On Monday the British think tank Demos issued a press release about a new poll it conducted with polling firm MORI regarding British public perceptions on some space policy issues. The good news is that Britons, particularly younger ones, which the poll dubs the “Beagle generation”, have a strong interest in space: 55% believe the UK should be involved in manned spaceflight—something it is not today—and 65 percent were in favor of robotic exploration. Despite the failure of Beagle 2 two-thirds of those polled think Britain should try again.
The bad news, at least for Americans, is that the British public has a skeptical view of US space policy. According to the poll, 68% thought that the US is more interested in the military potential of space versus human exploration of Mars; 66% thought space should remain “a neutral zone”, although the press release doesn’t define the term. (Does neutral mean no weapons, or no military spacceraft of any kind?)
The poll is linked to a new book that Demos has published, called “Masters of the Universe: Science, politics and the new space race”. I haven’t read the book yet, but based on the essay in Monday’s issue of the Guardian by one of the book’s authors, James Wilsdon, I will not be impressed. In the article he claims that the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 outlaws weapons in space (it only prohibits WMDs), that China plans to send an astronaut to the Moon by 2010 (wrong), and that the new space initiative will accelerate a claimed convergence of NASA and the Defense Department (unsupported). I’m told Demos is considered a fairly liberal organization; it appears that the the authors of this study may have been a little too liberal with the facts.
Actually, the British public is correct in thinking that the US is more interested in the miltiary potential of space than the exploration of Mars, human or otherwise. All you have to do is add up the numbers. I don’t have handy access to numbers on how much money is being spent on military space, but it is at least equal to the entire NASA budget.
It’s encouraging news that the UK sentiment toward space is changing.
UK space policy and the prevailing attitude behind it has always seemed to me a perfect example of how scientists behave when they’re willfully and rigorously shortsighted. There was no place for people like me (people interested in new launch concepts and other enabling technological advances) – that’s why I left the UK. Perhaps these new figures might jolt BNSC (British National Space Center) into some useful reform.
Better still, perhaps it will jolt the UK government into replacing BNSC with something more like a real space agency. Or perhaps Mary Poppins was right: “You can have anything you want if you hold your breath…” – I’m not holding mine.