Human Spaceflight: is it Worth the Money and Risk?

As the Science Museum celebrates the birth of the Space Age with its landmark Cosmonauts exhibition, our Director of External Affairs Roger Highfield hosts a discussion with the UK's first astronaut Helen Sharman, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees, The Sky at Night's Chris Lintott and Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University.

Does the low cost and practicality of robotic probes now outweigh the inspirational value of seeing human beings voyage across the solar system, or does the future of our species lie in space, as Russia’s Cosmists believed more than a century ago?

This debate on the relative values of crewed and uncrewed space exploration is presented in partnership with the Royal Society.