A Waste of Space

A couple of pensioners took off for Cape Canaveral the other day, as reported in the local Halifax papers. Philip and Sandra Lomas of Brier Hey Close, Mytholmroyd are getting the red carpet treatment over at NASA, where they are going to watch their son-in-law blast off in the Space Shuttle. Just to wave him off, give him a packed lunch, make sure his helmet's on straight...

It was supposed to happen today, but NASA have put the flight back - Hurricane Lili is heading full tilt for Houston Texas, where NASA keeps its mission control and they don't want to take any chances of the boffins getting blown away mid-mission.

The bloke in question, Piers Sellers, married to a lass from Hebden Bridge, is actually a Brit. He's had a north eye on being an Astronaut since he was a kid - he was mesmerised by all the space-race hoo-ha and bought into the dream early. As soon as he could he put his name down. In 1984. At the young funky age of 47 he finally gets the call.

They reckon that you can't turn up at the NASA gates and jump into the nearest space suit any easier than you could 30 years ago. The European Space Agency have stopped recruiting, and even NASA has a freeze on rookies till 2005. It turns out the only right stuff you need to get up into space these days is cash money. Shedloads of the stuff.

Michael Tito, a rich American businessman, flashed the cash to the Russian Star City Space Center lot and bought himself a trip on a Soyuz. Poor old NASA meanwhile is having to concentrate on building the hugely expensive International Space Center. It's up to its 11 layered teflon coated armpits in PhD'd uber-bores who have about as much charisma as a tin of baked beans. The Ruskies for a while at least had a bone-fide pop superstar hogging all the publicity.

If Lance Bass, one of the ugly sisters from too-big boy band N-Sync, had made it as far as the Kazakhstan launch pad he would have been the youngest ever astronaut and would have raised the profile of this massively expensive toy set in the States, and taxpayers would be more likely to say - Gwan, dudes, waste another trillion dollars, I'm enjoying this!" When was the last time little girls screamed at an Astronaut?

Trouble was, the lad was sent home with his tail between his legs after it turned out he didn't have the cash stash to pay for the ticket. "That'll be $20 million, sonny, and no talking to the driver." So the whole pop star in outer space thing is not going to happen and we can all turn over and watch Star Wars instead.

If Hurricane Lili spares the NASA controllers and Piers Sellers does get up there to break the space walk record, he'll be the third British born Astronaut to make it to the stratosphere. I say British born because the little snag with NASA and the Space Programme is they do a passport check at the gates. Michael Foale - veteran of about a zillion space shuttle launches and 134 days floating around inside MIR watching paint dry - has dual citizenship thanks to his American mum. He's best remembered for his post MIR press conference with a dirty great USA baseball hat plonked on his head. Greg Rusedski in reverse.

Which leaves Sheffield lass Helen Sharman , the original Girl from Mars (where she worked testing choc bars), as sole British passport holder to ever make it past security and up to the launchpad. And she had to do it via the Russians where she was zapped up in a Soyuz TM12 one May day in 1991 for a week on MIR.

Our new Astro-nut Piers Sellers has been a US citizen since 1991. He's had a twenty five year wait in the queue and had to turn native to get onto the shortlist. But he did it. He's going to be up there attaching solar panels and will be making three space walks before coming back down to earth. You get the impression that he'll be grinning all the way through it, as the dream of a kid from Sussex finally becomes reality.

On the tour of Cape Canaveral I was romping around the place like I was a nine year old. Actually getting strapped intoone of those things, with those massive tanks of hydrogen propelling you skyward, must be the ultimate blast. It may be too much to ask for him to be flying a flag for England when he faces the cameras - after Michael Foale's patriotic performance expect Yankie Doodle Dandy on a banjo - but you never know.

Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Lomas from Mytholmroyd will be waving from the observation gantry two miles from the launch pad and feeling dead proud - It's going to be a long while before a British family gets this close to the glory again. Unless of course they've got a spare 20 million burning a hole in their pocket and a few months holidays due.

Blogga.