Space shouldn’t be our final frontier!
I WAS just a child when Neil Armstrong made that giant leap and became the first human to set foot on another world, albeit only our own satellite, the Moon. This triggered my fascination with space, even though living in a light-polluted city centre makes it difficult to study the night sky. I’ve enjoyed watching Star Trek and Dr Who, but these TV shows are pure fantasy. Visits to our world by an advanced alien civilisation are unlikely. The reason for this is down to the brilliant conclusion of H. G. Wells’ sci-fi novel The War Of The Worlds. How does the invasion of Earth by creatures from Mars end? Do the invaders wipe us out and take over or are they defeated by Man? No, they are killed off by simple bacteria to which they lack immunity. It’s not just science fiction. The ancient civilisations of South America were overcome not because the invading Conquistadors had superior weapons, but because they brought with them smallpox and typhoid. There have been suggestions that colonising the planets is the ultimate aim of the edge-of-space trips by Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson. I hope not because even if it were possible to live on other worlds, how long would it be before we started to mess them up, just as we’ve damaged our own planet? Even the once pristine Antarctic is littered with waste left by Man. Prince William is right — forget about space travel and concentrate on putting our own house in order.
PETE ATKIN, Sheffield. I CAN’T allow the magnificent success of the latest Blue Origin space mission to be described as a ‘needless jolly’ (Letters). William Shatner’s emotional return encapsulated the overwhelming awe experienced by any human travelling bravely and dangerously into the unknown. Any carbon footprint is far outweighed by our urgent need to explore beyond the limits of our own blue planet.