track people back to spain in terms of holiday makers for example because it's cheaper to go there that's a major issue and just to get the economy moving again i mean when we left the exchange rate mechanism which was the forerunner of the your own britain our economy started getting better and it got stronger and stronger ever since we left that region system that was the precursor to the euro and that's what will happen in all and spain is the only route to these countries actually finding salvations to get out the euro david campbell bannerman thank you very much thank you.

download the official placation joe i phone or my pod touch from the cute stops to . watch on t.v. life on the go. video on demand oxys minefield comes and says feed now in the palm of your. question on the dot com. we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from around the world. we go to the future covered.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operation to rule the day. look. broadcasting live from our studios in central moscow this is our sean thomas with us. pilot error and the psychological pressure the primary causes of the plane crash that killed the polish president and most of the country's political elite as

investigators and deliver a final verdict poland's prime minister has cut short his holiday to examine the report. as the world's most notorious prison in guantanamo bay enters its tenth year protests are held in the u.s. calling on president obama to finally deliver on his promise to shut down rights campaigners claim the detention center is there to hold people indefinitely without trial. and despite spending millions to fight tuberculosis abroad the number of cases in the u.k. reaches a worrying levels with fears that there's no cash to treat outbreaks. are we alone in the universe that's the question that's been on people's minds for centuries today i talked to a leading gator to separate the truth from fiction spotlights next.

hello again and welcome to the spotlight the interview show on our team i'll be involved and today my guest in the studio is claude canning satirist the other day my son asked me if it is true that nasa is planning a one way mission to mars in which unmanned spacecraft will take astronauts to mars and leave them there forever who would sign for up for such and they will and when is this trip going to take place let's ask a man who knows better about outer space principal investigator nasa chandra x. ray observatory called. the chandra x.

ray observatory he's one of the nasser's eyes into space the third of projected for great observatories chandra has been providing scientists with valuable high quality data called ken is an iris is one of those who helped develop and improve the telescope his fear of space expertise is extremely broad you can use it as a member of the national academy of sciences and the international academy of astronautics to name a few no wonder he has overall responsibility for research activity and policy at the massachusetts institute of technology these days claude is one of those who are advising on russia's innovative development as he's been doing recently on a poor and on nanotechnology is in moscow. hello mr curtis as the welcome to the show thank you as opposed to the bank i thank you very much for coming well first of all thank you i want to ask you. when the an author was appointed as head of the un office for outer space affairs it

provoked lots of talk lots of rivers in the media that she was the woman that will be responsible for contacts with the civilizations well the un have course has denied these rumors but but anyway. it is according to scientists according to the united nations officials is a contact with other forms of life getting hooked probabl these days in the years to be. well it's possible but very if it's getting more probable that i would say it's getting more probable very slowly. most strong numbers i think would agree that it's highly likely that somewhere in the universe there are other living creatures and it may even be in our solar system but if so they are much more likely to be microbes than intelligent beings. and if

they do exist they're going to be very very far away and communication over long distances is still extremely difficult even for our so-called advanced civilization so i think that the likelihood of actual communication much less two way communication is very very slight and will be for a very long time well i had a flu last two weeks so i can prove that communication with my colleagues this is a pretty hard oh well so far the only way that people learn to use antibiotics i mean to communicate it might well. that's that's that's also a one way communication was a communication with those you said maybe even in our solar system i was ready to hear and see a cell or system say you mean maurice when you say our cell or system is it is it still the planet at which well looking is a possible place to find. at least microbes yes i think mars is still probably the considered the most likely place in the solar system but there's also jupiter's

moon europa which as far as we can tell it has an icy crust with possibly liquid ocean below and that is another kind of habitat that it conceivably and this is very speculative but conceivably could have some kind of microbial. swell about morse we have a group of people and. in russia that are sitting like in a box getting ready to like simulating a trip to mars and they're really getting ready for for a trip there now and also that thing that they've been started to talk about in america the possibility of sending people one way like even even i saw i think i saw one of the american. news stations in television like a journalist in the street asking people if they will be ready to go to mars and some people say yes there's an out there so how how likely is such an expedition

well of course you scientists would love to to make it happen but how likely is it how likely from a to have a one way in the world having to well i think amount to man trip to mars yes well that's from from the point of view of the long sweep of history it almost seems inevitable that sooner or later humans will be going to mars and we were we are a. species that naturally explores and exploring our own solar system is obviously the next step once we've looked at the planets and we've gone to the moon and mars is the most. logical next stop for us to visit but how soon is entirely different story there are dangers of radiation in. long. interplanetary travel and and there are significant logistical concerns about how to assure that you could get people

there and then bring them back and i think the likelihood of sending a one way. one way travelers is very low. arse our societies in general are not as tolerant of that idea if so we would have already done that for example to a deep ocean trench and we don't do that either so i think i think that's the kind of speculation that. might be fun for. science fiction writers but not so much for actual space real space travelers well actually mars has lately often made news headlines as prospects of flying to the red planet are getting even more real spotlight. reports. six volunteers have already spent five months locked inside a simulated spacecraft imitating a flight to mars a mission to the red planet and back could take five hundred twenty days the

