The Infinite Monkey Cage - Space Tourism

Episode Date: July 8, 2013

Space TourismBrian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by actor and space enthusiast Brian Blessed, Director of Virgin Galactic Stephen Attenborough and space medicine expert Dr Kevin Fong to talk about the possibilities of space exploration for mere mortals. Is travel beyond our own planet the reserve of highly trained astronauts and cosmonauts, or are we about to see a new era of space travel, where a round trip to the moon is not beyond the grasp of many ordinary members of the public, and is it a good idea?

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to meet the people on the front lines of climate change. We will share stories of how they are thriving using lessons learned from nature. And good news, it is working. Learn more by listening to Nature Answers wherever you get your podcasts. This is a download from the BBC. answers wherever you get your podcasts. in northern Norway, a total solar eclipse in Varanasi, a city described by Mark Twain as older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend,

and looks twice as old as all of them put together, and undertaken a grand voyage two and a half kilometres below the Sea of Cortez to view hydrothermal vents, the very cradle of life on Earth. But as Brian said to me only earlier today, in a sad and mournful voice, oh, Robin, I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me. Then it got weird. And on my right, Robin Ince, who hasn't really been anywhere.

But has recently finished writing a sequel to Flash Gordon from a quantum mechanical perspective, but has struggled to find an actor with the gravitas and power to deliver the complexities of the science. Gordon's alive! And Gordon's dead, and he's alive, and he's dead. Gordon's in superposition. And he's alive and he's dead.

Gordon's in superposition. Never has superposition been told so sexily by physicists. I looked into Schrodinger's cat and it was in a superposition. Anyway, so we won't tell you who that guest is. You just stay at home and wonder, was it Derek Jacoby? Maybe it was. We'll reveal that shortly. So today we are going to look at space tourism. Is it not enough that people can go to India to find themselves when they deal with one of their pathetic anxieties

about the pointlessness of existence? Do we need also to project them into space as well? Philistine. Yep. Or will the technologies being developed democratise space travel, harnessing the engineering excellence, creativity and capital available in the private sector to propel our civilisation to its destiny amongst the stars. To discuss

the possibilities, the probabilities and the point. Or pointlessness. We're propelling ourselves from the planet Earth. We're joined by three enthusiastic supporters of commercial space travel. Stephen Attenborough is the commercial director of Virgin Galactic. He hopes to make a planet of space tourists

and with luck may also transport hen and stag weekends into space so that we can enjoy Prague and Brighton without hideous people in pink Stetsons vomiting on our shoes. Dr Kevin Fong is an expert on space medicine. He's co-director of the Centre for Aviation, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine.

His first book, Extremes, is an examination of a variety of hideous and improbable deaths. And he's the perfect gift for a hypochondriac aerophobic who's running out of things to feel paranoid about. And according to the tagline of the film Alien, in space no one can hear you scream. Though I believe this man might test that presumption. Taking breaks from climbing Everest, Kilimanjaro and walking to the Arctic in order occasionally to do his hobby of acting,

this is one human who has the stamina to single-handedly terraform Mars. It is Brian Blessed and this is our panel! APPLAUSE And this is our panel! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Brian, we're going to start with you, probably end with you, and do the in-between as well. Anything to help. Now, you have been obsessed with the desire to go into space and space itself for many, many years. I've been broken-hearted since I was six years of age.

When I was six at school, Mrs Gumsall suddenly told us there were other planets, like ours, and there was Mars, the red Mars. I painted it when I was six years of age. I wanted to go there, and ever since I've wanted to go there. We had the radio, you know, we're journeying to space, and we had Dundee, a pilot of the future, and Flash Gordon once a week in black and white

with Buster Crabb at the cinemas. I always played Voltan. When I saw each episode, we'd go to the railway embankment and I'd go down there pretending to fly. And I was Voltan. Never dreamt that one day I'd actually play the part in a film. But I've always loved space. I yearn to get to space, to butcher the baker, the candlestick maker.

