Tory space minister mixes up Mars and the Sun

Sign up for the View from Westminster e-mail for skilled evaluation straight to your inbox

Get our free View from Westminster e-mail

The Conservative space minister has apparently confused Mars with the Sun.

Andrew Griffith, who has been in cost of the space sector since November, additionally mistook Jupiter for Saturn.

On a stroll round the Science Museum in London, Mr Griffith pointed to an exhibit exhibiting the surfaces of various planets, the House journal reported. “Now we have got Mars,” he mentioned, earlier than being instructed by a member of museum workers that it was really the Sun.

He went on to say “that one is Saturn”, after the show modified, earlier than the worker mentioned “no, no, that is Jupiter”, in response to the journal.

Insisting he’s studying on the job as space minister, he mentioned: “I’m not an encyclopaedia.”

In an interview with the House, Mr Griffith additionally mentioned he wouldn’t wish to go to space, saying it’s a “fascinating” however one “for other people”.

He mentioned: “Would I want to be the first minister in space? I think the whole idea of space exploration is fascinating.

“It’s enormously good that people like Tim Peake and others do that, but I’m very respectful of the amount of proficiency that goes into that.”

When pressed on whether or not he would go up into the stratosphere, he replied: “That’s for other people.”

A yr on from the failure of Britain’s first rocket launch, Mr Griffith insisted that the UK “is a great spacefaring nation”.

He added: “We’re one of about half a dozen countries in the world that have got real credibility in space.”

The former funding banker and businessman mentioned that to ensure that people to colonise Mars, “you’re going to need a lot of the British research and innovation that we’re funding right now”.

Peregrine Mission One, which was the first American try to land on the Moon in 50 years, was carrying an instrument constructed by UK scientists earlier than its journey was delivered to an finish by a run of technical issues.

Onboard was the Peregrine Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS), which was developed in the UK by scientists from The Open University (OU) and the Science Technology Facilities Council (STFC) RAL Space – the UK’s nationwide space lab.

The machine was purported to analyse the skinny lunar ambiance in addition to discover out extra about how water is perhaps transferring round the moon.

Discussing the UK’s ambitions for space, Mr Griffith added: ““How do we crowd in private capital alongside the substantial public capital we’re putting in? I think the classic things will be raising awareness. It’s a category that people need to understand,” he says.

“I think having things like a space strategy, which the UK didn’t have until recently, gives people a long-term roadmap so they understand what we’re doing as a government.”