Life & Faith

An aerospace engineer and an astrogeologist discuss the whether and why of space exploration. --------- "For all these wonderful technologies, for all these incredible achievements that you see – rockets that can be reused, drones that can fly long missions, every discovery by the Hubble or the Kepler – there’s this realisation that when all the really, really good stuff comes along, I’m going to be dead." When James Garth was a young, budding aerospace engineer, he came across an ad in his copy of Aviation Week that read: "In 200 years, space flight will be routine. You, however, will be dead." It was an existential-angst-inducing moment. But it hasn’t kept him from being constantly excited about the work he gets to do now. "My main job is to make sure the wings don’t fall off – if the wings fall off, it’s a bad day, and if the wing stays on, it’s a good day," James says. He’s not being flippant – the wings of an aircraft, he explains, are designed to not fall off, of course, but only just. "Aerospace is a r