I want us to all get out there. Artists, new terraforming, new forms of Olympics on Mars, new forms! And on the moon as well. And that stayed in me. I mean, we are the children of stardust. We don't just belong here. I want to get out there! And I've been pressing it and I've done training and all kinds of things. I'm determined to go to Mars and beyond! You took this interest, as you mentioned, to great lengths,

because you did over 400 hours of astronaut training. Yes, there's no end to my talents. I mean, it's... I want to help the space programme, and I wanted to make a film to point the way to Mars. Because, you know, I said the highest mountain in the solar system is Olympus Mons, about three times higher than Everest, the size of Spain, and the great, big, gorgeous valleys

and the face in the Sedona region. Let's go! And so we made a film, which Kevin very kindly was part of, and we got lots of mountaineers and we got microbiologists and geologists from NASA, etc. I said, great scientists like Kevin here. All was on board, and we made a film called Mission to Mars Mountain,

and we assimilated, climbing Olympus Mons. And then eventually I went to Moscow. I was training with the astronauts there, and Putin came in to watch me. One of the hardest things for me to do, because I'm terribly shy. And I went to... In the centrifuge, this is my point.

I've got this thing for you, shut your face, shut your face! I'll get this out to Kevin. Well, that's all we've got time for tonight. So, Kevin, I went to a centrifuge, I went to 11Gs. Isn't that marvellous? 11 Gs, marvellous. And different things we went on to. I went in a MiG-29, MiG-29.

I went to 87,000 feet, 11 Gs. Jeez, I came back down, I was two seconds younger than the other cosmonauts. Great, great. And it was all like that. And the whole thing was just an amazing experience. So I went through the whole training. It was just wonderful. I was passing all my exams and everything else,

and then suddenly they asked us to be on this tiny machine. We'd been on the centrifuge, gigantic. It was as big as a trident. And I was on this little machine and a little chair. And they put two little rods on my neck and, close your eyes, close your eyes, Brian, close your eyes. The Russians have only done 50 seconds on this. And it went round and round and round and I experienced my head coming off.

I experienced... My head came off, my arms came off and my legs came off and I held on for about 75 seconds, which you said, that was unwise. Yeah. Brian, you just tried to... Kevin, feel free to speak. No, Kevin, I'd like to ask you...

What happened to me, Kevin? Kevin, because Brian is clearly indestructible, made of Kevlar or something like that. But for the average space tourist, we're talking about space tourism here, so initially commercial space flight, what's the minimum of physical requirements that one might be expected to endure?

Well, we don't know what the limits are for people who want to go into space, and the indestructible Brian Blessed aside, mere mortals have been into space, and some pretty unhealthy people have so far been up. Don't pause! Oh, my God! You fool!

No, no, no! Oh, Brian! Right, Kevin, I lost you a quick one. Why was it that Brian... I genuinely want to know this, because before we get there, what was it that made Brian so sick? Because he still doesn't know what made him so sick. What was it?

So I'm not sure. That centrifuge is pretty bad, and I can't... You said that machine, it affected the cerebellum, you said. It's not used these days. It's space, you said, is easier than that. Well, no, it certainly is. And the centrifuge that they put you on, I mean, almost all of the flights don't get above about 4G now.

You know, the shuttle, even Soyuz don't really, on normal missions, don't get above 4G, and they took you up to nine sounds like beyond that. And that's going to hurt anyone, even you. So, Stephen, now you're looking at taking people into space as a tourist thing, basically.

What does that require, then? What kind of training where if we're going to send people into first of all how long we talk about them going into space so our first trips are called suborbital trips which are a blast right into space and then back from where you started the total trip is about two two and a half hours because several minutes of weightlessness up there as we said about three and a half four g's of acceleration on the way up so it's a dynamic ride it's a fun ride. But the interesting thing is that our typical customer

is very unlike the typical astronauts of the past. They tend to be super-fit human beings. Some of our customers are like that, but the average age, I think, is about 55, the people that have signed up. And there was very little data when we started to show how those people were going to withstand a trip to space, with the acceleration, the zero-g and so forth.

And so the first 100 to sign up for Virgin Galactic, we actually took across to a centrifuge. I think it was a much nicer centrifuge than the one you went on, Brian. It was in Philadelphia rather than Moscow. And we actually spanned them one by one and we found actually that the human body is very robust. The youngest person we had on the centrifuge was 18. The oldest was 90, James Lovelock, actually.

