Personally I'm not giving up hope until the 2nd of february when it goes into its final mode, but the project has done a lot to boost the profile of space science, and science in general here in the UK, which given its budget must be considered a success in its own right. But where next?
Personally, I'd like to see a fair proportion of lottery money go into publically visible space science. I believe that a great deal of our species success relies on what I can only describe as a genetic need to explore, and part of what makes Britain great is our ability to innovate. Brought together these two traits form a tremendous strength - we have proven that as a nation we have the aptitude, the interest, and there is a resource to give us the budget - its just a question of what we do with it.
Whilst it is important that we continue to play a part in international missions, I see no reason why we can't try to go it alone on a mission of our own. Whilst I'm no expert, we almost seem to have the technology to get to the edge of space, this perhaps coupled with a mass efficient propulsion system, and the amazingly compact technology developed as part of the beagle 2 project might be able to allow us to do space research on the cheap, and if even all it does is provide the children of today with the interest to do science based courses, then that in my book is justification enough.
Britain already is in the list of countries that have launched satellites - Black Arrow
Re:Keep the planet tidy - hurl your litter into sp
lilstevey on 2004-01-09T12:55:43
I remember the name but didn't know that it had made a successfull launch. Personally I'm dissapointed that more wasn't made out of the HOTOL project ( And the engines in particular ) - a few more quid thrown that way would have been a better lasting symbol of the millenium than the Dome ( Which is a different story altogether ).
