future he’d anticipated as a boy had never materialised. He had imagined by the time he was grown up we would all be living in space and zooming around in rockets. The moon landings however did inspire him to become a physicist. Otherwise (he jokes) he may have ended up as an accountant!
But perhaps in today´s political climate, the focus should be on the European Space Agency. A EU-crew could also create a feeling of EU solidarity that the politicians are all striving for…..
Link to the article:
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