Space ride offered

Press, 9 June 1986, Page 6

Space ride offered

NZPA-AP London The Soviet Union has offered to include Britons on a space flight next year, according to a conservative lawmaker.

An aeronautical engineer, Keith Warren, who went to the Soviet Union last month with a parliamentary delegation headed by the Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Whitelaw, said the offer was made by the head of the Soviet space programme, General Georgy Beregovoy. He said that the offer came when the delegation visited a space centre near Moscow and General Beregovoy was showing his guests photographs of cosmonauts from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, India and Cuba who went into space on Soviet rockets. Mr Warren said General Beregovoy said, “Well, here’s the space on the wall for the picture of the next crew. How about having a Britisher in that crew?” Asked how seriously he thought the offer was meant, Mr Warren replied: “Fifty-fifty. It was straight out of a warm Russian smile.” Mr Warren said he hoped the offer would be accepted. He said it was passed to the Foreign Office and would probably be submitted to the Ministry of Defence this week. Britain has no space rockets of its own, but shares the West European Ariane programme, which so far is limited to putting satellites in orbit.