SPACE AGE

Votes of the associates on topical issues

The International Space Station (August 2003)

Question e-mailed out on 1 August 2003:

Suppose that a near-future UK government were to adopt a new policy of funding a major space programme, perhaps alone, perhaps (and more probably) as part of some sort of international collaboration. Which programme would you recommend to them? --

1. Send astronauts to the ISS by rejoining the ESA manned spaceflight programme.
2. Embark on an indigenous British spaceplane programme (both contenders in the field offer manned spaceflight capability).
3. Operate a sustained series of robotic probes to Mars, the asteroids or the Moon (Beagle 2, the UK's first Mars probe, is currently on its way to the red planet).
4. None of the above (please explain why).

Results at 7 September 2003:

Total of associates asked by e-mail sent out on 1 August 2003 (plus myself) = 56.

Abstentions (i.e. no reply, for whatever reason) = 46.

Responses received by 7 September 2003 (including my own) = 10, divided as follows:

Option 1 (join ISS): 2 votes = 20% of those who replied.

Option 2 (indigenous U.K. spaceplane): 5.5 votes = 55% of those who replied.

Option 3 (Beagle 3 and successors): 1.5 votes = 15% of those who replied.

Option 4 (awkward squad): 1 vote = 10% of those who replied.

Of the 10 responses received, 7 were from the U.K., one from a British Commonwealth country, and one each from Poland and the U.S.A.

Will Marshall (U.K.) and Zenon Kulpa (Poland) both objected to being asked to choose from among several options, and expressed a preference for choosing two or three of them at once. But while Zenon's goal is an independent national capability in all major fields of space technology, Will has the view that U.K. participation in the European Space Agency was key. Zenon was therefore allowed to split his vote equally between options 2 and 3.

Jim Trounson (U.S.A.), who voted against all the definite options put forward, wrote: "Computer simulation of launch concepts will determine which concepts should be built. Any immediate construction efforts will actually slow progress, diverting resources and undermining credibilty. None of the known concepts are good enough. None of the X-Prize contenders will provide any benefit to human space travel. PC-based clusters are just now becoming widespread and practical. Near optimal concepts will take about 10 more years. Be patent. In many technical ventures the longer you wait the sooner you get there."

Tom Harris (Canada) also advocated that we "study and publicize the social science and humanities impact of the human expansion into space. No space agency has done this so far and, without fully fleshed out and well marketed arguments in this field, I feel we are likely to continue the current "go slow" approach to space exploration and colonization."

My own vote (Stephen Ashworth, U.K.) goes squarely to option 2, the spaceplane plan. Like Michael Martin-Smith (U.K.), I agree that this option, "if it can be done at reasonable cost it enables or enhances all the other options". In fact I would go further than that. It seems to me that the economically self-sustaining reusable Earth-to-orbit spaceplane is a key enabling technology, one which is technically overdue (despite Jim's opinion above), which a non-superpower country can easily afford and which yet should enable a revolution in access to low Earth orbit. Since we already have two companies in this country with advanced designs for such a vehicle (David Ashford's Bristol Spaceplanes, and Alan Bond's Reaction Engines), it should be clear that a small amount of support provided to either or both of them would have an effect far in excess of its financial input.

Conclusions:

1. With a response of 18%, it is clear that associates in general are unaccustomed to being polled on their opinions of spaceflight, or are too busy to pay attention, or have perhaps taken the whole of August off.
2. Among those who did take the trouble to respond, opinion about how Britain as a nation should proceed in space technology seems to favour the spaceplane option. This does seem very much the logical way ahead. But a larger sample will be necessary before we can extrapolate this to space supporters generally, either in the U.K. or internationally.