Should Britain fund it's own Astronauts?

[powell11]

Reasons to back your opinions please :)

[boxtops]

who funds British astronauts at the moment, then, the Brits who are on the space station crew or working with the Russians on the space programme?

[EDDIE51]

Nice idea but way too expensive.

[Old_Geezer]

Bad time to ask what with the economic situation as it presently is, but yes. I'd like to be able to take a pride in what my country is contributing to the exploration of space, instead of having to rely on other nations to do it for us. And that includes astronauts on missions we had devised.

In terms of GDP I'd expect it not to be excessively costly, but of course if other nations wished to help out, so much the better.

Tht trouble is finding a mission that requires a human presence. No one seems to think a moon base is worthwhile; and they seem to have problems working out how to get folks to Mars and back safely. It may be unmanned stuff for quite a while now. Sadly, maybe throughout the rest on my life anyway.

[powell11]

Same Old_Geezer, I want to be an Astronaut when I grow up, but I'm British which makes it even harder. Even though we have this money issue, the UK Space Agency has actually grew. I just hope we have astronauts by the time I'm old enough(first year at college)

[wildwood]

It is all a big waste of money. We should be concentrating more on fixing the inequalities in the present Society, rather than endeavor to try and put a few privileged people on another planet before this one goes belly up.

The technology extracted from space exploration could have been done without spending billions on fruitless expeditions.

[d9f1c7]

"The technology extracted from space exploration could have been done without spending billions on fruitless expeditions. "

err, How?