And we only had three people in those first 100 that we were not able to had on the centrifuge was 18. The oldest was 90, James Lovelock, actually. And we only had three people in those first 100 that we were not able to put on the centrifuge and we had to cancel their reservation. So our expectation is that most people, providing you can afford it, of course, are going to be fine for the space ride. Yeah, because you only do returns. Do you do a single and then...

We've had a surprising number of requests for single tickets, actually, but people's partners generally, but... No, just a two-way ride. But it has been interesting, because I've done a little bit of work with Virgin Galactic, and you sit around the table and you're looking at a bunch of people who aren't your average astronauts. And that's the big question of how far you can kind of, I guess,

democratise spaceflight. And it's a little bit like the early days of commercial aviation. You know, the early aviators were super fit, ex-military types. And then we slowly over time started putting fee-paying passengers on. And now you look around the average flight and you look at a bunch of people who in the early days of flying, you thought they're never going to get on a plane. And what are the real technological advances that have transformed space flight or the potential? Because, you know, I grew up with Apollo and then you see Soyuz and you see, as Brian had explained, this extreme training you had to go through. So what is it

that's changed in the 21st century? I mean, the whole key to human spaceflight is really not about the fitness of the individual. It's about the laser protection that you draw around them. And that's what's changed. We've become incredible at protecting human physiology under the most extreme situations in medicine or in the physical world. And so why Steve and his crew can do what they do, why Brian was able to think about trips to Mars, is because the technology is so fully protective of human physiology. I would never have believed that you could have created a space plane

that could do 100km altitude and get you to pull 4G and put ordinary fee-paying punters in it, but that's where we've arrived at. So it is our ability to protect human physiology. I think, for us anyway, Richard Branson's one of the most impatient people I know, but even he had to wait until there was some suitable technology that came along,

because the old ground-based vertical takeoff you know rockets that we've grown to know and love you know just are not suitable for fair paying passengers you know there's from a safety and a cost and from many other perspectives and so it wasn't until somebody came along with a very a very different idea about how to launch safely and how to actually how to return from the atmosphere safely which is even more important in some ways that we were able to say, OK, let's seize the opportunity here and see whether we can do something with it. Are you going to be going up?

Yes, I'm going to. It's a funny thing that I still am a child, as you can see. Of the mountains I've climbed, of course, there's the earth and there's Everest, kind of not in the centre of the equator. And the highest mountain on the equator is Chimborazo, near Cotopaxi in Ecuador. And I stood on the point in frustration on Chimborazo and I reached my hand out and that was the closest I was to Mars.

And a wonderful feeling, oh, I'm getting an arm's length closer to Mars. You know, sometimes you feel a bit lonely in your quest to get people into space. Terraforming should be done with great taste and so forth, and done beautifully, and we respect the great landscapes of the planets and moons, but we do need to get out there, and I do get frustrated that, particularly Britain,

when we did have, in the 50s, 60s and 70s, Black Arrow and Blue Streak and Black Knight, that we were on the verge. We have such great scientists and they're out of work. You know, that we're on the brink. We're ahead of Wernher von Braun. On the brink of going to Mars. I mean, wonderful people like your good selves.

These heroic people. I mean, I have to say good selves. These heroic people. I mean, I have to say to you all four of you that it's a privilege to be with you and that it gladdens my heart to be with you. And I hope that this programme will again help to propel us out into space where we belong so the Earth can rest. Why is it, Kevin, that's what I was going to say, when you were growing up, for a few generations,

we were fascinated by space. Space was such an exciting thing. The Cold War seemed to propel, once it became something of its own battle. And then, over the last couple of decades, it seems the excitement and the imagination has disappeared. What has done that? Well, I think that always happens.

The first foray into any new territory is always as it was for space it's usually led by a nation state at huge expense it's usually incredibly risky and then you do it and a few people often die and then nobody really wants to go back until they've worked out how to do it much more safely and i think that's where we've arrived at so i don't think it's so much that people have lost interest. I think that you're just waiting for people to make it safer and more commercially viable before we went back and did it properly. And that's not just true of space. I mean, look at Antarctica. You go there in 1912, of two expeditions, one dies completely, the other is successful. Nobody goes back to Antarctica again. Nobody sets foot at the South Pole again until 1956. And when they do it, they go in aircraft that have been delivered, basically, by the commercial aviation industry.