experiment taken place in russia he's an attempt to understand how the human psyche react to being cut off from the rest of the world with limited resources emergency situations are also being staged to see how the team. u.s. researches are at the possibility of astronauts being permanently sent to the red planet to establish a call in the that a one way mission to mars would be easy and cheaper the plans have drawn the response from potential volunteers willing to become martian piny is even at the cost of never see you know us again. it's estimated a flight to mars with a return or one way could happen no there then two thousand then thirty. to have a rocket this could take off again aha so said so if we go to morris if we get to mars one way the problem is the number the amount of feel that we have to to to to take off and to come back that's right but if we send them to

morris and well they are planning to send supplies anyway so what can be said to be sending fuel in small quantities to fill the tank and then gradually and then take off it may then be possible i think that's highly possible and is much more likely than a one way trip ok now judging from what we know from what i know i'm sorry about mars it's not oh it's not a very friendly life friendly planet is a far as we understand it so so so what's the point just just trying to find those microbes away well that's certainly one of the things that scientists would like to find but i think there's also a lot of interest and looking at simply the history of another planet a sister planet to the earth in the solar system mars if it's once was hospitable to life certainly is not now as you say certainly not life on the scale of the human theory that it may have been has that of one yeah well it's pretty clear that

one time it had an atmosphere and one time very likely it had liquid water on the surface and what happened what happened because we certainly like to avoid whatever happened to mars happening to earth whenever i hear scientists speak about life and life forms and out of space they say water like the one water is it well how you absolutely sure that with no water no life. they believe the form of the didn't require we can't be absolutely sure but water is is has appeared to be the main ingredient for all the life forms that we found that we cannot imagine that we can imagine there are life or who maybe that we just can't imagine of course but that only makes it a richer area for study like what about what about life after death i don't think people require water. i think that it was a better world i think that exceeds the level of my expertise anyway i don't think i will go there. ok now closer to home what about colonizing the moon will we be

colonizing the moon what would you say when all of this is all settled for science fiction writers well i don't think it's for science fiction writers right now however there have been many many studies of what could usefully be done by a college having a colony on the moon and while there are certainly are long lists of possibilities none of them have yet proved to be cost effective so including in mining minerals or doing you know astronomy and space studies because it's a very difficult environment but i think outposts occasionally. manned outposts on the moon are will be likely over the next you know maybe thirty forty fifty years not in the next decade or two but you think you think it will happen i think it will happen eventually it's the same impair excess exploration imperative with it as well it's because what you said before is because this this drive that mankind

has for exploration it's a big if we talk in practical terms i think this is and to populate it i mean we have little lots of places to live on earth which we didn't need actually to go to space do we know that's true we certainly don't need to go to space and you don't need to go to the bahamas ever for your vacation would you might choose to do it live you know i would have to go skiing because i think i would have been for the. in those mountains i mean but we did do that yes yes so so. like fifty years you said well maybe twenty thirty fifty years set in this century certainly will become something for us like like the bahamas have been for everyone no i think that's going much further than i would be prepared to say but i think for exploration just the same way we have an outpost now many many countries have outposts at the south pole because there are interesting scientific investigations you can do there and

it's a move that will be coming like the south but yes maybe by the end of the century we're going to come in like the same size cloth kind of is out as a principal investigator. chandra x. ray observatory spotlight will be back shortly right after the break we will continue this and tell yourself stay with us we'll be back in less than a minute. they were tons filled with joy with parades and marches. inspiring people with enthusiasm. but it was everything really that good and was in the latin field to speak out. though she shared her thoughts only with her diary it all became evidence in the trial for counter-revolutionary activity. the

evidence which condemned to a label. the diary of a soviet school on obscene.

welcome back to spotlight just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is claude kind is that is the vice president for research at mit and principal investigator on nasa's chandra x. ray observatory. mr kind is that if you're involved in x. ray astronomy this well may sound a pretty dumb question to you but what is it. with its play that well it's the happy happy to oblige x. rays are very energetic form. of light so from when we look at the universe with a normal telescope you see objects that are about five thousand degrees hot if you look with an x. ray telescope you're looking at things that are maybe ten to one hundred million degrees in texas where he'll actually be in the rays of the razor we are going to

come in there are the archives so we collect the radiation that that is generated in the hot explosive act areas in the universe that comes to us and we collect them with a telescope the same way we collect them from an optical telescope. ok now this should be more accurate than usual astronomy no it's just a different look at the at the universe so we it's like having a filter when you look with visible light you see one piece of the universe when you look with x. rays you see the hot energetic. objects like black holes supernova explosions and in areas where something very violent and energetic is going on ok well i want to talk about this new planet that was due. covered lately it's called the the d.s. five eight one g. you know you're talking about you have to do well according to preliminary reports

