UK science minister backs UK astronaut programme
6 October 2008In his cabinet shuffle of last week, PM Gordon brown made former head of defense department procurement, recent racecar driver (!), and Ph.D. in robotics Paul Drayson the minister for science.
One of Drayson’s first public pronouncements is that the UK should have an astronaut programme to get kids into science.
I think this is a good idea. I know that astronaut programmes are very expensive, but I think they provide an excellent scientific role model. Lots of kids list “astronaut” among their dream jobs. A miniscule number ever become astronauts, obviously, but it serves as an inspiration, something to shoot for. It’s a high-profile focus for personal interest and scientific investment. I haven’t seen cost-benefit analyses to know for certain that the cost is worth it – I think that would be hard to measure – but it feels to me like it would be.
About time this country awoke from the slumbers of complacency and took up where we left off with the venture to space. And to those na sayers who retort that we have better things to spend money on, our space programme was all but suspended many years ago and did that act see the improvement in education and health? The answer is of course no. It was a full decade after, that we first began to see the worsening situation in those professions, so clearly there is no connection. Where do many of the latest applications for intensive care originate? The space program, and the list goes on. I advise everyone to take a look at the UK Space Stategy 2007-12 and get a glimpse of the contribution the space indusrty already makes to the UK