Since Apollo 11 it has been one giant leap backwards for man
NASA plans to host £40m tourist trips to space from next year
WHILE we’re doing big anniversaries let me point out the next one marks the most mind-blowing human event since Eve helped herself to a mouthful of Golden Delicious.
As the grainy pictures of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon were beamed back to our black-and-white tellies 50 years ago next month, we were left dumbstruck at mankind’s genius and the infinite possibilities that lay ahead for our species.
In 1969, we were infatuated with predicting the future. The general consensus being that by today, Earth would not be made up of small countries but zones containing people of all colours wearing the same space costumes, taking the same food pills and flying around with jetpacks.
We’d have as much in common with Earthlings on the other side of the globe, whom we spoke to on giant screens, as we would people living in the pod next door.
The human race would be united, looking outwards to the wider universe, realising we had one planet and our loyalties lay with each other.
But we couldn’t have been more wrong if we’d predicted Elvis would always stay slim.
In ’69, US President Nixon told the returning astronauts “the world has never been closer together” but half-a-century on, as the current one shows, we’ve rarely been further apart. Under Donald Trump, rather than look outwards we’ve never looked more inwards. It’s each other we’re told to hate and be separated from.
The nation that used its money and technological genius to tear down the barriers of space for the benefit of mankind now uses it to build a concrete wall to keep out Mexicans and a legal one to keep out Muslims.
Its isolationist leader is more concerned with having trade wars with other powers, breaking up NATO and the UN, bullying the UK into a deal that would hand over our most precious of assets to his hawkish chums, and scaremongering over nuclear attacks than seeking harmonious solutions. The world is burning and its most powerful man derides those pointing it out as hippies and commies who want to hit capitalist profits.
In Britain, as epitomised by Nigel Farage’s resurgence, we’re hurtling back to the 1960s when our nation was separated from Europe, Enoch Powell claimed immigration would bring rivers of blood, and landlords hung signs in windows saying “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish”.
In Ann Widdecombe we’ve just elected someone who believes science can cure homosexuality.
The Tory leadership contest is a race to promote the most insular, backwards-looking vision of Britain. And its ancient party membership is set to elect Boris Johnson who wants to leave the EU with a hard deal, renege on debts, slash workplace protection, decimate foreign aid and stop the inflow of vital immigrant workers, while Brits get back old blue passports that allow them to live in timeshares abroad.
An attitude summed up by the most comical politician I’ve seen since Apollo 11 took off, ERG vice chair Mark Francois, who famously tore up a letter from an “arrogant Teutonic” businessman on live TV and announced: “My father was a D-Day veteran. He never submitted to bullying by any German and neither will his son”.
Who’d have imagined half a century on from Neil Armstrong walking on the moon that our only connection with that colossal achievement would be that man has become as attractive as a fart trapped in a space suit.
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The USA tore down the barriers of space – now it builds walls
NASA is to offer tourists trips to space, with amazing views guaranteed, for a hefty £40million return.
From next year, “private” astronauts can spend up to a month in the International Space Station at a cost of £27,500 a night, the US space agency announced yesterday.
They will travel there on craft operated by SpaceX – run by entrepreneur Elon Musk – and aircraft giant Boeing, which will levy a fare estimated to be around £40million. Would-be travellers will have to pass strict medical tests and undergo space training.
NASA will run two missions a year, aimed at companies which will use the floating lab for research, innovation and commercial projects such as filming. They will cash in through advertising and marketing.
This is NASA’s first major money-spinning project. Chief financial officer Jeff DeWit said tickets would cost around FLIGHTS Inventor Elon Musk £40million but quipped they “won’t come with any Hilton or Marriott points”. He added: “NASA is opening the ISS to commercial opportunities as we’ve never done before. We’re hearing a lot of excitement in the commercial sector for this.” The money generated by the tourist trips will help to fund NASA’s bid to be the first to put a woman on the moon by 2024.