Rocket man

An interview with space doctor Kevin Fong. If we need someone to save the world from an asteroid hurtling towards us, he'll be the (British) man.

Kevin has been instrumental in coralling the UK's scientists and lobbying government to fund a British astronaut programme. I've talked about this before but Kevin is the man with the plan. Fortunately, it looks like the British government might be taking its head out of the sand on the issue for the first time in half a century.

The education argument is particularly strong. As Kevin says, if you rocked up to government with a cast iron plan that would reverse the decline in science in schools and univeristies, and for a cost of just £100m, they'd normally be falling over themselves to find ways to fund it. Forget silly education schemes and finding ways to make science wacky so that kids might find it interesting. Just send someone into space. Easy.

Kevin Fong has wanted to be an astronaut since he saw a US-Soviet mission on TV in 1975. Now, he tells Alok Jha, there are signs his campaign to put Brits in space could take off

Saturday January 6, 2007
The Guardian

Kevin Fong's earliest memory is of waking up in the middle of the night and sitting in front of a flickering television screen. The pictures he saw were coming live from hundreds of miles above the Earth - an American Apollo module had docked with a Russian Soyuz spacecraft - and, through the grainy black and white images, he could just make out flags floating between the two spacecraft.

It was 1975 and, in a slight thaw in the cold war, the superpowers had collaborated in space for the first time. He might not have understood the significance of the pictures he saw, but the spacemen made a strong impression on the five-year-old. "Hand on heart, that is what drove the entirety of my interest in science, all the way up to doing astrophysics at university," Fong says.

More than 20 years after seeing those floating flags he was floating too, inside a plane used by Nasa to give astronauts a taste of zero gravity. The vomit comet, as the Boeing 707 is affectionately known, flies as if it is a 10,000ft-high rollercoaster ride. After reaching a height of 25,000ft, the pilot throttles to full power for a 20-second, 45-degree climb up to 35,000ft, after which the engines are abruptly switched off and the plane begins to free-fall back to Earth. For the next 20 seconds, gravity inside the cabin seems to disappear.

He has told that story countless times, but even a decade later and sitting on terra firma in a cold office in University College Hospital in London, where he works as an anaesthetist, Fong finds it difficult to come up with the words to describe the sensation the time he felt gravity disappear. "All those dreams you have of flying, and you wake up disappointed that it's not true, suddenly they're real."

Those flights helped convince him he had found his calling. He was determined do the training for real and become an astronaut. There was only one problem: he was British.

The British government doesn't do astronauts - a position crafted in the 1960s with the cancellation of rocket programmes such as Blue Streak and honed by successive governments claiming sending people into space is too expensive. Helen Sharman, technically the only Briton who has been in space, flew as part of the privately funded Juno mission. The remaining three British-born astronauts - Michael Foale, Piers Sellers and Nicholas Patrick - all became American citizens before joining Nasa's astronaut corps and flying in the space shuttle.

But the British resolve could be weakening. Next week, the British National Space Centre, the closest thing the UK has to a space agency, will detail plans for a review of space policy. And only two months into his new job as science minister, Malcolm Wicks hinted this week at a possible reversal in the policy not to fund an astronaut programme.

The steps might not sound like much but, for a community of scientists that has seen little movement in more than 50 years, the events of the last few weeks have had the effect of an earthquake. "This is our best and only chance - if we kill it here, we'll never do it," says Fong.

There are other stars in alignment. The Commons science and technology committee plans a policy review and early indications are that human spaceflight will play a big part in discussions. And last year, a report by independent scientists commissioned by the Royal Astronomical Society concluded there was a good case for sending people into space.

Fong was in his final year at medical school (he already had a degree in astrophysics) when he landed a month placement at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston. He was awestruck. "You walk through the gates there and it's like Disney World for adults. We used to sit around in the evenings around pizza boxes saying, what a tragedy it would be if we walked out of here in a month's time and never came back."

His brief trip to Nasa got him so fired up that, when it was finishing, he called the BNSC to find out what Britain had to offer budding astronauts. "At the time there was nothing in this country," he remembers. "To realise that you genuinely can't do these things even if you're as good as you can be at your field is a bit upsetting. The temptation to shift country is massive." He faced a tough choice: admit defeat or give up his British passport and emigrate to the US.

Never one prone to settle for the most sensible option, Fong decided on a different strategy - to stay at home and think how to get Britain into space. Canvassing scientists, he began the task of building up a case for a new British space programme.

