To not understand why we can afford to send Tim Peake into space whilst we are cutting essential services for UK citizens?

[Destinysdaughter]

Just that really. I don't get it. Apparently we have no money for the NHS, police, care for the elderly etc but we can blow a shed load of money on this? Think the Gvt's priorities are skewed really badly. I have nothing against space exploration but surely basic needs should be met first? Or am I just naive...?

I can't express how vulgar i find the word cunt. My mouth does an Involuntary sneer. Ugh. Arse is a silly word, that's how I read it, in a lighthearted way.
I have just copied The List for my husband and realised you'd come out with it on the spot tampon?! That's pretty impressive! What job do you do?

Whilst the list is really interesting, I was assuming it had been sourced from elsewhere, as point 22 suggests that it was written prior to the Beijing Olympics? Apologies if I've misunderstood.

The "arse" was unnecessary though.

The list is not really that interesting.

Lists of all the technologies that can be attributed to the space programme are only a Google away.

Uncritical repetition of lists of technologies don't in any way answer the question asked, which is whether it is justifiable to spend public money on a space programme when you are cutting essential services to vulnerable people.

If you think a list of technologies that arguably would not have existed (but might well have) without a completely different space programme run by another country, with a different culture, at a different time, is an acceptable answer to the question of how it can be affordable to spend money on this while essential services are cut for the disabled, while many children are growing up in households where there is no money to buy vegetables to make nice nutritious soup, then your grasp of ethics is as weak as your grasp of logic.

If you are using the Internet then you are unwittingly using satellites. How do you think satellites can be got into space or replaced/ maintained without a space programme.

Britain contributes to a European space programme; we do not have enough resources for our own programme. The U.K. Is one of the richest countries on earth and its only right we contribute to international space programmes. If you want the benefits of space exploration then you need to stump up the cash.

There is only relative poverty in the uk. People on benefits still enjoy a better lifestyle than most the world's population. The welfare state is being cut because people voted for it to be cut. It's nothing to do with the space programme or the country being short of money. I am not necessarily agreeing with it, but there is a view that our welfare state has become bloated and discourages hard work.

By that argument if you are using the Internet you must support the US military.

You can support the space programme and think it is immoral to use public money for space exploration while child poverty is on the rise and dulusabled citizens wonder how they are going to survive.

There is only "relative" poverty anywhere.

That's like saying "there is only relative height in the UK".

Had to laugh at Tamponlady graciously giving another poster permission to reference that list, when she'd actually done a cut and paste job herself.

OP, I don't think it's unreasonable to ponder these things.

How do think Internet traffic crosses the Atlantic at high speed without a satelite. It's not as if it's practical to have a long cable linking us the the USA going under the sea. If you got rid of satellites there would be no Facebook or YouTube and mumsnet would be strictly British mums only.

People in the uk have enough to eat, access to education and health care. Compared to the rest the world the typical mumsnetter is rich.

"how it can be affordable to spend money on this"

I suppose that question needs to be asked of Peter Mandelson, and the Labour Government, who signed UK up to it.

Bathtime, I am really shocked at how unaware you seem to be of the bigger, longer-term picture!

Are you really so blinkered as to think that all that is wrong with the country now is recent or is limited to the West? Do you not realise how far we have come over the centuries due to research and technology? And when I say technology, I am referring to any advancement in thinking! Any!

At one point in our history, writing words on a stone tablet was technology! But did somebody say, stop that? It takes too long and there are fields to till and crops to sow! No! Thank the fuck, no!

Bathtime, I am really shocked at how unaware you seem to be of the bigger, longer-term picture!

Are you really?

Or would you just like to give me a patronising little lecture?

Where's the list of all the technologies that wouldn't have been invented if people with disabilities were disadvantaged to the point where it became difficult for them to take their rightful place in our society?

The list of all the technologies that wouldn't exist if previous generations had decided that "relative" poverty was fine and poor people could feed themselves from food banks and spend their time on workfare?

