We didn't need to have the Moon. We had the world. All the Yanks had was a desolate rock. The British were the ones who had it going for them.
And the Yankee Doodles have nothing to be proud of. They collaborated with the Nazis to go to the Moon, who taught them everything they needed to know about building the technology needed to go to the Moon. It wasn't American technology and ingenuity which sent Neil and Buzz to the Moon. It was Nazi technology and ingenuity. It was probably the most shameful moment in American history after the War of Independence.
Britain has got more chance of putting men on the Moon than Canada has. Canada has sent nothing to space, as far as I'm aware, other than a Lego man. Britain even sent a spaceship to Mars, and only the Yanks and Russkies are the only other people to do that. If Canada tried that, the thing would fall apart on the launchpad. And the Moon is EASY in comparison to going to Mars.
And here's another inconvenient truth I noticed you didn't mention - Britain was just the third country to send hardware into space, after the USSR and the USA. Britain even launched a satellie - Ariel 1 - in 1962. In the 1970s, the British launched the Prospero satellite - and did so on a BRITISH rocket, the Black Arrow. In fact, in the early days, Britain was even considered as being in the space race with the USSR and USA.
Britain's Black Arrow rocket made four launches between 1969 and 1971, launching the British satellite Prospero
Not only that, but the British space industray is very much up and coming. Britain is already a big manufacturer of space satellites - Astrium - but now its space industry is probably the fastest-growing in the Western world.
The future for Britain's space industry seems much brighter than America's.
Britain's booming space industry looks to Mars and beyond
Prototype rovers developed by Astrium in Stevenage are just part of a hi-tech sector targeting rapid growth
Angela Monaghan
The Observer,
Sunday 17 November 2013
Overcoming obstacles … Dr Ralph Cordey with a rover prototype at Astrium in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Photograph: Graham Turner
Millions of miles above Earth, freezing temperatures, ferocious dust storms and a massive dose of radiation await robots charged with finding signs of life on Mars.
And those are just the known risks. If and when the ExoMars rover mission, led by the European Space Agency (ESA) and planned for launch in 2018, successfully lands on the red planet, it will battle a hugely hostile environment and unknown obstacles as it attempts to drill down into the surface.
Back on Earth, on the outskirts of Stevenage, a 1950s block is the unlikely backdrop for crucial research into this high-risk mission. Here, scientists are carrying out some of the most complex and advanced work in Britain.
It is home to Astrium, the space division of European aerospace group EADS, and a £1bn business in the UK. The company has created a "Mars Yard" at Stevenage, where rover prototypes tackle some of the potential obstacles the real thing can expect to meet. The attempt at recreating some of the conditions on Mars involves large and small rocks scattered on imported sand designed to mimic as closely as possible the properties of Martian sand.
"The surface of Mars is a horrible place. It's bombarded by the solar wind from the sun. It's not like the Earth – the Earth has a wonderful magnetosphere, which protects us from gunk out in the solar system," says Dr Ralph Cordey, head of business development for science and exploration at Astrium.
The rover will have to fend for itself on Mars. It will need to be smart enough to map its course, and understand which obstacles it can overcome and which it cannot.
American rovers have already landed on Mars, but this programme is different, according to Cordey. "We want to do more than just land somewhere and have a look around," he says. "If we can drill down, we may find the remains of things which perhaps were living there several billion years ago, when conditions were much more benign."
As with all such missions, there is no guarantee of success, and the launch date has already been delayed several times. Yet it signals intent from ESA, Europe's "gateway to space", which has 20 member states, including Britain. It is an opportunity to prove that Europe can successfully send a rover to Mars.
Britain's own ambitions in space are also accelerating. The industry is worth about £9bn annually to the UK economy, and employs almost 30,000 people. The target, outlined by trade body UKspace, is to increase that to £19bn by 2020 and £40bn by 2030, potentially creating more than 100,000 skilled jobs over that period.
It would take Britain's share of the global space market from 6.5% to 10% by 2030, building on work already being done in places like Stevenage. The UK currently exports about £2bn of space goods and services every year, with British-manufactured satellites sold around the world – this year to markets in Russia, South America and Canada, among others. But that could and should rise to £25bn, according to an updated space growth action plan, published last week.
In the plan, industry calls on the government to play a bigger role in delivering this long-term vision, by making the UK the best place for entrepreneurs and skilled engineers to grow and create space businesses, and to attract inward investment.
Andy Green, president of UKspace and former Logica chief executive, argues that while "the UK punches above its weight in the global space business", greater policy support is needed.
The government appears to be taking more notice than in the past of an industry that has been growing at an average annual rate of 7.5% since 2008-09, despite the financial crisis. It has created a UK Space Agency, falling under the umbrella of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and is working with industry through the Space Leadership Council.
David Willetts, universities and science minister, increased Britain's budgetary contribution to the ESA last year, making the UK the fourth-biggest partner. "Where things are affordable and deliverable we will do our best to do them," he says, adding that the government will respond to the industry's calls in the new year.
"This is something that is rising up the agenda. When we talk about rebalancing the economy and not being dependent on financial services, we mean we've got to back the hi-tech industries of the future. Space is a classic example of that.
"My test for an industry that's a serious hi-tech growth industry is that they should be growing more rapidly than the Chinese economy. The space industry just about passes that test."
Yet the UK has never been considered a space heavyweight in the same league as the US, China, Russia, France and, increasingly, India. The latter launched a rocket bound for Mars this month.
"Much of the world would see the UK as a consumer and not a producer in the space industry," says Tom Captain, global head of aerospace and defence at Deloitte, who is based in the US.
David Parker, chief executive of the UK Space Agency, acknowledges the problem: "The UK was the third country to have space hardware in orbit in 1962, and has a 50-year history of outstanding achievements in space activities, but if you asked 99% of people in the street they'd be entirely unaware of it."
Largely that is because Britain is virtually absent from the more high-profile business of launching rockets and people into space. But the hopes of industry and the government rest on the ever-expanding list of space technology applications that inform everyday life. Opportunities for growth lie not only in telecoms satellites but in Earth observation, GPS, planetary exploration, weather forecasting, maritime intelligence, piracy monitoring, space tourism, precision agriculture, broadband and so on.
Britain's booming space industry looks to Mars and beyond | Science | The Observer