
Tim Peake: UK astronaut heads for space station - jackgavigan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science-environment-34985274
======
dingaling
Spare a thought for Helen Sharman, _actually_ the first British-born astronaut
who ascended to Mir in May 1991 in the 'pre-Twitter' era.

Even wore a Union Flag arm-patch...

[http://www.americaspace.com/?p=35932](http://www.americaspace.com/?p=35932)

~~~
eponeponepon
In fairness, most of the coverage I've seen (at least in reputable
publications) has been very clear that he's the first British citizen on board
the ISS, rather than the first British astronaut. I'm sure that won't stop
half the country reading the headlines and getting the wrong idea, but hey ho.

~~~
bofussing
Michael Foale (dual American and British Citizen) was on the Internation Space
Station in 2003. He still holds the cumulative-time-in-space record for a UK
citizen. He was a NASA astronaut whilst on the ISS.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foale)

------
lamby
If space travel can teach us anything, it's that broadcasting the specific
patch of ground you were born in is a ridiculous, tribalistic contrivance.

~~~
benten10
As long as we are at it, for sarcasm purposes, I'll generalize it further:

If anything can teach us anything, any kind of identity is a ridiculous
contrivance.

But. We're humans. Our different identities make us feel the 'special
snowflakes' that we really aren't, to allow us our sanity to get day-to-day
job done. Regional identities are PARTICULARLY useful, as they help unite
groups of people who share a common history, traditional, and cultural memory.
Not to mention, them having a common identity creates peace and harmony within
a geographical region and lets them work as a team [with people who perhaps
don't share ANYTHING with them except the geography].

Any of the identities you have (religion? 'technie'? some sort of sci-fi fan?)
can be just as equally attacked, with equal pointless gains. Of all your
identities, I would argue your geographical one would STILL be the
strongest/be benefitting you the most, regardless of how much an irrelevant
contrivance you consider it to be.

Communication/technology has not erased geographical boundaries: it has just
made more people desire the same boundaries (ie, shown how some places are
more desirable). Discounting 'the specific patch of ground you were born in'
is an _incredibly_ privileged and individualistic way of seeing things.

Your words reek of the techno-liberto-utopianism that completely disregards
history and social context, and discounts the fact that we are, after all,
humans, not ideal machines who ought to not get carried away by those dang
namby-pamby emotions.

~~~
cjbprime
Jeez, defending nationalism on _privilege_ grounds is pretty tough.

I live in the US (NYC), which means that various government agencies think
that the life of someone like me is worth around $5M -- that's the price
they're willing to spend to save one statistical life when evaluating
policies.

Three thousand miles away in California, the same is true.

Go a similar distance the other direction, to Senegal, and the Against Malaria
Foundation thinks it can save lives for $3000 per life, with plenty of room
for more funding and lives to save.

And of course, those people aren't allowed to move to the US. The patch of
land they were born in isn't merely "irrelevant"; it's much worse than that.

How is any of this morally defensible, and how is it wrong to call it out as
arbitrary and unfair? It's not even like I know these people in California or
share geography with them in any meaningful sense.

~~~
LesZedCB
I think the privilege that they were referring to is how most of us here are
likely from a developed country with a strong economy and high quality of
life, and therefore have little fear of loosing our cultural heritage. We are
quick to dismiss cultural diversity as trivial and meaningless because
countries like the US are such a broad cultural mix, but often most of the
population never has to experience either their culture being taken away from
them, them being forced to move, or them being colonized.

Because of that, people don't understand what it is like to experience
colonization or cultural integration. As benten10 said, regional identities
are usually convenient wrappers for same culture. People will embrace their
place of origin because it is _home_ in the deepest most human sense of the
word.

However, because we desire to remove the labels of regional similarity (you
used nationalism, presumably with the intention of it being a loaded word),
doesn't mean that others feel the same way. It is the privilege that we have
that we feel comfortable from our place of _relative cultural safety_ that we
don't have to be afraid of loosing the things that we feel are valuable to us.

------
MarcScott
And two Raspberry Pi computers are awaiting him on the ISS, running code
written by British school children.

------
eljayuu
Proud to be British today. I think Space X are due to launch again soon,
looking forward to seeing a successful dragon 9 landing.

~~~
imdsm
Looking at potentially Saturday for a launch last I heard

------
osullivj
I saw the Cosmonauts expo [1] at the Science Museum a few weeks back; strongly
recommended if you're interested in the Soviet space programme and are in
London. The expo includes a real Soyuz capsule and onboard computer. I'll be
tuning in at 7pm tonight to see the Soyuz dock with the ISS.

[1]
[http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/...](http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/cosmonauts.aspx)

------
imdsm
For anyone who missed it, here is some coverage:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6q3l_1oY-0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6q3l_1oY-0)

------
deepnet
'fleet forever !

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dan-Dare-Spacefleet-Operations-
Works...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dan-Dare-Spacefleet-Operations-
Workshop/dp/0857332864)

Congratulations.

------
linker3000
My son is delighted; he attends the same school as did Tim Peake and today
there are a number of special, in-house activities surrounding the launch. An
hour or so ago, he sent me a text message to say he'd been on live radio!

~~~
jackgavigan
Looks like the BCC TV cameras were there too:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-
environment-35104825](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35104825)

------
afsina
Space station will get the heads of UK astronauts? That's terrible.

