This
news story worries me slightly.
The science minister seems to believe that its a good strategy to increase the profile of science by essentially buying into the cult of fame and getting us a nice figure head for "the kids" to identify with.
As a result I'm forced to question if the minister has ever seen the "Entertainment News" of any website. Allow me to highlight how this would go down:
1) British astronaut acquired
2) Government and slimy men in pin-striped suits who describe themselves as "Advertising Executives" spend more money than it took to get him/her into space, getting them into "Heat" magazine.
3) Impressionable children fail miserably to be impressed
4) The "Figure Head of Science" becomes increasingly a caricature of him/her self until they eventually have some form of personality crisis leading to a much publicised check in at a rehab centre.
5) The "Daily Mail" declares that it always suspected that those science types were no good and starts campaigning for the removal of anything rational from the national curriculum that would mean people would do anything other than blindly panic at the next health scare published by Dr Shit-For-Brains at the "Desperate for Cash Institute For Making Unfounded Claims Based on Dodgy Statistics".
6) The police round up science types and try to kill them with fatal doses of homeopathic poisons. When these fail to work, the national institute of homeopaths will claim that scientists "aren't like us" and have us drowned. We are strangely grateful.
