Hi all,
Please excuse the slightly tenuous PSCI-COM link here... As you may be
aware, the UK does not currently fund human spaceflight activities on
the basis of insufficient direct return for investment - unfortunately
such calculations appear not to take into account the "harder to
calculate" downstream benefits of a generation inspired by science,
technology, exploration etc. as well as other less tangible benefits
[personal opinion!]
Well... the UK has a chance to redeem itself this year when it decides
whether to support the European Space Agency (ESA) "Aurora" programme,
which has the end goal of putting a European on Mars in 20 or 30 years
time.
There is a PPARC "Town Meeting" to discuss these issues (not just the
scientific, but the industrial, social and cultural implications of the
programme) in early February. Given that this is a long term programme,
and given that young people rarely have a voice in these decisions,
ahead of this meeting I am trying to gather the "youth" [loosely defined
here as 18-35] opinion on the issue via an online survey and a
discussion / debate this weekend in London.
If you are interested in this issue in any way and have a spare 5
minutes, I would be extremely grateful if you would consider completing
the survey and forwarding this email to relevant colleagues / students /
teachers etc. (Note - even if you don't fall into the age range, feel
free to complete the survey - we will extract a variety of statistics
later)
Although the survey has been distributed to many scientists, there is a
great need to capture the opinions of those who would like to see such a
programme NOT just for the science.
The full details of the survey and meeting are copied below, or can be
found on the website:
http://www.lunartech.org/aurora/
Best regards,
Mark
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Mark S. Bentley (Researcher, Space Sciences Research Group)
Planetary & Space Sciences Research Institute (pssri.open.ac.uk)
Students for the Exploration & Development of Space (www.uk.seds.org)
Email: [log in to unmask] | Tel: +44 7974 754054 | Fax: +44 7092 043051
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Hi there,
Firstly, many apologies for cross-posting and for the second mass email
in a short period of time - I assure you this will be the last ;-) Many
thanks to all those who responded regarding the possibility of a survey
and meeting to gather 'youth' opinion on the UK's entry into the Aurora
programme.
After some debate, the following way forward has been identified:
1. An online survey will be run from NOW until next weekend (17/18 Jan)
2. A meeting will be held next weekend (17/18 Jan) to summarise, discuss
and debate the conclusions of this survey and to produce a two page
document that will be submitted to PPARC on Monday 19th Jan.
Full details of the survey and background documentation on Aurora can be
found at:
http://www.lunartech.org/aurora/
The meeting is provisionally timetabled to take place at the Imperial
College / Science Museum library at 2pm on Saturday 17th - at the end of
the questionnaire you will be asked if you can attend - further details
can be found on the web site listed.
The aim of this iteration of the questionnaire is to obtain the opinions
of those in the space community and those who will / would like to be
involved in the future - a second survey will poll the general public.
In order for this to work, we need as many people as possible to
complete this - there are only 12 questions to answer and it should take
no more than 5 or 6 minutes of your time!
Please forward this email to anyone appropriate - particularly those
outside of the more "typical" areas, including doctors, biologists,
teachers etc. who work or are interested in working in the space
community. Note that we need your contact details to provide validity
for the survey when we formulate a response to PPARC and BNSC, and to
potentially contact you for updates or further clarification. We won't
pass on these details to any other parties!
Any questions, please drop us a line!
Regards,
Mark / Adam
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Mark S. Bentley (Researcher, Space Sciences Research Group)
Planetary & Space Sciences Research Institute (pssri.open.ac.uk)
Students for the Exploration & Development of Space (www.uk.seds.org)
Email: [log in to unmask] | Tel: +44 7974 754054 | Fax: +44 7092 043051
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Adam M Baker (Space Engineer)
Surrey Satellite Technology / AspireSpace / UKSEDS
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel. +44 7779 126789 | Fax +44 1483 689503
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
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