[rob74]

I wasn't aware of it until now, and I was surprised to find out that it took until 1991 for a Briton to fly to space - and with the Russians/Soviets no less, not with the Americans. But, if you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_space_travel_by_na..., it looks like the Soviets recognized the propaganda value of giving a ride into space to citizens of "allied" nations (putting it in quotes because the Eastern European nations weren't really given the choice if they wanted to be USSR allies or not) much earlier than the Americans. When the US took West German Ulf Mehrbold into space with them in 1983, the Soviets had already done the same for ten (!) foreign nationals, including East German Sigmund Jähn in 1978 and Frenchman Jean-Loup Chrétien in 1982.

OK, to be fair, the US simply didn't have any crewed space launches between 1975 and 1981, that probably goes a long way to explaining this disparity. But still, once they started taking foreign citizens with them, I would have thought that Britain would be among the first on that list. Between 1984 and 1985 there were a Canadian, a Saudi, someone from the Netherlands and a Mexican, and then there was a long pause until 1992, presumably because of the Challenger disaster.

[nickdothutton]

Brits more or less completely abandoned space in any meaningful way. Successive governments didn't value it at all in comparison to other areas of policy. Even after we developed our own independent orbital launch capability. The story is much the same today, a couple of satellite companies, very little real primary capability. Our "spaceports" are mostly artist impressions or computer generated imagery. Meanwhile we will spend £250b annually on the health service by 2028, up from £45b in 2000.

[celticninja]

What is the point re the health service? We should be enriching people like musk instead of looking after the health of citizens? We spend money on loads of stuff just wondering why you think the NHS needs to be singled out as if it is using resources that could be used to find space exploration/launches.

[nradov]

Healthcare is a bottomless pit. Demand is effectively infinite so no amount of funding will ever be enough. That's not to say we should eliminate it, but there has to be a balance. We shouldn't dump so many resources into healthcare that it strangles other sectors like space launch that are pushing human society forward for the long term. Whether that enriches certain individuals or not is completely irrelevant.

And you present a false choice. No matter what it does, the NHS can only ever have a relatively minor impact on the health of UK citizens. In terms of lifespan — and more importantly healthspan — it's less significant than lifestyle factors: exercise, diet, substance abuse, sleep hygiene, violence, toxin exposure, etc.

[wat10000]

The listed figure is about 3,500£ per year per person. Seems quite low for what it is.

For comparison, the US government spends something like $5,500 per year per person on health care, and doesn't come even remotely close to covering the entire population with that spending.

[nradov]

OK, so what? The US also has a much higher GDP per capital and is the world leader in pretty much everything related to space. If the UK wants to avoid being left behind then they need to adjust priorities. Or they can stick with stagnation.

[wat10000]

The point is that this "bottomless pit" you describe is not actually very expensive in practice. You imply that too much is spent on the NHS. Based on what?

[cs02rm0]

The NHS consumes about half of all day to day public service spending. It is singular in its ability to suck spending out of UK government.

[dtf]

That seems like a lot. Can I ask where you got that figure? Is "day-to-day" denoting some kind of specific budget?

I just tried to Google it and their AI responded with "The NHS and social care account for roughly half (49%) of all day-to-day public service spending controlled by the Westminster government.", linking me to a report from the The King's Fund [1].

But on reading that report, it seems to say only that 49.5% is the cost of staffing the NHS from its own budget, which it states as £205 billion in 2024/25 - that's more like 20% of the year's public spending [2]. Which seems more in line with what I had assumed.

[1] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-c...

[2] https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/BriefGuide-M23.pdf

[nickdothutton]

Out of all day to day government spending on services (health, schools, police, courts, etc), the NHS consumes about 40% of departmental expenditure limits [1]. Although it is pre-covid and the picture has worsened significantly since then, this BBC article is quite good too at examining the different figures [2].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-sta... (Diagram in section 2.2) [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42572110

[cs02rm0]

It was widely covered at the time of the Spending Review last year, based on government figures.

Day-to-day is the routine, required cost of running the state, without long term infrastructure spending.

[cjrp]

How much of that comes right back to the government, in the form of tax income?

[cs02rm0]

I'd imagine a similar ballpark to any other day-to-day government spending. It might affect perception around the absolute number on the balance sheet, but it won't significantly affect the proportion of spending.

[badgersnake]

That’s the second C-suite I’ve seen on here today posting about how your entitlement to things should be directly proportional to your wealth.

Has a new memo gone out? Have we moved on from AI to ultracapitalism as the c-suite talking point?

[nephihaha]

The Soviets picked up on this early on. They got the first woman into space long before the USA did. First black man and east Asian too. They took quite a few people from eastern bloc countries including Cuba and East Germany (which is mentioned in the film "Goodbye Lenin".)

[avmich]

First remotely-Turkish descent person in space was Andriyan Nikolaev, the third Soviet cosmonaut (and the husband of Valentina Tereshkova).

[TMWNN]

>But still, once they started taking foreign citizens with them, I would have thought that Britain would be among the first on that list. Between 1984 and 1985 there were a Canadian, a Saudi, someone from the Netherlands and a Mexican, and then there was a long pause until 1992, presumably because of the Challenger disaster.

Without the loss of Challenger, a Briton would have flown in space on the shuttle in the 1980s. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_(satellite)>

[nephihaha]

I'm sure they had a West German as well, in response to East Germans being taken up by the USSR. I may be wrong.

[throawayonthe]

> the Eastern European nations weren't really given the choice if they wanted to be USSR allies

that's generally how alliances work, out of necessity...

[goodcanadian]

Canada effectively bought its participation in the US space program with Canadarm.

[neom]

Not feeling particularly charitable to your country folk this morning eh Good Canadian? The US didn't include Canada in the shuttle program as a favor or because Canada wrote a check, they included Canada because the technology was excellent and necessary. Canada had world class engineering skills at that time, and was invited by NSAS to participate. I don't think we bought our way on, I think our country happened to have an ounce of ambitions during that period and we preformed incredibly well.

https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/evenement-event/...

[goodcanadian]

I did not mean for it to be taken as uncharitable. I am extremely proud of Canada's contribution. My point was more that even when foreign nationals were included, the U.S. did not hand out seats for propaganda reasons. There was a quid pro quo.

[another-dave]

Exactly like the article describes Britain doing with the Soviets - " At the time the British government wasn't involved in space exploration, so paying for a spot on a flight was the only way to get there."