Space travel 'too pricy'

A large majority of leading researchers believe human space exploration is scientifically worthwhile but costs too much, a survey has shown.

Almost 80% of 800 scientists polled in the run-up to the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings thought there were good research reasons for sending people into space.

An even greater proportion believed wide-ranging fields of science had benefited to some degree from human space flight, and nearly 90% felt it inspired younger generations.

A total of 62% of Americans and 83% of Europeans rated their own governments' expenditure on human spaceflight as "about right", demonstrating a broad level of support.

But it was a different story when they were asked about priorities.

Around 80% of those questioned said they would welcome a shift in spending from manned to unmanned missions, and 70% were in favour of diverting cash to other areas of scientific research.

The poll was carried out by the scientific journal Nature, which contacted 800 researchers from fields as diverse as physics, astronomy, life sciences and engineering. All had seen work published in Nature in the past three years, making them leaders in their fields.

Half said the Apollo missions, which carried men to the Moon in what was arguably the greatest scientific adventure in human history, inspired them to pursue science. It was Apollo 11 that carried out the first moon landing on July 20, 1969 and the last manned landing was by Apollo 17 in December 1972.

Now the American space agency Nasa and the European Space Agency (Esa) plan to send astronauts back to the Moon and ultimately on to Mars. In the current financial year, Nasa will pour 9.7 billion US dollars (£6bn) into human spaceflight-related activities, roughly half the agency's 18.7 billion dollar (£11.5bn) budget.

Esa allocates only 481 million Euros (£413m), or 13% of its 3.6 billion euro (£3bn) budget, to human spaceflight.

(Agencies)