Spaceflight spurs Adelaide astronaut Andrew Thomas to urge action to save Earth’s environment

ANDREW Thomas cherishes the view of Earth from space, yet this privilege has spurred his alarm about the future of our planet.

01/05/15 Former astronaut Andrew Thomas in Wellington Square at North Adelaide. photo Calum Robertson

ANDREW Thomas cherishes the view of Earth from space, yet this privilege has spurred his alarm about the future of our planet.

The former Adelaide astronaut logged more than 177 days in space in four flights over a decade, during which he saw from orbit the havoc being wreaked upon the environment.

From grey smog enveloping swathes of China to urban sprawl overtaking lush Adelaide Hills farmland, these changes have prompted Dr Thomas to urge swift action to protect the environment.

“The train has left the station to the extent that we cannot hold and easily reverse the human created climate consequences,” he told The Advertiser on Friday.

“So what we’re going to have to do is adapt to them, which is going to be an economic challenge.

“ ... We’ve got to stop thinking that economic development that threatens the environment is acceptable.”

Dr Thomas, who on Tuesday will talk to southern suburbs schoolchildren about the benefits of scientific and mathematical study, is now retired on a small Texas ranch being transformed into a wildlife sanctuary.

He and his wife, astronaut and Texan Shannon Walker, have erected a high fence around a 16ha wooded property in the Hills Country, four hours west of Houston.

The couple is trying to keep the area as natural as possible and preserve oak trees, deer and armadillo.

Dr Thomas, 63, is planning an environmentally friendly home to replace the temporary one-bedroom structure there now, which uses rainwater to avoid drawing upon an aquifer depleted from the area’s overuse of bore water.

The Adelaide raised and educated former astronaut’s first spaceflight in 1996 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour captivated the state and nation.

People across Adelaide turned on their lights as he orbited over the city, during which he described viewing the Port River and Outer Harbor during a historic telephone hook-up with then premier Dean Brown.

Enrolments in mechanical engineering at Adelaide University, where Dr Thomas studied, soared after his spaceflights and he was mobbed like a rock star during a homecoming in late 1996.

Speaking in North Adelaide yesterday, Dr Thomas said he hoped his legacy to SA would be inspiring interest in study of maths and science among youth.

“I hope that it’s a generation of young people who look at the possibility of education in mathematics or some field of science and find it interesting,” he said.

“If there’s any legacy I hope that it will be that young kids strive for careers in technological fields.

“I hope that I’ve demonstrated that you’re not just going to be chained to a drawing board or a computer terminal.”

Dr Thomas said scientific study fostered rational thought, widely useful in general society to, for example, scrutinise political promises or make decisions about medical procedures.

“I think there’s an assault on rationality in the western world which is very disturbing,” he said.

“Irrational thought would have us deny vaccines to children so that some of those diseases which have otherwise been eradicated would re-emerge

“Rational thought enables us to fly to the moon and back. Irrational thought flies planes into buildings.”

Originally published as Spaceflight spurs Adelaide astronaut Andrew Thomas to urge action to save Earth’s environment