The British astronaut’s journey into orbit is a reminder of the noble human purpose of space exploration outlined in the outer space treaty of 1967Tim Peake’s thrilling takeoff and journey to the International Space Station today was both a pioneering voyage to the stars for an individual Briton and a collective trip down memory lane for those who remember the glory days of the space programme. Manned spaceflight is hardly commonplace,but more than 540 people from more than three dozen nations have now orbited the soil since YuriGagarin in 1961, notching up more than 129 years of space travel between them. Mr Peake isn’t even the first British astronaut to be whizzing around the planet at 17, and 500mph,but the seventh UK-born space traveller, although he is the first whose journey has been paid for by the UK taxpayer.
And yet, or however often it has been done before,however long it is since the peak of the Apollo programme, however much we may debate where space travel properly stands in the hierarchy of the human race’s priorities, or however much we may show ourselves that machine not human spaceflight is what truly breaches the final frontier,there is still something wonderful and inspiring about what Mr Peake did today. To slip the surly bonds of soil in a rocket is something most of us would not dream of doing. Yet when one of us does what Mr Peake did today, some share of all of us still goes with him.
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Source: theguardian.com