The list of technologies that wouldn't exist if free education to third level hadn't made it possible for smart kids from modest backgrounds to get degrees in things where the commercial value wasn't yet known?

Failing to invest in our country and our people and prolonging the Great Recession with pernicious, counter-productive austerity has had massive opportunity costs for all of us.

It's not just going into space that helps create useful knowledge the world could use.

At one point in our history, writing words on a stone tablet was technology! But did somebody say, stop that?

I think Socrates did.

"The list of all the technologies that wouldn't exist if previous generations had decided that "relative" poverty was fine and poor people could feed themselves from food banks and spend their time on workfare?"

In the past life was harder for those in real poverty. There were no benefits scroungers and people with real disabilities starved. In fact this still happens in a lot of third word countries.

The human race has a drive to curiosity. I think the likes of Tim Peake is like explorers like Thomas cook or Christopher Colomas.

"I suspect the internet would have happened anyway. It's a natural idea to send data between computers. But it was Tim Berners Lee at CERN who built on the ideas of others and who needed to send data to communicate who came up with the protocols needed. He was motivated and it happened. Luckily he decided not to patent it."

The World Wide Web would not exist without satellites as there would be no way to stream data cross the Atlantic or Pacific or Indian or ant other large ocean.

There are still parts of the world that require the use of satelites for communications. Often its the poorest people on earth who are without communication with the outside world.

In the past life was harder for those in real poverty.

Yes, and then we took steps to avoid a situation where most people lived difficult, shitty lives while a small minority reaped all the rewards of their labour.

But now we're dismantling all those safeguards, so you'll get your wish of "real" poverty being a commonplace reality in the UK real soon.

There were no benefits scroungers

Well, apart from the people who appropriated land for their own exclusive use using violence and then exploited the people who lived on it.

They are still with us.

^people with real disabilities starved.

That word "real" again.

So much fake poverty and relative disability taking away from real human misery for the well off and lucky to revel in witnessing in the lower orders.

"Yes, and then we took steps to avoid a situation where most people lived difficult, shitty lives while a small minority reaped all the rewards of their labour."

None of that would be possible without a strong economy and development of technology. The pressure to survive drives progress and development.

A welfare state does not work if everyone is a benefit claiment. The present govenment was elected on the promise of reducing spending. Changes to the welfare state like the bedroom tax are idelogical as much as anything.

You make a reasonable point OP. Why spend untold millions to go to Mars when there enough problems down here to fix? Ie the environment, reconstructing Syria, lifting people out of poverty here and in the 3rd world etc etc..

I personally have mixed feelings for example, I wouldn't want to try want to explain to the many disabled people now waiting for the letter through the door, telling them their benefits are being cut. Just how exciting and beneficial to them, sending Tim Peake to the ISS is, particularly.

But if I had to, I'd start by saying - there's so many remarkable benefits from space programmes, personal computers and solar energy for a start. Space science has given us new materials, better medicines, more efficient ways of providing clean water, and ways to grow food. It's increased our understanding of the human body, giving us innovative ways to protect people from different illnesses. Also the UK has a service-based economy, so striving to be a nation of scientific innovation is important.

Then on the other hand though, what happens when these remarkable breakthroughs in tec' happen? They get patented by big corporations, manufactured by them and sold to us at a high price which excludes the poor and /or the third world from gaining any real benefit from them. In that respect all the incredible discoveries and innovations gained from the world's various space programmes don't seem to effect human behaviour much.

Boring and non-committal of me, but I can't decide really.

Do people REALLY think that if the UK hadn't contributed the miserly sum of £60m to the ESA that the same amount would have been put back into the benefits budget?

It takes time for technological benefits to trickle down to the poor, but it does happen eventually.

Look at that new fangled invention - the printing press -totally useless to the poor who could not read. How can you justify the costs of the printing press when there are straving children in the workhouse?

Bathtime, I don't have time to research Socrates and what he might or might not have said, so you may have a little more knowledge in that area of history than I do. However, you need to do a more rounded reading of history to understand the place that research has in society and the needs and benefits that it meets.

Without it, we'd still all be living in trees!