Considering
that the space race has been a thread that has run throughout my
lifetime I feel a bit of a fraud in so far as I don't feel that I
ever fully appreciated the enormity of the achievements. I was 2 when
Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, 11 when Neil Armstrong
walked on the moon, I followed each Apollo mission, built umpteen
kits of rockets, capsules and landing craft, yet I never felt
captivated by the potential of the great unexplored. I watched
countless episodes of Star Trek and Thunderbirds, yet I never felt
the remotest desire to become an astronaut or space scientist.
We
all have things in our youth that capture our imagination, some will
be no more than passing fancies while others will become an obsession
that we will pursue throughout our lives. At the age of 11 my career
options were to fly an Electric Lightning jet, become a scuba diver
(the crew in the Jacques Cousteau documentaries seemed to have a good
lifestyle) or drive a number 94 bus.
I
have no idea why it had to be the 94 bus, which ran, as I recall, from
Lewisham Gaumont to Woolwich – it wasn't even my local route! I do
remember spending a disproportionate amount of my youth sitting on
the bus parked up in the road next to the cinema. The bus needed to
go round the one way system and then turn right at a horrendous
junction before turning left towards Blackheath. I used to close my
eyes when the driver edged the double-decked Routemaster out into the
traffic, and I suspect he did too. The only way to get across that
road was to ease out slowly, block as much of the road as you could
and wait till someone gave way to you. It was probably the reason the
bus drivers never seemed to be in a hurry to get the bus started.
The
English Electric Lightning was a supersonic jet that entered service
in 1959, I may have seen one at the Biggin Hill Air Show though I
suspect it may have been an article I read in one of my father's
Flight International magazines that captured my imagination (it must
have been raining that day, I can't think why else I would have been
reading one of his magazines). I'm not sure whether it was the shape
or the speed of the aircraft that appealed but it fascinated me
enough to do a project on it at primary school. Thankfully for
society I chose to pursue none of these dreams.
This
month has seen 2 major space related stories, the sad destruction of
the Virgin Galactic Space Ship while on a test flight and the landing
of the European Space Agency's Philea Lander space probe on Comet
67P, or Churyumov-Gerasimenko to give it its full name, the
culmination of a 15 year mission to land a scientific probe on a
comet, both significant leaps into the future of space exploration,
so we are led to believe.
It
has taken the Rosetta spacecraft, the mother ship, 10 years to travel
the 4 billion miles to reach the comet before releasing the probe on
the 7.5 hour descent to the comet surface, where it is hoped that a
series of experiments will help shed light on the origins of our
planet. Scientists originally described the satelite as the size of a
washing machine, then amended that to a small fridge – given their
leaning towards white goods and the fact that this is a comet, are we
to take it that the financially challenged electrical store has been
funding this mission?
It
takes 38 minutes to beam live pictures from the surface of this
'duck-shaped' lump of ice to Earth, which is about the average
waiting time for most call centre helpdesk responses.
I
couldn't help noticing that the official press releases document the
distance from Earth as 6.4 billion kilometres, which would indicate
that the British contribution to the European Space Agency team may
have been minimal – we would have certainly managed to break this
into the standard British measurements in terms of football pitches
or double-decker buses.
Considering
that a vast number of the occupants of this planet would view a mile
walk to the shops as a mile too far, I can't help feeling that there
will be a significant proportion of the country that will be feeling
totally underwhelmed by the magnitude of the achievement.
Scientifically
I hope that there will be some good to come from this mission, in the
same way that many technical breakthroughs resulted from what was
learned from the moon landings. Personally, I am not that fussed to
learn how this planet was formed, I wasn't here at the time of Big
Bang, it wasn't my fault, there isn't much that I can do about it now
and I just hope that I am not here for any repeat performance.
Even
allowing for the destruction of the Virgin ship few would argue
against the probability that there will be a space tourism industry
within the next 10 years. I may have spent the odd hour or two gazing
at the night sky, not really knowing what I am looking for, other
than inspiration, but I certainly won't be one of those willing to
fork out in excess of £100,000 to reserve a seat on one of the first
available space flights (even if I did have that kind of money).
When
you consider it was only 66 years between man's first powered flight
and putting a man on the moon, the pace of progress is incredible.
The fact that the computing power of an average mobile phone is
considerably more advanced than that used to get 2 men to the moon
and back seems ridiculous even when you take into consideration that
the equipment available in 1969 was cutting edge.
What
can the pioneer space tourist expect for their bucks apart from a
shed load of air miles? Probably not a lot in the early stages. You
may be travelling at a phenomenal speed but given that there is not a
lot going on around you would you have any sensation of that speed?
Coffee tastes pretty disgusting at 40,000 feet, what will it taste
like at the boundary of outer space? I suspect that the buffet
trolley may be a trifle understocked and the leg room might be a bit
cramped even in business class. The freebie magazine will still be
extolling the virtues of exotic places that Virgin would recommend –
I have never been sure whether these selections are made because they
are secluded luxury destinations or simply because bookings are down
in that region. Would their be any need for a safety demonstration?
Would assuming the brace position protect me when faced with the
inevitability of frying upon re-entry into the Earth's orbit. I would
challenge even the most ardent film buff to sit through the entire
programme of in-flight entertainment. Personally, I would look
forward to seeing how long the cabin crew could maintain their
'perma-tan' and fixed all-purpose smile.
Never
fear, I am sure that the good folk at Virgin will have dreamt up some
devilishly clever scheme to prize even more money from their
passenger's wallets, probably through the sale of their own brand
oxygen or enriched oxygen. My only hope is that Ryanair don't try to
muscle in on the act otherwise I can see them ripping out the seats
on the basis that passengers will be weightless for most of the
journey - though I assume the 10 kilogram weight limit would still
apply for your hand luggage. Mind you, were the moon ever to become
a tourist destination then you could guarantee that Ryanair would
find the most remote location on the far side to land.
My
great fear would be that the journey into space may be so
overwhelming that I would not want to come back. All that time to
contemplate the meaning of life and the universe, the realisation of
just how small a part we all play within the grand scheme of the
cosmos, then to return to my mundane 9 to 5 existence, perhaps I will
give space travel a miss, or I might just put myself down for a one
way ticket to another galaxy.
