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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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The Long View

Factual: History

History series in which stories from the past shed light on current events

Jonathan Freedland presents the series in which stories from the past are compared with current events.

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The Long View: HMS Challenger and the Space Shuttle

HMS Challenger and the Space Shuttle

12/07/2011

BBC Radio 4 - The Long View, HMS Challenger and the Space Shuttle

Jonathan Freedland takes the long view of the end of the space shuttle.

Jonathan Freedland compares the end of the shuttle programme with the decommissioning of the 1872 British oceanographic survey HMS Challenger.

Jonathan Freedland compares the end of the US Space Shuttle programme with the decommissioning of the British oceanographic survey HMS Challenger in 1876. 

As the final US Space Shuttle mission blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Jonathan Freedland compares the end of the shuttle programme with the decommissioning of the 1872 British oceanographic survey HMS Challenger. The very boat after which the shuttle, Challenger, was named. 

It's a story of high adventure at the farthest reaches of the known world but also a lesson in the way that super powers use state money, military prerogatives and scientific research to project power and influence. 

Challenger was a British Oceanographic mission that sailed from 1872-76. It was designed to chart the depths of the oceans and assess the currents more accurately. This was a vital aid to the efficient global navigation of British warships and trade vessels. Hugely successful on its own terms it was scrapped by the treasury on the grounds of cost. But its work is the foundation stone of modern oceanography. 

Producer: James Cook.

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