From Meghann Mears
Having just read your special on lunar science, I find myself horrified by the money being poured into projects that are unsustainable and irrelevant in comparison with the good that the money could do here on Earth (1 April, p 32). It is not only space science that is guilty: I often find myself wondering whether the returns in terms of benefits to humans or the planet can justify the resources put into projects such as particle colliders.
I do not presume to say what science is worthy of being pursued, but it seems obvious we have more critical problems to solve, notably improving people’s quality of life and minimising our impact on the planet. The amount of money that WHO projects, for example, require to tackle some of them is minute compared with NASA’s billions.
Space travel in its present form promotes unsustainability. Perhaps we need to re-examine the priorities of today’s science if we want to preserve our dreams of future possibilities.
Sheffield, UK