And so I think that's what's going to happen with space. I think that's why commercial spaceflight is so important, because we might like to romanticize exploration. You might like to say, well, we you can actually do proper exploration and proper science, somebody has to make some part of that commercially viable and sustainable and a whole lot safer so that postgraduates today can go to Antarctica and it's still a dangerous place, but they do expect to survive. Stephen, your projections of Virgin, I presume it's not just going to be what currently seems to me is like a fairground ride. But there must be now a vision that this is going to go much further, this is going to stop just being a ten minutes looking down at the Earth

and then back down again. What are you seeing in the future? I think it's incredibly exciting, but you do have to take it a step at a time. Virgin Galactic, for me, has been defined in some ways over the last eight years, more than anything else, by the fact that actually taking ordinary people to space on a regular basis, giving them a great experience, keeping them safe,

acting like an airline in many ways, is hard. Space is a fairly hostile place, and to put the layers of protection around people that means that they're all going to come back, and they're all going to come back with a smile on their face, it takes time. So it's important to get that first step right, and the first step is actually saying, yes, you can do that, you know, that all of us can go into space. We can all have a terrific time up there. It'll be life changing. We'll see the planet will float in zero gravity, do all the things that we've always wanted to do. But what we're really saying

to the to the world at large, I guess, is that this is possible, you know, and we can do it in a commercially viable way. Because if we're going to do the next things, which we want to do, which may be hotels in orbit, and then start looking at the moon, start looking at Mars, perhaps starting to look at point-to-point travel on Earth via space, all those things are going to need huge commitment from the private sector. And that money is there and waiting. But we need to prove those two things, first of all, that you can take people to space safely and you can do it in a commercially viable way. And how many people do you expect to take up let's say over the next decade or so? Well right now I think 530 people have been to space in the history of time. We've just signed up our 600th so which is a good start so we've just

beaten that first number if you like and I think we'll fly those first 600 people in the first you know maybe 18 months of commercial operation which is a huge step forward because it's taken 50 years to fly the first 500. And then I think we'll have a fleet of spaceships. They're being built out in the Mojave Desert now. We'll be increasing the rate of flight, and we'll also, I hope, be able to bring prices down as economies of scale come in and competition comes in as technology gets better.

So I would expect to see thousands of people, tens of thousands of people perhaps going into space, albeit perhaps for a short period of time in the first decade of this new industry. It's an exciting time and I remember when I was at NASA just at the turn of the century

and they started to talk about commercialisation of space. I thought it was bonkers. I thought it would never happen and then the russians put people up in soyuz to space station i thought that was crazy uh virgin galactic came along you know and then you've got the likes of you know it's not just uh their operation you've got elon musk talking about going to the moon he thinks the moon is you know it's on the way he wants to go to mars you know i spoke to elon musk who's uh who runs spacex and he said to go to Mars. I spoke to Elon Musk, who runs SpaceX, and he said to me straight-facedly

that he thinks by the time I'm at retirement age, I'll be able to sell everything I own and buy a return ticket with him to Mars. Well, I've seen other people say of him that the reason he's investing so much... And he's already got the contract to supply the ISS, hasn't he? Yes. The reason he's investing so much is because he wants

to go to Mars. He's buying himself a ticket to Mars. And he was also one of the first customers for us as well, so he's... I can't wait to see Ryanair all get involved. I went to Ryanair, I didn't know the oxygen was extra. It seems to me that we're kind of working on all fronts

and progressing on all fronts. It's wonderful. It reminded me when I went to the Arctic and the North Pole, and it took me about six months to get there. And... You could have flown. I could have flown and went from Resolute in Canada. And I met...

So, is that... Of course, he's Mars Direct, and he's making cabins on Devon Island for astronauts for Mars. So all kinds of people seem to be working on it. When I got near the North Pole, I went to the magnetic North Pole first, which my hair stood on end, which happens with electricity. And a great Russian typhoon submarine came up alongside me. And there were the Russians.

They opened it up and I got on board and we sang the Volga Boatman together and things like that. And we talked about space. And we talked about space. What is lovely about space, people? You can see how happy these gentlemen are. Golembek, who is one of the heads of NASA, I mean, he's like something from Kermit.

I mean, you meet him. Oh, Brian, Mars is wonderful! Oh, Brian, it's lovely! You just put your hands up, Brian, touch the surface. There's history everywhere. It's wonderful! We're going to go to Mars. And he's one of the great brains. He's one of the great brains of NASA.

