Major Tim enters the space race for Britain
Major Tim Peake today blasts off for the International Space Station on a mission that could lead to Britons landing on the Moon and Mars. “This isn’t a one-off,” Major Peake, 43, said before his lift-off from Kazakhstan. “We have a serious project... to land on the Moon, and that is part of an exploration of the solar system that will eventually take us to Mars.” Major Peake, a Sandhurst graduate from Chichester, joined the project after answering an internet advert entitled “Do you want to become an astronaut?”
BRITAIN officially enters the space race today as Major Tim Peake blasts off for the International Space Station (ISS), a journey that could eventually see Britons on the Moon – and Mars.
The 43-year-old astronaut was due to lift off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11.03am GMT.
He said yesterday: “This isn’t a oneoff. We have a serious project in the European Space Station to land on the Moon, and that is part of an exploration of the solar system that will eventually take us to Mars.”
The former test pilot, from Chichester, West Sussex has spent six years training for the six-month mission, after beating 8,000 applicants.
His trip could be vital to the understanding of life on Earth, and beyond. Major Peake will run 23 experiments on himself to assess the impact of space flight on the body, trials which are crucial to any manned mission to Mars.
He is the second engineer and most junior member of the crew; the others are Nasa engineer Tim Kopra and Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: “It’s a big moment to see a British astronaut. I think the whole country will be getting behind him.”
Dr Daniel Brown, a space expert at Nottingham Trent University, said the launch was a “milestone” for the UK’s presence in space exploration.
The journey to the ISS is not without risk: since the US scrapped its space shuttle programme in 2011, all astronauts have to ride on Russia’s Soyuz craft – a vehicle virtually unchanged since 1967.
It has performed well over the past five decades but in the last year Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has been hit by scandals and rocket failures. On Malenchenko’s last ISS mission, his Soyuz module re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at the wrong angle, missing the landing site by 300 miles.
Investigations into the failures have blamed shoddy workmanship and cheap parts, while an audit at Roscosmos found a £1.2 billion “hole” in accounts. Deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin cited a “moral decline of space industry managers”.
The agency’s preparations for a safe launch saw a Russian orthodox priest sprinkle holy water on the rocket yesterday, while saying prayers at Launch Pad 1 from where Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, blasted off in 1961.
But Major Peake said his biggest concern was a launch delay caused by a fault or bad weather.
The former serving Army officer said his personal mission goal was simply “seeing that fantastic view of the planet Earth from space”.
‘This isn’t a one-off but part of an exploration of the solar system that will eventually take us to Mars’