I was just reading about the European Space Agency’s deal to work with NASA to develop a deep space crew module, Orion. What caught my eye was that the UK agreed to pony up some dough, breaking from their anti manned space travel policy. They’ve never given a dime to the International Space Station, for instance.
So, what does or did the UK have against manned space travel? If God had wanted man in space he’d have given them space suits?
Why the change now?
The UK government’s position was that space probes are far more cost effective. I don’t know why they have changed their mind and agreed to pay towards Orion.
We preferred to invest the money in dentistry.
In space no one can see you smile.
Post-imperial ennui.
Whereas Americans see space as an adventurous frontier, the British see only the black void no doubt full of Lovecraftian horrors.
One word: Daleks
Oh yeah, I forgot about Doctor Who. Brits have good reason to fear space.
Not with the Brigadier on the team. “That man! Five rounds rapid at the chap with the wings!” With sang froid like that at one’s command, how could Daleks hope to prevail?
The UK has now an astronaut in training in the European astronaut corps, presumably that’s the reason why they changed their mind. The UK put 20 M€ into the ISS operating costs. It sure helped clinch the deal at ESA’s ministerial conference in Naples.
The weird thing is that in the movies, the British were pretty pro-space. Professor Bernard Quatermass was developing space flight systems, after all, and was responsible for sending up a UK rocket with a UK crew in the first Quatermass film, and was putting together a plan for a base on the moon in the second one. There were UK astronauts in the film The First Men in the Moon, Kubrick’s 2001 pretty clearly had a British presence in space. And there were all those television shows that essentially assumed the UK would be out there as well. Not to mention Arthur C. Clarke and squadrons of british science fiction authors who wrote about sending people – often from the UK – up into space. Heck, even James Bond got there in the admittedly awful Moonraker.
I didn’t realize that the UK nevertheless was anti-astronaut.
I missed the part about the British presence in space in 2001. Can you enlighten me?
There was an Arthur C Clarke story entitled variously "Stowaway " and “?” dealing with the then Prince of Wales stowing away aboard a ship of the Royal Space Force.
The greeting program aboard the Space Station is pretty clearly British-oriented (An American program would never ask for your “Christian name”) , and IIRC the option is given for American English for the interaction, which suggests the presence of other types of English. There are numerous references to international treaties and space groups. This could be only the Russians, I suppose, but the scale always suggested something more cosmopolitan to me.
As long as the British remain earthbound, evil empires will have nobody to command their star destroyers.
It’s much cheaper to make movies about people traveling in space than it is to actually send them there.
Are you sure? How much is the next Star Wars movie gonna cost, you think?
Well, we landed on the moon with 1969 technology. It couldn’t be very expensive.
. . . and they won’t mess up minor details, like forgetting to put a piece of plywood over a thermal exhaust port.
Tripler
You realize their space station was destroyed by an American-sounding teenager and his cowboy pal (and Wookie)?
Two words: “Life force.”