argued that it is time to shift our models of learning. Edward Purcell provides an interesting corrective to our view about travel and experience.

Suppose you took a child into an art museum and he wanted to feel the pictures – you would say, ‘That isn’t what we do, we stand back and look at the pictures and try to understand them. We can learn more about them that way’.

(Purcell, 1980: 196)

This could be a useful way of redirecting our ideas about space travel. Scientists who are currently involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence are convinced that intelligent beings will explore the universe, not with spacecraft but by means of data exchange.

There are, of course, limits to Purcell’s analogy; the child or art student may come to appreciate the paintings by standing back and admiring them, but there is no substitute experience other than actually being in the presence of great works of art. Knowledge of the great works of art requires direct confrontation: photographs, films and forms of electronic data exchange are very inferior media for aesthetic experience.

It might be argued, however, that our need for direct confrontation is merely because existing levels of technology provide inadequate representations, but with a vastly improved technology, direct experience would not be required. For example, probes could be sent out to space, bearing a very advanced form of an electronic equivalent to our senses, and the information so derived could be directly relayed to us. Would, for example, this ‘virtual’ experience of another planet be fundamentally different to an actual visit to the planet in question? Could human exploration be replaced by robot space probes, which would in effect be an extension of our senses? The objection is that many major technical breakthroughs would be required before these virtual simulations could be perfected. This raises philosophical questions concerning the amount of perfection that is required to transform virtuality into actuality. Is there such a thing as a perfect VR sim; that is, a perfect simulation of our five senses working together, or is it a conceptual impossibility? This is not the kind of question that can be resolved with reference to telescopes and microscopes, where technology greatly enhanced our perceptual experience, but it is a question concerning a major reappraisal of our concepts of experience, sensation and knowledge.

Before we allow ourselves to be carried too far on the promise of information technology we should remember that the inhabitants of Earth face wars and civil unrest as well as shortages of material resources, and the potential destruction of the Earth’s ecological balance. These problems will not be solved by increasing our capacity to transfer information across the galaxy. While there are many proposals to avoid the potential environmental catastrophes – recycling and environmental protection schemes – there is still the dream of escape from a tired and self-destructive world. Many people still yearn for a return to

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nineteenth-century expansionism and colonization – maybe next time we might not repeat the mistakes of our forefathers but expand with humility and respect for the universe.

Notorious setbacks, such as the loss of contact with the Mars Observer satellite in 1993; the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1998 and the Mars Polar Lander in 1999, were high profile disappointments, revealing huge system and management errors, including the catastrophic fouling up of English and metric units in the case of the Mars Climate Orbiter. Critics have also blamed NASA’s ‘faster, better, cheaper’ policy which may herald a withdrawal from some ambitious space projects. Meanwhile, space science has no alternative in an era of cost-containment government control and the absence of competitive stimulation after the Cold War. But failures will not deter space exploration; and it has been argued that the faster, better, cheaper policy allows for a quicker response to failures and successes and that the overall Mars programme is sufficiently robust to cope with failures and adapt to changes. The Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander has been cancelled and NASA is re-examining plans for the 2003 Lander and Sample Return. Missions planned for 2005 and beyond are likely to suffer delays but it is hoped that NASA will learn from past disappointments. Failures will not deter space exploration. The hunt for evidence of former life on Mars has given a significant impetus to exploration and, during the next few years, numerous attempts to explore Mars and other solar planets are inevitable.

In many respects it is lack of funding rather than scientific imagination which prohibits further developments in space exploration. There are advanced plans for Moon bases, manned flights to Mars, permanently occupied space stations and colonies. There is no shortage of proposals, most of which do not require unheard of scientific breakthroughs. Although the costs of space exploration are massive, the current expenditure is relatively small. The annual NASA budget, for example, is less than two weeks of US defence expenditure.

With present technology it is obviously less expensive to explore the galaxy with microwaves, than with spaceships. But maybe these options are not mutually exclusive. Projects are being considered for human settlements in space and possibly on the Moon and Mars, and more economic methods of space flight are under discussion. Nevertheless, space scientists are very much their own worst enemy. Space exploration has been intimately linked to systems for delivering atomic weapons; and BION II proposals to return to the practice of sending primates into space have triggered widespread protests which have damaged the image of another generation of space scientists. There were widespread protests after a monkey, named ‘Mutlik’, died on 8 January 1997 in Moscow after returning from a 14-day space mission. It died following surgery to remove electrodes that had been implanted in its body before flight. The bad habit of torturing animals for minimal scientific gain is hard to break and costly projects facing well-organized public dissatisfaction may not survive.

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