The Beeb is covering Antarctic lesson plans in UK schools, which are kinda cool. This also ties into The Big Experiment on Discovery Channel…

it’s great to see and anything which encourages more kids to take up careers in Science and Technology is a good thing, but I had not even heard that it was national science week… and I visited a school last week!!

It’s just all too familiar. The UK has an incredible place in the world of science, yet we squander every opportunity to build on that position.

Jules Verne launched today – and absolutely spectacular it was. In amongst the announcement is the big expansion going on at Kourou, ESA’s space port – to help keep up with the massive expansion of business: over 1 BILLION Euro last year alone.

It’s yet another glaring slap in the face for those people who carp on about spending on space and science programs in general, saying we should spend the money on things like the NHS.

France and the UK are the perfect point in case – Britain cancelled our space program back in the sixties opting to spend the money on the NHS instead, whilst the French persevered.

Forty odd years later, France has a lucrative satellite launch industry worth hundreds of millions a year… AND a better health service than us.

When we spend on basic research and high technology, the returns are enormous – the problem being that governments are simply too short sighted.