posted 11-13-2006 03:12 PM               

Then again they (the young) missed out on man's first footsteps on the Moon; however they do now have the chance to contribute towards the 'Return to The Moon' and onward to Mars...exciting times ahead.

Those of us of a certain age can be grateful to have witnessed the first events and if they get their fingers out the next great age (s) of spaceflight.

Continuing between these great events are the missions that make the next steps possible, shuttles, space stations, long duration spaceflights, experimentation and the accumulation of knowledge and understanding, the honing (often through trial, error and sacrifice) of the skills, processes and procedures required to make our next steps into the cosmos possible.

This leads nicely into the highlight of Sunday for me 'Sergei Krikalev'. Great presentations, an obvious in-depth knowledge of spaceflight today and tomorrow and a living example of a very modest man who takes major accomplishment in his stride.
He explained on his first mission the apprehension he felt when he and Cosmonaut Volkov were left behind on the Mir and only then realised the enormity of the responsibility of caretaking a space station (which of course was a national treasure). He explained that although ground control were in charge/control for the most part should something go wrong it would come down to split second decisions made in space by humans. This was one of the many reasons he cited for manned exploration and that the best route forward was a combination of both manned flights and robotic/automated methods of achieving objectives.

With 17 years between his first and last mission� so far (803 days in space in total), he had seen changes to the Earth some natural but mostly man made, the smoke plumes thousands of kilometres long from the burning oil wells in the Middle East, the melting snow cap on Mt. Kilimanjaro and the increasing awareness of the fragility of the thin layer of atmosphere around the planet on which we all depend.
Well done UKSEDS, well done National Space Centre, well done Sergei.
Nick
Spaceman
West Midlands