Posted June 5, 2009 12:12 PM
By David Todd
ESA Selects British Astronaut - But is it a Cunning Plan to get UK Funding?
The European Space Agency (ESA) has named a 37-year-old ex-British Army Apache helicopter gunship pilot as one of its six new recruits to its astronaut training programme. Major Timothy Peake now works for Augusta Wesltand after serving in the Army Air Corps as a test pilot. His appointment was announced after a selection competition. Major Peake was one of six astronauts selected. The others were Italian Samantha Cristoforetti, German Alexander Gerst, Dane Andreas Mogensen, Italian Luca Parmitano and Frenchman Thomas Pesquet.
A British citizen has flown to orbit before. Helen Sharman won a commercial competition to fly as a scientific astronaut on board a Soyuz flight to Mir in 1991. Some NASA astronauts have held joint US-UK citizenship due to parentage or have been British-born but been naturalised as U.S. citizens.
The news from ESA has surprised many and is likely to result in criticism within ESA countries that already fund its manned programme as the United Kingdom has, to date, declined to take part.
While the United Kingdom does fund several ESA programmes, it has always desisted from taking part in human spaceflight, favouring unmanned robotic programmes instead. However, there were signs that the current Labour administration had a rethink and was considering joining NASA’s Project Constellation in return for getting a British astronaut on the Moon. Analysts are speculating that because ESA was fearful of losing Britain’s commitment to their own manned programme, that this is ESA’s way of retaining this.
Either way, both ESA and NASA may be whistling in the wind. The UK government has, for the time being, spent all its money shoring up the banking sector!
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