And Zubrin, of course. It's lovely. Big bang, big bang. And Zubrin. I smell it, the great brain. Zubrin, who's Mars director, and he says he's working on a rocket that'll travel half the speed of light.

It'll be in a bubble and so forth. And as he talks to you, he's working on a rocket that travels half the speed of light. It'll be in a bubble and so forth. And as he talks to you, he's mentioning Genesis and Red Shift and the Bhagavad Gita in the same speech. And he said, Brian, there's no goddamn Big Bang. What it is, Brian, Brahma came out of the lotus. And he came out and the creator said, you create the universe as you have done many times before. Well, I am not getting on his spaceship.

And he goes... Before I sign up for Virgin Galactic, can I just ask one question? Do you believe in the Big Bang? I absolutely believe in the Big Bang. Don't say it like that. That turns into... Do you believe in the Big Bang. I absolutely believe in the Big Bang. Don't say it like that. Do you believe in the Big Bang? Is science the new religion? Not at all!

As I plung onto Darwin's beard. Kevin, we've been talking there about Mars and obviously Dennis Tito, I think, was he the very first space tourist? No, no, no, I think Tito was I think, was he the very first space tourist? No, no, no, I think Tito was first up, yes. Now, he's talking, this was announced back at the end of February, about this idea of not actually landing on Mars but going around Mars and be looking for a couple who get on well enough

to be able to do this 18-month mission. But there are enormous risks, aren't there? I mean, the risks change a great deal from the risk of going to the moon. I mean, in terms of things like radiation, is that right? No, that's absolutely right. And you're talking about the Inspiration Mars mission. And when they announced this, and it was this bunch of privateers who were saying, we're going to come up with a private architecture to go to Mars,

and we're going to take advantage of the fact that we're at closest approach around about five years' time, 2018, and we're going to go in five years' time. Now, if a government agency, an international government space agency, said we're going to go to Mars in five years' time, you'd just laugh them out of the room. And I utterly dismissed it initially. And then you start reading the detail of this thing.

And the terrifying thing is, it's on the edge, on the edge of being possible. But just so long as you're not too worried about whether or not you come back. And, you know, and by that I really mean that those guys are willing to embrace a level of risk that no international agency ever could. And they're talking about going to Mars, you know,

with an architecture that would be so horribly uncomfortable and so unpleasant that no sane person would probably do it, but it could be be done and it's like crossing the Weddell Sea in an open boat as Shackleton and his crew did you know at the start of the 20th century you don't want to do it it's possible but only just and it's probable that everyone will die. Brian because you've done some very dangerous thing you've climbed Everest without oxygen. Ah yes well I think the people say to me is it not dangerous going to Mount Everest or is it not dangerous going to Mars? I think the greatest danger in life is not taking the adventure. I mean, there's Mount Everest everywhere.

It can be a zimmer frame, it can be your garden, projects everywhere. So I just think that the greatest danger in life is not to take the adventure. I find it exciting when I talk to the Russians that they've done a lot of exploration with the sun. And you know better than me that it has many levels, of course. But they said there's a part of it, out about seven levels in,

in which they have orchestras. The sun sings like a whale and has orchestras that change their tune. So one has not, it would seem, begun to really understand our solar system at all, yet that the sun, they maintain, actually has orchestras and sings, which was the Russians talking.

So I'm... What was your question? The question was... I think Kevin's words were something like, you'd have to be insane to go on the first Mars mission. Would you go on the first Mars mission? Oh, yes, yes, yes, I'd have to blow with all cosmic rays, I'd eat them. I mean, gamma rays...