Thus began a one-man mission for the creation of a human spaceflight programme. He ran and advised numerous scientific committees and wrote papers and articles pushing the case for space. He even set up a space medicine course, the first of its kind in the UK, for undergraduate medics at University College London. And most of it happened during snatched moments between gruelling shifts as a trainee hospital doctor.

He found a like mind in Ian Crawford, director of the UCL-Birkbeck Centre for Planetary Science and Astrobiology. Together, they began fleshing out what a UK programme might look like.

Cost had always been cited as a big stumbling block. Launch costs shoot up when people are involved - Nasa's human spaceflight missions suck $6bn every year from the federal budget. Joining the European Space Agency's (Esa) proposed Aurora programme, which includes plans to send people to the moon and Mars, would come with an annual price tag of £150m for Britain.

Fong has an alternative. "The big thing that I've pushed over the years is to get away from the idea that, to get a British space programme with British astronauts, you need to rock up to one agency or another with a couple of briefcases with hundreds of millions of pounds. We need to do something strategic and at lower cost to evaluate the relative costs and benefits."

He says bilateral agreement with a foreign space agency to train and fly two British astronauts over the next 10 years is a better idea. At an estimated cost of £100m, it would cost a fraction of a full Nasa or Esa subscription.

Many of the UK's space scientists already benefit from agreements to share the results from Nasa exploration satellites, for instance, in return for instruments or technical help. Nasa's administrator, Mike Griffin, visited the UK last year and, in meetings with government officials, all but extended an invitation for Britain to join plans to explore the moon and Mars. It was a remarkable gesture, given Nasa rarely asks for help from other countries.

Fong's ideas go beyond basic science. A UK astronaut could become an important role model for children, he argues, helping to reverse the terminal decline in science at schools and universities.

After Yang Lee Wei became China's first astronaut in 2004, Fong was invited to give a lecture on why countries should send people into space at the Beijing School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The audience sat rapt, despite waiting for a line-by-line translation. "You got a sense that there was a feverish desire to embrace science and engineering by these kids because they wanted to be the next Yang Lee Wei. Russia have had that with Yuri Gagarin, America had that in the Apollo era. The UK has never used that chip."

In an ironic twist to Fong's decade-long campaign, he is due to leave the country just as his cause finally gains momentum in Britain. He will spend the next six months in Houston, working out with Nasa scientists the effects on humans of long-term space exploration, part of a research programme looking at ways of creating artificial gravity on long trips to Mars.

He has an ulterior motive - to sound out Nasa on how Britain could best plug into their astronaut programme. His goal is to deliver a detailed blueprint for a practical British space programme by the end of the year. "If someone gave you £100m tomorrow, how would you interface two British astronauts with the programmes that exist? What science would they do? How would they be trained? I would like to deliver a blueprint for how we could do it."

That blueprint will be Fong's testament to a desire ignited when he first saw those floating flags more than 30 years ago, a desire that still burns brightly today. "If we had an astronaut programme in this country, I would be the first to put my hand up for it. I've spent my entire career pushing this - it's something I would love to see and, if it was me, I would have to pinch myself every day. How many people can say, when I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut and then actually be an astronaut?"


Earthbound

The government cut off any chance of sending Britons into space in the decade Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong escaped the Earth's atmosphere. Blue Streak, a rocket programme that would have been a precursor to giving Britain its own launch capability, was cancelled in the 1960s. UK scientists did get involved indirectly in the US Apollo missions but there was no chance a Briton would fly to the moon.

Since the 1960s, British space scientists have worked with Nasa and with the European Space Agency on robotic exploration missions. Britain now has a healthy satellite-building industry.

In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton in space through the Juno programme, funded by the Russian space agency and a consortium of British companies.

In 2002, the government set up the microgravity review panel to consider starting research in space but made no mention of an astronaut programme. Two years later, a Royal Astronomical Society report put the scientific case for funding British astronauts.

UK-born Michael Foale first flew on the space shuttle in 1993. To fly with Nasa, he had to obtain US citizenship, as did Piers Sellers and Nicholas Patrick, for flights this year.

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Tony Blair: Save the world, become a scientist

I like to think that I’m well on my way to becoming a wizened, cynical hack that holds public figures to account (stop sniggering at the back – I said I like to think). But there are some things that still secretly impress me.

