Does British investment in astronauts match the nation’s ambition?
The British investment in ESA’s astronaut programme. Photo (cc) Stuart Pilbrow.
Becoming an astronaut is the pinnacle of achievement for anyone involved in space science and technology.
So, after the selection of Major Time Peake as the UK’s new ESA astronaut, how serious are the government of reaching the pinnacle of acheivement? “No additional funds would be made available to help pay for the costs of Major Peake’s training, Science Minister Lord Drayson said.” While the UK’s Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills is happy to associate themselves with Tim Peake’s success and say they’re investing in our future, the British investment in astronautics will currently remain €0. This is the latest round in a series of arguments over whether or not manned flight should be funded. If what you want are scientific results there’s almost always a better return for your money in unmanned missions. Contrary to what many space scientists say, it’s no more expensive to send a man into orbit than a satellite. However, manned flight becomes vastly more expensive if you want to bring the man back alive. It’s all the time, money and material catering for basic human needs that makes manned flight such a poor investment. Supporters of the unmanned lobby say all this effort could be spent doing something useful. This is the line the government has taken, whether Labour or Conservative.
The best argument for manned space flight is the one Lord Drayson gave, ambition. Michael Moore gave a great description of Britain’s role in space exploration when he was complaining about his talk show being cut short on Channel Four for a Moon Landing anniversary special. Sure, the space race may have been between the USA and the USSR, but the UK played a vital role. They sat watching and shouted “Hooray!” at the winner. All great events, Moore said, need an audience. To some extent that seems to have been the message that the governments have been sending in the past. Space travel is something that other people do. We even got rid of our rockets capable of reaching orbit, possibly in the hope that if we ignored outer space for long enough it would go away.
One result is that generations of British schoolchildren have been shown that if you want to go boldly where no-one has gone before then forget it. That’s something the rest of the world does. It’s not a fair representation of reality. The UK has plenty of work in space science and frequently builds instruments and satellites. Yet this isn’t often headline grabbing. I’m not sure how useful the moon landings were, but when JFK laid down his challenge he gave the USA an ambition. It’s an ambition matched by many other nations. Afghanistan got a cosmonaut before the UK, as did India, Saudi Arabia and Syria. When it comes to clocking up space hours we’re not as successful as Malaysia, South Africa or Brazil.
How funding works
The Millenium Dome: £789m for a one year event
The Olympics: £9.3bn for just over two weeks
One reason we don’t fund manned space exploration is that we have other priorities. The comparison to the right isn’t entirely fair. The investment is over a period of time, so it’s probably more accurate to say the country’s shovelled the same amount of cash each year trying to regenerate Greenwich as we’ll spend on five years of research with ESA. But in other ways, it’s extremely reasonable. The reason for spending so much money on the Olympics was that it would leave a legacy; so did the Millennium Dome, but that wasn’t the sort of legacy you boast about. The idea was that the Olympics would be a kick in the pants for sport in this country. Fair play to the government, they’ve certainly given sport a kicking, with cutbacks on funding. A lot of the Olympic infrastructure has been designed to be temporary, so we’ll not be troubled by so many sporting facilities after the event is over. It’s a shame, because borrowing the Olympic idea and ambition for science would be a fantastic notion.
Putting Britons in space, and even on the moon, would be the scientific equivalent of the Olympics or hosting the World Cup. Because of human element, astronautics is not just about the physical sciences. There’s physics in building the rocket, chemistry in creating the materials, but also biology in keeping the astronauts fit. There’s geology in what you’d be studying, along with mathematics and engineering in putting it all together. There’s no artificial divide between pure and applied science but a need to be able to integrate the two as hypothetical problems become real problems. It’s also something which, these days, can be opened up to the public. Data can be released into the public domain as it is with current astronomical data. Educational projects can be built with interaction with astronautics corps. The government keeps trying to enthuse schoolchildren about learning languages with little success, but with French and German astronauts there’s even a hook for that. The payoff is the incredible experience of being able to put someone beyond the earth’s gravity.
It’s clearly something which the public has an enthusiasm for as the government has been keen to capitalise on Tim Peake’s success. Yet the reason his acheivement is so great is that he is there despite the government’s space policy not because of it. We’ve spent plenty rewarding failure over the past year. It would be interesting to see what happens if we rewarded success as well.
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