Kevin, you mentioned... You mentioned that you first heard that we would go to Mars, perhaps in five years' time, you didn't believe it. But when you talk to people who were involved in the Apollo programme, they would say that when Kennedy made that speech back at the start of the 60s, to imagine that before the Americans had put an astronaut into orbit, you would commit within a decade to go to the

moon, was equally or even more far-fetched. It's much more far. I mean, the Apollo project is much, much, much more far-fetched, I think, than trying to get to Mars today. Starting from where they started. And by the time he's giving the speech

at Rice University, it's September 1962. So, you know, a couple of years of the decade have almost gone, and he's saying, do this before that decade is out. And the scale of that ambition is eye-watering, especially in light of the... You know, they're literally on the drawing board with that thing. And what people, I think, tend not to fully... sometimes fully appreciate about space

is that the first 250 miles are the hardest 250 miles. And all the effort that we've taken over the last 50 years have been conquering the energetics required to get up to orbital velocities, to sit yourself in orbit. Once you're there, once you can deploy there safely, there's a hell of a lot you can do from that point onwards that is, in many respects, easier in terms of the engineering. Stephen, yeah, picking up on that point, I suppose the suppose the first step as you say are the suborbital flights

because the energies are a lot lower it's easier to come back into the atmosphere the stress is on the vehicle and not as much but so do you have a program to go from that into orbit and if so yeah you said space hotels yeah we i mean we we do i mean i think i think it's really important you know for for us as a company to sort of remain largely focused on getting the first steps right but also you know have a team of people that are looking at you know what step two and what step three and how you know what's the best way to transition how we can do it as as quickly as possible and uh and so you know but it's it is very difficult to give timelines except that I suspect it will probably be more quickly

than we expect because I think we've almost become the mindset which is that space is so difficult it's not for me things are almost expected to go backwards as far as manned space travel is concerned and Brian's probably more

articulate than a lot of our customers, but he shares a lot of the same views of those people that have signed up. One of the wonderful things about this project for me is to, you know, to see that that spirit of adventure and sort of pioneering never died, you know. And when we first opened our little website back in 2004 and said we're going to try and do this

and put the video of the prototype flying to space, and sat back a little nervously, having asked for $200,000 a ticket. I mean, we were just inundated from people all over the world who said, I've been dreaming about doing this for so long, and just sign me up as quickly as you can. And the technologies are quite revolutionary, because this is

a rocket plane. You look back to the NASA era, the Apollo era, you're talking about X-15s and things like that. So it's a commercially viable, reusable, safe rocket plane attached to this tremendous launch vehicle. So it must have been a leap. It was.

But we had the prototype which had flown Spaceship One, which many people will know was the first privately built manned spacecraft, which which was a revolution in its own right you know it was built by a little company in california a budget of maybe 25 or 30 million dollars and it put put you know a man into space twice in you know the period of 14 days and actually went to space three times uh you know which was just you know extraordinary um and in fact there was a prize that was put up in order to to try and break the stalemate, I guess, of government agency approach to space. And it works so well.

You know, the private sector, when it's given an incentive, can sometimes just come up with the most wonderful solutions. But you're right. You know, the thing that we liked about it was that it seemed to overcome a lot of the issues that had been associated with the safety and affordability of manned spaceflight, particularly the fact that we launched from the air,

so we launched at 50,000 feet rather than from on the ground, because we know how to get to 50,000 feet really safely. You know, we've been doing that in aeroplanes for a long time. And so launching your spaceplane at 50,000 feet, you need a lot less energy to get the spaceplane from there to where you want to go. And, of course, if anything goes wrong in those first, you know, few seconds after the spaceship has been released at high altitude, you've got a winged vehicle, you can just glide back down to the runway,

sort out the problem and start again. And then we have this incredible wing feathering device, so the spaceship basically folds itself in half while it's in space, acts like a shuttlecock, so you're not relying on a computer to fly you back into the Earth's atmosphere, you're not relying on pilots computer to fly you back into the Earth's atmosphere. You're not relying on pilots to fly that. It's the laws of physics. So we love the simplicity of this system.

And it's really the simplicity in some ways that I think is going to be the answer to really making leaps and bounds into the future of manned space travel. And that's what's, I guess, exciting about it. Certainly that's what's, I guess, exciting about it. Certainly that architecture does look like the future.

And you got used to NASA serving up the future on the back of a flatbed truck. This is what it's going to look like. Get used to it. And so we all became a bit disappointed when we started folding back to old looking rockets that were around 50 years ago. And it's an interesting point you bring up about the

synergies between private and state, private sector and the state, because, you know, everything we're doing in space now has to have built upon what was done by the state in the past. But it's true, I think, that the way it's got to go forward now is not either-or, but this partnership. I think what's going to happen, what I hope will happen, is that the commercial providers will take on low-Earth orbits,

will make that affordable and reliably achieved, and then the agencies can go on and do what they're supposed to do, which is explore the next stuff. I think they can take on everything between low-Earth orbit and the Moon and Mars, and that's where I hope we'll go. Brian, is there anything... Carl Sagan, the astronomer, he once said, you know, we bash this planet around as if we had somewhere better to go.