Last week, I interviewed British prime minister Tony Blair on the eve of a talk he was due to give on science. The fourth in a series of speeches on securing Britain’s future, many pundits are saying that this is his goodbye tour, where he points out how wonderful he has been and show that he still cares about real issues. Rather than leadership battles and invading other countries, I assume.

Political press officers are a hard-nosed bunch so I didn’t get a huge chunk of time with Blair, to be honest. Fifteen minutes of very stage-managed time on a train to Didcot, to be precise. He previewed the main points of his speech, which I wrote up for the paper:

Irrational public debates and scare stories about science will damage the development of research in Britain if left unchecked, the prime minister believes.

Speaking to the Guardian ahead of a speech on science, Tony Blair said that he would stand up for science against the distrust engendered by historic problems such as the BSE crisis and the scare over the MMR vaccine.

"We've got to understand the importance of science to the future of the economy and to the future of society," he said. "In my view, for the next generation, development of science is as important as economic stability for future prosperity."

His talk in Oxford today is part of a series of speeches on securing Britain's future. Mr Blair will raise issues on public trust in science and what he sees as hurdles to attracting more young people to subjects such as physics, chemistry and engineering.

"I want to stick up for science and say why it's important and why we have rational debates about scientific issues rather than allow irrational debate," he said. "We've made that a very strong part of what the government's about and will continue to do so. The damage it can do otherwise is rather frightening."

He cited the scare over the triple vaccine, MMR, in recent years and the BSE epidemic among cattle in 1990s as examples. "Scientists got the blame [for BSE] and I think that's ludicrous. It wasn't scientists feeding rubbish to the animals, it was scientists who had to investigate and finally did discover what was going on."

Upcoming technologies such as genetics would throw up plenty of ethical issues, which would need careful consideration by a scientifically-literate public.

Public distrust in the past had led to a loss of research expertise in genetic modification. "The GM thing shows you can very suddenly lose a whole swath of the public ... [but] if you look around the world at the moment, bioscience is obviously where we should be heading."

Mr Blair argued that the potential for GM crops in Britain was limited for practical reasons. "If you look around the world to where GM crops are being developed most, it's where you have vast farming tracts. The future agriculture for this country is more likely to be in organic niche farming."

But he added that this should not prevent the UK from taking a lead on research in the area.

The speech will also outline how to encourage young people to consider taking science subjects at school and university. "There is a point in getting people enthused and saying, this is where the glittering prizes are. A lot of young people are interested, but they don't see it as a career except as a boffin. They don't see it as a career in which you develop one of the leading edge companies. They see science as what you do in a laboratory."

I also asked him about the Stern report on the economics of climate change, published last week. I wanted to know whether he would be taking that personally to George Bush and arguing that now, America had even less reason to avoid acting on climate change.

Blair’s too used to this question to give a straight answer, of course, but he did infer that it’s a long game with the US on climate change. He mentioned talking to Schwarzenegger about joining the EU carbon-trading scheme, of engaging with companies and other states in the US.

He also said that, while the Bush administration’s priorities are based around energy security, American companies will move quickly once they recognise the economic benefits involved in developing technology to tackle climate change. Indeed, many US companies are already spurring ahead.

I also raised the issue of a British astronaut with him, as per my last post. He laughed at this and said he could see himself as the first Brit on the Moon when he retired. Unfortunately, his mind was too stuck in the paradigm of his forthcoming speech and his messages were all about climate change. He called that the new Moon landings in terms of the inspirational effect they could have on the young. Save the world, he was saying, by becoming a scientist.

It's strange that a government so famously good at PR can't see the problem with that. The nitty-gritty of climate change is hardly going to inspire legions of kids today, a generation of people bred with MTV attention spans. Getting anyone to the stage where they see the genuine beauty of science will take something profoundly exciting. The prism through which today’s young see the world needs more than worthiness to inspire them. Sorry to say it and I wish it weren’t true. I'm sticking with astronauts. At least to get them through the door.

Evan Harris, the Lib-Dem science spokesperson will give his thoughts on Tony Blair’s speech on Monday’s Guardian science podcast. Worth a listen.

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The case for a British astronaut

Aaaaand we're back. What no-one teaches you at blogging school is that it's tough work maintaining an interesting blog and working for a living. Fortunately, I've managed to combine the two in this latest post.

