Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
At a time of Draconian cuts in public services,pay freezes and abolition of child trust funds and certain tax credit allowance is it right that David Willetts the new Science Minister should announce that it's imperative that the UK re-enters the Space Race?
I am not sure how the 'man on the street' will take too kindly to this especially those that drive and look at the never ending rise at the fuel pumps.The wife,mother continually juggling her household bills to cope with rising energy prices and increasing food bill.
Methinks this is just another fine example of the Landed Tories walking around their estates with a fully cocked gun just waiting for a trip and then shooting themselves in the foot.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Silly bit of class warfare and bigotry there Marek.
I fully approve, at least in a modest way, while the spending restraints are on. This will lead to a science bonanza from which in the longer term we would reap massive economic benefits. To get the benefit we need to be on the inside from the start.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
BarryW
No bigotry just trying to inject a bit of humour to the subject. It appears that the UK is keen to launch it's own satelites through the European Space Agency in order to provide UK 's own earth images.Why ?..most people couldn't give a toss that all our images are sourced elsewhere from google,satnav etc. I just don't think that at this particular time of what the Tories refer to as a an 'economic crisis' and 'savage spending cuts' that Willettts should be gobbing off about it from the rooftops as to how important the UK's Space Agency really is (or not).
It will not be appreciated by those genuine incapacity benefit holders that now have to suffer the indignity of being re-examined ,prodded and re-assessed before continuing to receive their benefit.
Most of the examining Doctors stationed at Canterbury are from the Third and Second World (asia and former iron curtain countries) whose salaries are absolutely bloody enourmous. And ...No, just before anyone says it even though I am ,in most forumites eyes from the loony left, I am not and never have been in receipt of any form of benefit..thanks to my golden handshake index linked pension gratefully received from Thatchers era of running and staff cuts in the civil service
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Marek,
Perhaps you could explain the strange fact that whilst fewer and fewer jobs in the U.K. require physical capability (lifting and shifting) more and more of the population are apparently physically incapable of doing them?
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
I`ve said this before on here. This planet is our dwelling, and we`re living on it with no insurance. Space activity is an expensive business, but so were the early pioneering voyages to search for new lands across the oceans. It became cheaper eventually and created much wealth and new trades and industries. I know what Marek means, but I`m afraid it`s the future, and we have to move on. My personal vision is, that the only way all this is really going to get going, is to have a very large meteorite slam into the planet, with great loss of life, which will wake people up to the fact there`s no protection up there. We wouldn`t be here today if not for large impacts over the ages.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
trying to imagine what sort of space programme we could afford.
i would imagine we would need quite a lot of milk bottles to send our rockets up.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
What kind of space programme could we afford? Star Trek TNG, now on Virgin HD (at no extra cost). Beyond that, a couple of Sky rockets from Morrisons on Guy Fawkes night.
True friends stab you in the front.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
are they still doing glass milk botels these days,i thought they where all plastic ones.
There is much UK technology onbaord each space shuttle that lifts off. There is also a decent amount of hardware and software provided by UK scientists. As Colin rightly says, we need to do this to give ourselves the chance of a better future.
As a matter of interest, I am walking around with a device in me that is a direct bi-product of the space industry which keeps an artery open. and my kitchen cupboards contain non-stick pans. Two industries generated from space programmes that would not have even been dreamed of at the outset.
I am very pro the UKSA, ESA, NASA and whatever the Ruskies have, and watch Indian and Chinese probes with interest. However, I believe we must only do what we can afford. As an aside, I think the Willetts bloke a bit of a burk, but that's just my long held opinion.
The bottom line is that everyone ends up dead.
Sorry about that. Possibly not with a plasma TV (whatever they are???)
Possibly having sat in the slums of Calcutta. (Which are a damn such better than the slums of Manchester in 1845. (See Engels).
Mankind (including you and I) have progressed by pushing the boundaries of what we know.
If in ancient Rome I had the choice between feeding the Gladiators or the audience I would gone for the gladiators
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
No need to be sorry Bob, you`re absolutely right, we all wind up dead, at the moment that is. I personally don`t view all our modern technology with awe like most. The best is yet to come, and we`re nowhere`s near that yet. As I see it, life longevity is there waiting to be discovered, planet`s waiting to be colonised. The technology is there, but as Marek says, costly. But then, what price do you put on our species if we never left this planet of ours, and just one catasrophic event on Earth rendered us extinct? Our whole existence meaningless.
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Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Bob
I also have been to Calcutta,Dhaka the slums of Manila and the shanty towns of Fiji where people have nothing.Their whole day is spent scavaging in order to feed themselves and their family.They are poor skint and struggling to survive but they don't have their head buried in the sand and spend what little cash they have trying to buy an unaffordable luxury item they can ill afford to keep and run.
Thats exactly what this country is doing,we are skint "no money in the coffers" worst economic mess since the beginning of time according to the Tories but in the same week as these cries of gloom and doom the new Science Minister is talking about spending millions on Space technology.
I have nothing against pushing the boundaries and mans exploration of space but when the country can afford it!!
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
Our very own Frank Whittle invented the jet engine in 1930. The air ministry wouldn`t finance it. Unbelievable looking back. He went ahead with it off his own back, formed a company with 2 colleagues and when in 1937 it all looked nice and rosey, the government showed a keen interest in it, (maybe because of the German threat). Frank Whittle`s company was nationalised in 1944. That was the end of that. My point here is, with no national health service etc in place before the war, times were even harder then, and what would have happened if the government of the time invested heavily in jet propulsion? We`d have been much more prosperous. The U.S. were no competition whatsoever. We could have been on top and led the world, and we can`t even imagine how the last war would have gone. It would`ve been very very different that`s for sure, and tongue in cheek, we`d have been a big threat to Hitler. He would`ve known that even if our bumbling politicians didn`t. If we don`t put ourselves on the space map, then we`ll be left behind and we may just as well remove the Great from Britain. Sid with his space spin offs above, along with Bob`s gladiator piece spell it out.
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Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Colin
Totally agree with your post above but it still doesn't address the problem of where the money will come from and the Tories ideal of "don't spend what you haven't got".
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
As you will know Marek, I`m totally baffled with politics, but I do notice whenever we go to war, suddenly pots of money appear. If it`s millions the government plan to spend, after seeing those lottery jackpots, it looks like small change to me mate.
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Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Colin
Good point but I am totally against todays modern power hungry, land grabbing ,oil fuelled ,self righteous wars anyway but the UK has what is known as a War chest where reserves are stored for such emergencies.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
In that case Marek, lets go for star wars.
No, seriously mate, I do see your points.
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Guest 644- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 1,214
Beagle 2 almost made it but 2/3 of the cost were financed from the private sector. The precise cause of failure was never determined but the UK came within a hair's breath of having our own Mars lander. Such a shame - it would have been a real boost for space research here if it had worked.
Marek, that war chest thingy is all part of being a world power and having to be ready to fight at a moments notice.
As for the slums and poverty in other countries, Bob omitted to mention the billions of dollars the upper classes and politicians have to spend on themselves in those same countries. The poorest country in Africa, Niger, is led by some of the wealthiest men in the world thanks to the discovery of uranium deposits. So, they all have the wherewithal to solve the problems of poverty, but don't and so we still send Overseas Aid!