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The Guardian view on Tim Peake’s space mission: a journey into the province of all mankind The Guardian view on Tim Peake’s space mission: a journey into the province of all mankind
(about 1 hour later)
Tim Peake’s thrilling takeoff and journey to the International Space Station today was both a pioneering voyage to the stars for an individual Briton and a collective trip down memory lane for those who remember the glory days of the space programme. Manned spaceflight is hardly commonplace, but more than 540 people from more than three dozen nations have now orbited the Earth since Yuri Gagarin in 1961, notching up more than 129 years of space travel between them. Mr Peake isn’t even the first British astronaut to be whizzing around the planet at 17,500mph, but the seventh UK-born space traveller, although he is the first whose journey has been paid for by the UK taxpayer.Tim Peake’s thrilling takeoff and journey to the International Space Station today was both a pioneering voyage to the stars for an individual Briton and a collective trip down memory lane for those who remember the glory days of the space programme. Manned spaceflight is hardly commonplace, but more than 540 people from more than three dozen nations have now orbited the Earth since Yuri Gagarin in 1961, notching up more than 129 years of space travel between them. Mr Peake isn’t even the first British astronaut to be whizzing around the planet at 17,500mph, but the seventh UK-born space traveller, although he is the first whose journey has been paid for by the UK taxpayer.
And yet, however often it has been done before, however long it is since the zenith of the Apollo programme, however much we may debate where space travel properly stands in the hierarchy of the human race’s priorities, and however much we may tell ourselves that machine not human spaceflight is what truly breaches the final frontier, there is still something wonderful and inspiring about what Mr Peake did today. To slip the bounds of Earth in a rocket is something most of us would not dream of doing. Yet when one of us does what Mr Peake did today, some part of all of us still goes with him. And yet, however often it has been done before, however long it is since the zenith of the Apollo programme, however much we may debate where space travel properly stands in the hierarchy of the human race’s priorities, and however much we may tell ourselves that machine not human spaceflight is what truly breaches the final frontier, there is still something wonderful and inspiring about what Mr Peake did today. To slip the surly bonds of Earth in a rocket is something most of us would not dream of doing. Yet when one of us does what Mr Peake did today, some part of all of us still goes with him.
These are no longer the first heroic days of space exploration. Yet it is a striking fact that the countdown to the Baikonur launch caught the national imagination afresh and with an almost innocent delight. All eyes were on Major Tim’s takeoff as though the past half-century of human space exploration had not taken place. It barely has as far as Britain is concerned, it could be said, since space exploration is an activity in which the curve of UK engagement has bent steadily downwards from the 1950s, when Britain had its own space programme, to the disengagement of the 1970s and 80s. Britain is a latecomer on the space scene now. It is a powerful symbol of the national journey that the first UK-funded astronaut arrived at Baikonur courtesy of the European Space Agency, not of any purely national equivalent.These are no longer the first heroic days of space exploration. Yet it is a striking fact that the countdown to the Baikonur launch caught the national imagination afresh and with an almost innocent delight. All eyes were on Major Tim’s takeoff as though the past half-century of human space exploration had not taken place. It barely has as far as Britain is concerned, it could be said, since space exploration is an activity in which the curve of UK engagement has bent steadily downwards from the 1950s, when Britain had its own space programme, to the disengagement of the 1970s and 80s. Britain is a latecomer on the space scene now. It is a powerful symbol of the national journey that the first UK-funded astronaut arrived at Baikonur courtesy of the European Space Agency, not of any purely national equivalent.
This was not the only symbol today. To see the Russian, American and European trio blast off from Kazakhstan was a reminder of the practical internationalism that has marked the development of human space travel, even in the days of the cold war. It is a reminder that the six astronauts currently in space are recognised in international law, not just as citizens of their respective states but, in the words of the 1967 UN outer space treaty, as “the envoys of mankind”.This was not the only symbol today. To see the Russian, American and European trio blast off from Kazakhstan was a reminder of the practical internationalism that has marked the development of human space travel, even in the days of the cold war. It is a reminder that the six astronauts currently in space are recognised in international law, not just as citizens of their respective states but, in the words of the 1967 UN outer space treaty, as “the envoys of mankind”.
It is more than 50 years since the days of Gagarin and Glenn, and almost 50 years since the outer space treaty declared, in impeccably internationalist language, that the exploration of space (understood as being more than 100 kilometres above the Earth) was “the province of all mankind”, that it was “not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty”, that space travel and the exploration of the moon and other celestial bodies was for peaceful purposes only, and that weapons of mass destruction, nuclear included, were banned from space.It is more than 50 years since the days of Gagarin and Glenn, and almost 50 years since the outer space treaty declared, in impeccably internationalist language, that the exploration of space (understood as being more than 100 kilometres above the Earth) was “the province of all mankind”, that it was “not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty”, that space travel and the exploration of the moon and other celestial bodies was for peaceful purposes only, and that weapons of mass destruction, nuclear included, were banned from space.
The insistence that outer space is a common province of humankind has been challenged in recent years, not least by a commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld in 2001 which argued that the United States faced the possibility of a “space Pearl Harbor” against which it must defend itself. It is far from certain that a new outer space treaty, drafted in modern times rather than the still internationalist atmosphere of the cold war 1960s, would be able to resist the pressures from superpower and multinational corporate interests that their predecessors refused to embrace back in 1967. As the excitement of Mr Peake’s journey into Earth orbit reminded the British today, space exploration is a noble human purpose in a space without borders, not one in which national or corporate interests should ever be allowed to plant their flags or weapons.The insistence that outer space is a common province of humankind has been challenged in recent years, not least by a commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld in 2001 which argued that the United States faced the possibility of a “space Pearl Harbor” against which it must defend itself. It is far from certain that a new outer space treaty, drafted in modern times rather than the still internationalist atmosphere of the cold war 1960s, would be able to resist the pressures from superpower and multinational corporate interests that their predecessors refused to embrace back in 1967. As the excitement of Mr Peake’s journey into Earth orbit reminded the British today, space exploration is a noble human purpose in a space without borders, not one in which national or corporate interests should ever be allowed to plant their flags or weapons.