My computer has been malfunctioning for the past two weeks: hence a dearth of comments on the several dire problems facing the world
The Space flight.
There has been a rather pathetic attempt by the BBC to generate excitement about this project. I know it is very clever but it was successfully done fifty years ago, when technology was much less advanced, and flights to and from the International Space Station have become routine since. So why be thrilled with this one, even if it is a little bit further and we get new pictures of the other side of the Moon?
There’s been talk of looking for water on the Moon. In the past ten days I’ve received a circular from Water Aid, for which I used to be an accredited speaker. They are proud that 90% of the World’s population now have access to safe clean water. But 10% still don’t and even more don’t have the facilities to defecate in private and with dignity, with the waste hygienically disposed of. It would be much more sensible to divert resources to helping them.
The BBC
I find it embarrassing, and irritating, that the BBC feels it necessary to waste its resources and our time by telling us how wonderful and varied it is. That should be a given. The signs are that the government is now prepared to give it a permanent Charter. Good. So it won’t have to fight for its existence every ten years. But what the government gives with one hand it takes away with the other: the BBC’s funding is continuing to be reviewed every ten years.
The financing of the World Service should be taken away from the Foreign Office and returned to the BBC, a generous allocation for the entire Corporation should be made and at the very least with guaranteed increases in line with inflation, the “fee” should be based on the use of the internet (as I believe is the case in France) and not on the possession of a TV set.
Regulation of the other broadcasters (especially GB News) should be beefed up.
The War against Iran (and Gaza)
I am ashamed that 99% of the media reportage of the US war against Iran concerns the effect on trade and the cost of living. There’s hardly any mention of the innocent Irani children, women and men being terrified, maimed, or killed. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury have their priorities right: our politicians and media should follow.
It is clear that President Trump is delusional and probably technically deranged yet the Americans have elected and re-elected him as their leader. There is no room of we British to feel superior or complacent: our system placed the equally delusional Johnson and then the incompetent Truss in charge. But in our system there was a “facility” that when a leader became way too incompetent for the nation’s good “men in grey suites “ would appear to inform her/him that it was time to go. This worked for Mrs Thatcher, though much too late The most obvious equivalent n in the US are the supreme court Judges, but they are mostly creatures of Trump and have nothing to lose by his continuance in office. Maybe some of the Republican leaders will done their grey suits and persuade Trump to go in order to try to avoid their parties’ decimation in November. But if Trump goes the replacement is Vance, whose views are equally evil, though he is probably more sane.
Prayer on the Papal/Cantaur lines seems to only solution.
Global Heating
Our right wing, including Mrs Badenock and the official Conservative Party, cannot resist a populist call to authorise more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea, regardless of the fact that doing so would do little if anything at all to reduce their prices. But it would, of course, add a little to the possibility of increasing the frying of the planet and future generations, the ones they’re so (mistakenly) anxious not to burden with debt. If we really want to behave responsibly with regard to fossil fuels we should use the crisis impose a 50mph speed limit (as we had in the 1970s crisis.) But that might upset the motorist lobby and infuriate the oil companies and their client press so Labour lacks the courage.
Labour lacks any courage at all, no matter the issue. If it wasn't so serious one might just laugh.
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ReplyDeleteSo why be thrilled with this one
Indeed; we shouldn’t be thrilled, we should just be ashamed that it took this long.
the “fee” should be based on the use of the internet (as I believe is the case in France) and not on the possession of a TV set
You do realise that no Parliament can bind its successors, right? And this madness, amounting to an ‘internet tax’, would basically guarantee that the next Conservative government (or even Reform government, if that happens first) would either force the BBC to become self-funding or abolish it entirely?
there was a “facility” that when a leader became way too incompetent for the nation’s good “men in grey suites “ would appear to inform her/him that it was time to go
The ‘men in grey suits’ worked for the Conservative Party, didn’t they? And when they appeared it was to tell a Conservative Prime Minister that they were in danger of losing the next election. I didn’t realise that you were so keen on stopping Labour getting into power.
(That Labour has no men in grey suits can be seen by the way that they are incapable of replacing their deadweight leaders, be they clinically paranoid like Wilson, friends of terrorists like Corbyn, or heading for electoral disaster like Starmer).
cannot resist a populist call to authorise more drilling
I think you are having trouble distinguishing between ‘populist’ and ‘popular’ there.
should use the crisis impose a 50mph speed limit
I like that idea — because not only it would guarantee that Labour loses the next election, it would Allie’s reopening of the conversation of raising the speed limit on motorways to ninety or perhaps a hundred.
Artemis isn’t a rerun of Apollo; it’s the first attempt to build a sustained human presence beyond Earth. Apollo proved we could reach the Moon, but it never created the infrastructure for long‑term exploration. Artemis aims to establish a lunar base, reusable deep‑space transport, and the foundations for missions to Mars — it’s like the difference between the Wright brothers and the creation of global aviation.
ReplyDeleteSpace exploration has also consistently produced technologies that directly improve life on Earth. Water purification systems used in disaster zones, satellite monitoring of droughts and disease, advanced medical imaging, and efficient solar panels all originated from space‑driven innovation. Cutting programmes like Artemis would slow the very pipeline of breakthroughs that help solve humanitarian problems.
The idea that Artemis diverts money from urgent needs is a false choice. NASA’s budget is less than half a percent of US federal spending, and Artemis is only a fraction of that. Meanwhile, global military spending, food waste, and tax evasion dwarf the cost of the entire programme. If the goal is to help the 10% without clean water, redirecting even a sliver of those budgets would solve the issue many times over. Space exploration is not the obstacle.
The space programme continues to inspire. Apollo motivated a generation of scientists and engineers whose work now underpins climate research, renewable energy, and global health. Artemis sparks that same curiosity and ambition in today’s young people. A society that stops exploring stops innovating. It is not a distraction from Earth’s problems but a catalyst for solving them — technologically, economically, and culturally.
Thanks for this reasoned account of the advantages space flight has brought us. I had thought they were just non-stick frying pans (and now even these , we find, can do us harm.) I end to agree that we can afford both (see earlier post) but regret that voyaging into the unknown is more attractive than helping the fellow humans we already know about.
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