Is there perhaps a worry that we still don't know what's in, you know, 80% of our oceans lie unexplored? There is so much that we are... We're looking towards going to other planets before we've even learnt how to actually look after our own. Yes, I feel that the kind of idea, the principle, that we must look after the Earth first before we advance, is not healthy.

I think it's insular. That we can become insular in the... Get the Earth right, get the Earth right. No, no, no. It's never been that way. Exploration has always done that. Bit there, bit there, bit there, some people here, and so forth. Certainly it would seem to me, when you look at the Christmas tree of the Earth at night

from a high aeroplane, there's a tremendous amount of power being used, and it is taking a beating. The earth is taking a beating. There's no doubt. The animals are taking a beating. They're losing. The elephants, rhino, tiger. I think it is the mistake of thinking that the earth is a servant to us.

We should be a servant to the Earth. And that's much more healthy. And therefore I feel that if you're just going to get the Earth right, no, you won't get it right. We need help. If you look through the history of space exploration, one of the most famous images is the Apollo 8 image, Earthrise, taken on Christmas Eve 1968. Now, Stephen, do you feel that that image, of course,

very famously had an effect? People talk of it as the beginnings of the environmental movement, the awakening, as Brian has spoken about, about having to look after the Earth and value and cherish it. Do you think as more people, we talk about thousands, tens of thousands of people, see the Earth from space, do you think that might be an important side effect?

I think it might be. important side effect i think it might be you know because i mean if you read the accounts of professional astronauts and you meet them and you talk to them i mean most of these people you know they weren't chosen because they were poets or artists you know they were chosen because they were very smart very fit they went there to do an important job uh you know and if they got a child you know they just got lucky they looked out of the window but these people come back and they don't talk about their trips for a day or a week. They talk about them for the rest of their lives. And it's that life-changing moment

of looking out of the window from the blackness of space down on the Earth, and it does something to people. And a lot of astronauts come back as confirmed conservationists, dedicated to peace and reconciliation. A lot of good things come from people going to space so to put people into space for the first time who don't have to do an important job you know and they are poets and artists and they're people that have a voice and they come from all over the world you know to put them up there and then to send them back to where they come from you know

having had that experience i think could be a really powerful you know force for good so i mean that's you know in some ways we're looking at space tourism first you know from force for good. So, I mean, that's, you know, in some ways, we're looking at space tourism first, you know, from a very commercial point of view because it was a readily available market, you know. People were ready to step up to the plate at a very early stage and to justify the money that we spent on the project. But, you know, I think it's more than a joyride, you know. I think it will be a very, you know, surprisingly effective,

you know, ambassadors for the Earth as they come back from that experience. Bravo. I agree. Gentlemen, not agree. Gentlemen, not to impose myself, I always let Patrick Moore down. I mean,

I met Patrick many times when I was your age and carried globes around television centre for him from Z cars and kind of helped the programme a bit and carried Mars and carried Jupiter around the car park. Anyway, towards the end of his life, I think they held a concert here a few, two weeks ago and I couldn't get to it.

And then they had one at his house and he was dying. Anyway, about two days before he died, he rang me up and he's always sending me his books. About two days before he died, he rang me up. He's always sending me his books. Do the stanza for me from Lollington Downs. And would you allow me to do these seven lines? It's Lollington Downs, the stanza five, I think it is, by Maysfield. I could not sleep for thinking of the sky,

the unending sky, with all its million suns, which turn their planets everlastingly in nothing, where the fire-haired comet runs. If I could sail that nothing, I should pass through silence and emptiness with dark stars passing. And then in the darkness see a point of gloss

burn to a glow and glare and keep amassing and rage into a sun with wandering planets and drop behind. light on its last moon's granite turn to a night that would be dark indeed night where I might travel a million years in nothing not even death not even tears there you are, Patrick. See, that's what you want, Kevin. You were talking about things on the back of a flatbed truck. If we could just send... All the space agencies could send you around on a flatbed truck with a mix of John Macefield and you go, Get up off your backsides! Stop watching Homes Under The Hammer! space agencies could send you around on a flatbed truck with a mix of John Macefield and you go, get up off your backsides,

stop watching Homes Under The Hammer, build something and look to the stars! That's what we need. Even you didn't mind poetry and you ate art. Right, so, thank you very much for that. And we just got a few of the... We always ask the audience a question, and this week we asked them, if you had the opportunity to travel to space,

what would you like to find there? And, of course, Andy Burden has gone straight with, Flash Gordon, alive! Yes, and in this one, yes, to bring it down to earth, a little chef. Leave now. If you had the opportunity to travel to space, what would you like to find there?