. this planet resembles arius more than any other planet ever ever found in the universe by by mankind it's not too hard it's not too cold we'll just do what you propose just to allow water in liquid form to exist there now. then it did do you think according to your feelings that it may it may set sustain life in that place well i don't have any particular reason to suspect that the life is there a nor does i think any astronomer but astronomers for a long time have been a looking for other planets and now there are many that have been found but be looking for those that are in what is called the habitable zone how it was a zone in which as you say it's neither too hot nor too cold well recently if properties in general and the general consensus were in

a general sense so the fact that the that we have found one now and by the way that they've been very difficult to find because the techniques favor finding planets that are much heavier like our jupiter which is not particularly hospitable so. so now the good news is not so much that this is the planet but that the techniques are now such that we are likely to find many more such planets that are much more in the earth like. realm and that's actually very exciting for scientists ok speaking of speculations once again there have been speculations that they may that there may have been some signals coming from that planets is it i have not heard those speculations well how far away is that it's like it's like. i don't remember exactly but it's a number of light years under lawyers is it possible from the point of view of us

of a kind to transmit any sort of signals to to a distance as far as that it's very very difficult it's not inconceivable but very difficult if you take all the energy that's generated on earth and figure out just from the radiation that comes out of our cell phones or radio transmitters. you would have. a very hard time detecting that even from some of the nearest planets that we see if someone were trying to very hard to be man or g. in one direction then one might succeed but that would take a lot of effort on the part of the others to communicate with us so accidental communication is conceivable but it's not easy listen when guys like you watch the sky yes. why do you do that because you just want to learn has truly about the stars about physics that whatever or is it because all of you like little

kids like. this money want to know what to do to to hear that signal that sooner or later somebody out then i personally have never been motivated by that i will say while it's always been intriguing idea i much more motivated by the curiosity of the human curiosity to understand the universe in which we live it's so vast it's actually so remarkable what that life formed that galaxies form that the stars evolve the way they do and as a physicist i just want to understand how the world works and most of the world is not on earth it's mostly the same but if when people speak about x. to astral intelligence should what do they suspect i mean science is that this should be an intelligence much higher civilization much higher than ours or like

the micro see what about what what is what are we. likely to find that let me just say well i don't think there's any question that we're much more likely to find microbes than anything else in fact on earth we're much more likely to find microbes than anything else because they're there they're you know hugely more numerous than the more highly evolved. animals of all kinds. but. again the people who really spend time worrying about this have made many speculations about what kind of. intelligent life might exist at this point it's entirely speculation and so without as a scientist i have to say without more data i'm not comfortable making any speculations on that. many people living on earth including one person that i know and he is he is

a president of one of the republics. composing russia mr kim sun illusionist he claims that he was kidnapped where you have a phone and they spent some time in outer space and then to send kony and even have witnesses his personal security guards to mean three or four people says they witnessed my kidnapping by by a taser and then well. that he was in the studio and he told me the whole story and also there was that causeway you know one of the russian cosmonauts when he was in aerospace years outside the spacecraft and there was that story and he like to tell it when when he lost contact with the ship and it was and he started to drift away from the ship and he felt that force that took him and wanted him back suddenly to the spacecraft well what do you think of that did you believe these stories. you know i think the human mind has a great imaginative quality and it's probably something that has kept us alive

through through many hard times i i'm very skeptical about such stories on the other hand again you know i don't feel comfortable making. pure speculations without fact in every case that i know that's actually been scientifically investigated there has been no evidence this well these things all these fake so what. i can't say i've never examined that creature so i can't tell you but you know what well the interesting thing is is that most of the people we ask they say well we've only seen pictures so there is a belief and then it's rumored that most of the information on the u.f.o.'s if they really were present is classified by government spy by the human eye to nation spatial agency that moscow washington and so on well why do you think this

is possible that this really is classified. i think again it's conceivable but on the other hand history has also shown that most governments have a very hard time keeping any secrets for a very very long time this would be the best kept secret probably in the history of national security across the world. i have a quote a scientist some deny to kingdom stephen hawking it says that advanced extraterrestrial life could conquer and colonise is actually what way thinking about what we're dreaming up to to to find a contact with somebody. if it happens it may be the end of our civilization to believe in that. again that's that's sheer speculation but. you know a truly advanced society would probably have little need of earth so i could it would seem like worth their time to become used to it but that's just speculation

so so so you think they that then if they have a possibility of they have the resources to come to see whatever they would be interested in this planet yeah well i think first of all you have to realize that communicating from one planet to another is extremely difficult that is something that and that is something that we know how to do at the speed of light actually transporting any. body from any mass from one solar system to another is extraordinarily difficult so that the the value added to even go in the first place much less to send the conquering army would seem to me you remote ok now. last question maybe a bad about asteroids how high is a possibility of a collision with a not so i know this is a subject for for another side if i move event but it is

a. possibility well there is a possibility the calculations show that the possibility is very small but there is still an interest and there are now both national and international efforts to at least to catalog all the so-called near earth asteroids that could conceivably be be. threat to earth and i think over the next you know five to ten years we should have a pretty good catalogue and then we'll have a better idea ok so we do have a problem may have a problem but it's under control so i think it's very remote there at this point if you were to make a list of things that might be a threat to humankind looking is higher this would be small think it's much higher and there are many other things of global climate change you know nuclear dangers that would be much higher on the list thank you thank you very much for being with us and just a reminder that my guest in the studio today.