The more I think about the decline in science at schools and university, the more I wonder why all attempts to deal with it are so conservative. To some people, the solution is very simple: the apathy is caused by bad teachers. Pay them more and watch the students flock back. But that's like saying that we know carbon dioxide causes global warming so why don't we all just stop producing it? No doubt it's a problem and it needs addressing but why don't we get a bit more creative? After all, there's more than one way to crack a nut. Here's an idea I'd like to to throw into the mix, published in today's Guardian.

It's a quandary: Britain's supply of scientists and engineers is dwindling. Hi-tech companies are bemoaning the shortage of good graduates, the Treasury is getting twitchy about the economic implications, and government education advisers are left scratching their heads.

If only there were something inspirational that could turn children on to physics or engineering. Something that could demonstrate the excitement, adventure and sense of discovery that is at the core of science.

Here's a radical idea: send a Briton into space. Not on some half-hearted tourist trip to watch the Earth for a few days from the International Space Station, but a research-based programme with a specific mandate to inspire budding scientists. The dividend is clear. A generation of children jumped into science thanks to the American moon landings in the 1960s. In the US, the number of PhDs awarded in technical fields rose steadily during the Mercury and Apollo programmes from 1961 to 1972.

Britain's less-than-progressive attitude to sending people into space was neatly summed up by the science minister Lord Sainsbury in a 2003 speech. "There is no doubt that manned space exploration has a special excitement for people, and a particular attraction for young people," he said. "It does not, however, make a great deal of sense either commercially or in terms of doing world-class science."

In claiming there is no world-class science to be done with humans in space, he ignores the fact that almost all of the world's major economies think enough of the scientific return to invest heavily. Europe and the US have announced bold human space programmes spanning the next few decades; Russia, China, India and Japan plan to follow suit.

And commercial opportunities? Perhaps Richard Branson could have saved himself the trip across the Atlantic to buy his hardware for Virgin Galactic if Britain's space industry had come up with the goods.

Britain's decades-long rejection of the idea of human space flight was supported by a major review commissioned by the Science and Engineering Research Council in 1989. In looking at how research could benefit from sending people into space, it concluded that, because microgravity research was in its infancy, there was little point in spending the money. It cemented the view in government circles that sending people into space cost too much and had no scientific benefit.

Times change, and science marches on. A year ago, the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) published a report that confounded the sceptics. Its nine-month investigation into the scientific case for human space flight concluded that the profound scientific questions relating to the history of the solar system and the existence of life beyond Earth could best, and perhaps only, be achieved by human exploration on the moon or Mars. It was all the more remarkable because the scientists leading the investigation started off being sceptical about the value of human space flight.

The report finished with a passionate plea: "It is hard to conceive that the UK, one of the world's leading economies, would stand aside from such a global scientific and technological endeavour. We therefore regard it as timely for Her Majesty's government to re-evaluate its long-standing opposition to British involvement in human space exploration."

A year on, Her Majesty's government has paid no attention to this golden opportunity to revitalise British science. Its head remains buried the sand.

Cost is obviously the sticking point. Getting into space is expensive, sending humans there doubly so. The RAS report suggested full membership of the European Space Agency's (Esa) Aurora programme, an ambitious initiative to send humans to Mars by 2030. For Britain, Aurora comes with a price tag of £150m a year for at least the next two decades, and membership doesn't guarantee a British astronaut. It's not a proposal that is likely to fly with the Treasury.

The answer lies in a more limited plan. A couple of flights with a set of experiments and an extensive programme of education would be enough to give Britain's emerging human space flight science community a chance to prove its value. Schools could be involved and science undergraduates could take part in competitions to design experiments. It's already done across Europe.

Initial calculations suggest such a programme could cost as little as £50m over 10 years. By investing less than a tenth of the amount spent on the Millennium Dome, Britain could cut its teeth on the next stage of human exploration and get a return - scientific, industrial, educational and cultural - worth several times the money put in.

There is little time left to decide: Esa and Nasa will both finalise their plans for the moon and Mars in the next few years. If we want to get involved, we need urgent action. By continuing to opt out, Britain will lose its best chance to show children how exciting science can be. We will also lose to the more ambitious nations those scientists who see space as the future. In the next decade, the question may no longer be whether we can afford to send people into space, but rather, can we afford not to?

The people leading this resurgence of interest in human space flight include Kevin Fong at University College London and Ian Crawford at Birkbeck College. They've put together a summary of the scientific case for a British astronaut here. What this needs is a consistent campaign or a more regularly-maintained web site or blog to keep people up to date and to suggest ways to lobby government. Any ideas welcome.

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