How is space changing Earth?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2019
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many nations have now entered the space race. China first sent a man into space in 2003 and in the last few months made a successful, unmanned, landing on the far side of the moon. This was a world first. India has its own record. A few years ago it launched more satellites into space, in one go, than any other nation. Nigeria is talking about sending an astronaut into space. And Kyrgyzstan is developing its first satellite, built entirely by female engineers. The Inquiry explores what lies behind all this activity. Is the power of national prestige giving way to different goals; education, economic progress and human rights?
Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Rosamund Jones
This programme was originally broadcast on March 28th 2019.
Image Credit: Getty Creative
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello Patrick here from 30 Animals that Made Us Smarter. |
| 0:03.2 | Sorry for interrupting but I wanted you to know that we've just launched a brand new season of 50 things that made the modern economy |
| 0:09.8 | along with my brand new podcast. Check them out when you finish this one. |
| 0:14.0 | Bye. |
| 0:15.0 | This is the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me, Kavita Puri. |
| 0:23.8 | Each week, one question, four expert witnesses, |
| 0:28.8 | and an answer. |
| 0:40.0 | It's January 2019. We're in space and a closely guarded mission is underway. A spacecraft, hundreds of thousands of kilometers from Earth, has selected a flat area of the |
| 0:47.8 | Moon and is beginning a slow vertical descent. It lands softly on a crater, a crater believed to date back to the moon's |
| 0:57.8 | origin. A rover carrying tools explores the lunar soil. |
| 1:03.0 | This is the South Pole Aitken Basin. |
| 1:07.0 | It's on the far side of the moon. |
| 1:10.0 | It's the first time any man-made object has landed there on the bit we never see from Earth. |
| 1:21.0 | It's uncharted territory. The spacecraft is Chinese. An image of |
| 1:28.7 | it landing is now beamed across the world. Chinese state media said the mission quote |
| 1:34.8 | lifted the mysterious veil from the moon's far reaches and was the start of a new era |
| 1:40.0 | of human lunar exploration. That's no understatement. Space has long been the place |
| 1:49.4 | where countries show their ambitions. During the Cold War, the USSR and America bide for preeminence up there, |
| 1:58.0 | as well as back down here on Earth. |
| 2:01.0 | But there are less starry ways space technology impacts our planet and they're |
| 2:06.2 | really quite surprising. So this week we ask how is space changing earth? |
| 2:15.0 | Part one, the East is red. is But witness is Christoph Beisheel from the Institute of Space Policy and Law in London. |
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