Floundering on Earth, Unbeaten in Space

The James Webb Telescope is out latest achievement and it once again proves that left the hell alone by politicians, we are at our absolute best when out of their reach.

Everyone who is still alive remembers the American  moon landing.

It was  the 20th of July in 1969 and my then-wife and I were at Jill Reinhold’s home in Highland Park, because they had a huge color television screen. It was great theater and, like Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile in track, the breaking of the space barrier went on to allow six more crewed landings between 1969 and 1972. Break an unbreakable barrier and then see how quickly others break it again.

It’s remarkable the things we can do if politicians stand aside. NASA is government at its best and the United Nations at its worst—the difference is politics.

But the Webb telescope moves the goal-posts by a million miles.

The Hubble telescope, from which we have been getting incredible photographs for decades, orbits the earth at a 340-mile distant …