§ 2.36 p.m.
§ LORD FRASER OF LONSDALEMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their attention has been called to Professor Lovell's remark, when addressing the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh on 27th May, that "Priority in space exploration should be given to biologists so that they could find out whether any form of life exists on other planets"; and whether, having regard to the answer given to him by the Lord Privy Seal and Minister for Science on 11th June, 1959, they will state whether any further thought has been given towards directing British efforts to inquiry about other worlds, rather than shooting at them.]
§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)My Lords, I have seen newspaper reports of Professor Lovell's interesting remarks on the occasion mentioned in the Question. Professor Lovell was voicing the opinion (which is, I believe, shared by many scientists) that in our exploration of space we shall soon be reaching the point at which it will be necessary to give some priority to biological problems and, in particular, to the avoidance of contamination of celestial bodies by living organisms originating on earth.
As to the second part of the Question, the position has not changed since I answered my noble friend's Question on 1006 the subject on June 11, 1959. The United Kingdom's space research programme is at present limited to experiments using sounding rockets and artificial earth satellites; the use of lunar or planetary probes is unlikely to form part of this programme, at any rate for some years to come.
§ LORD FRASER OF LONSDALEMy Lords, does my noble friend call to mind the term of art, which probably he and I used at our prep, schools, called "copycat", and does he not think it unwise that Britain, with her great traditions, should follow the Russians and the Americans in a field in which we are unlikely to be able to compete effectively in view of our limited resources, rather than to take a line of our own and see what we can find out about outer space, especially having regard to the view expressed by many scientists that this inquiry should have priority?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy noble friend is, I think, misinformed. The one thing we are not doing is to copy the Americans and the Russians, who are both indulging in lunar and planetary probes to some extent. The term which my noble friend called a term of art is, therefore, not really applicable to our programme, which, so far as I am aware, does not duplicate any work that is being done by either the Russians or the Americans.