Guacamole. Because unless they've got it, it's probably not worth going. This is a literate Radio 4 audience. Look at this. The teapot floating in space so I can make Bertrand Russell look silly. This one is Major Tom, and that's from Anna. This one, the real Brian Cox. A fully functional Death Star which is internally cooled.

No need for a vent. A Skywalker would have been thwarted. Dedicated parking space. Brian Cox staring wistfully at a camera describing things as amazing. Don't worry, you don't have to go into space for that. It'll be available on many repeats. Anyway, so...

That brings us to the end. Thank you very much to our fabulous guests, Steve Nathmer, Kevin Fong, and, of... That brings us to the end. Thank you very much to our fabulous guest, Steve Nathmer, Kevin Fong, and, of course, Brian Blessed. And next week, we'll be discussing what makes a science a science? Data. Observation, rational thought, applying common sense to understanding the natural world.

We don't need to do that one. Well, you say that, Brian. Someone actually sent me a letter last week which said, if science is so good, why do they keep having to change it? Come on, Brian, get it right for once. Finally, to play us out, pretty much, I think, we were talking before about John F. Kennedy's rousing speech. We thought it was very

well written, but we didn't feel it was particularly well delivered. So we thought we'd hand it to a professional. So, to play us out with his own interpretation of John F. Kennedy, it is Brian Blessed. I can't do an American accent, so I'll do my usual thing. But I'm British! Oh, crap, don't.

Many years ago, I'm British! Oh, crap, no. Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mowry, who was to die on Everest in 1924, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, because it's there. Actually, he was quite irritated when he was asked that. People don't know that. Say, why do you climb Mount Everest? Go on. Why did you climb Mount Everest?

Oh, because it's there! It wasn't very romantic. Sorry, let's really cast a dark shadow. I'm so sorry. George! I'm sorry. Don't eat it! Don't eat it! Why did you climb Everest, George? Because it's there.

Well, of course, ladies and gentlemen, space is there. And we're going to climb it. Who's written this? Climb it. We're going to fly it. We're going to sail it. And the moon... It's a reference to Everest. What? It's a back reference. He's got 50 years, but finally someone's gone, hang on a minute, this is Kennedy's speech. There's some gaping holes in it.

There is. You should see Brian Blessed's check for it. It's absolutely fantastic. Is this a gag on the form? Of course it is! You can't rewrite Kennedy's right university speech. That's not the point. You can't rewrite it. I told you.

When I said, why do we have Brian Blessed on, you said, because he is there. When I said, why do we have Brian Blessed on, you said, because he is there! As a result of this speech, they went to the moon! Oh, say it! Sir, as written! I don't know where to put my face.

It's just worse than have I got news for you. We thought it'd be a beautiful lyrical ending to the show when the great actor Brian Blessed spoke the words of John F Kennedy. Well, space is there and we're going to climb it and the moon and the planets are there and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there and therefore we set sail. As we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and gracious adventure

on which man has ever embarked. Ladies and gentlemen, you go for it. And don't let the bastards grind you down! Goodbye! You can hear this recording in full at 4.30 during the school run on Radio 4. LAUGHTER If you've enjoyed this programme, you might like to try other Radio 4 podcasts, including Start the Week, lively discussions chaired by Andrew Marr, and a weekly highlight from Radio 4's evening arts programme, Front Row.

To find out more, visit bbc.co.uk slash radio4. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey gooey and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. In our new podcast, Nature Answers, rural stories from a changing planet. We are traveling with you to Uganda and Ghana to meet the people on the front lines of climate change. We will share stories of how they are thriving using lessons learned from nature. And good news, it is working. Learn more by listening to Nature Answers

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