A curious twist in a debate that has been raging now for almost half a century. A teaser, if you will, for an ambitious dream that is being driven faster and faster by huge commercial interests. Hope, even.īut Nasa’s clever science experiment is just the tip of an expansionary iceberg. Quite difficult to witness the jubilation behind the masks at Nasa’s mission control without feeling a glimmer of vicarious joy. And when the Perseverance Rover finally touches down on the surface of Mars: that same exhilaration. And here I am again on the edge of another sofa, in the lingering uncertainty of the time of COVID-19, waiting for signs of arrival from another re-entry blackout on another barren rock, devoid of breathable atmosphere, 200 million miles away.
Spaceship race full#
It was a full six minutes before the camera finally came into focus on the command module’s parachutes – safely deployed above the Pacific Ocean. We held our breath with the rest of the world as the expected four minutes stretched to five and hope began to fade. We endured the endless blackout as the returning astronauts plunged perilously back to Earth. We watched in horror as CO₂ levels rose in the Lunar Module.
Spaceship race tv#
“Just not very believable.”īut we kids were glued to our black-and-white TV sets the entire week of the original mission. “What did you think?” I asked as we came out of the cinema. I remember later going to see Apollo 13 (the film) with a friend who wasn’t born when the mission itself took place. We’d witnessed the near disaster of Apollo 13 – immortalised in a 1995 Hollywood film – when Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) and two rookie astronauts narrowly escaped with their lives by using the Lunar Module as an emergency life raft. My brothers and I had watched the monochrome triumph of the Apollo 11 landing avidly in 1969. It must have been around the time that Caspar Weinberger was trying to persuade President Nixon not to cancel the Apollo space programme. Watching it reminded me that I once led a high school debate defending the motion: this house believes that humanity should reach for the stars. As lockdown projects go, Nasa’s landing of the Perseverance rover on the surface of the red planet earlier this year was a hell of a blast. But that doesn’t seem to worry a new generation of space entrepreneurs intent on colonising the “final frontier” as fast as possible.ĭon’t get me wrong. Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids, laments the Rocket Man in Elton John’s timeless classic.
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