It is one of the unquestioned suppositions of the past 50 years. That mankind’s future does — to a greater or lesser extent — lie in space. This certainty was, however, called into doubt this week, on the back of troubling new research. Dr Lewis Dartnell — an astrobiologist at University College London — claims that, among other side-effects, long space journeys would leave astronauts short, fat and bald.

“With little effort required to move around in microgravity, future spacemen and women are likely to become pretty chubby,” Dr Dartnell postulated. Near zero gravity would leave human bone development stunted, he said “and with no need for hair to insulate the head, future humans may become completely hairless.”

Well I don’t want to be Mrs Dolly Doubter, but I can’t see how this doesn’t leave the entire space programme totally screwed. It’s the deal-breaker we never saw coming. If you want brave cosmonauts untroubled by the idea of exploding on take-off, burning up on re-entry, or being the first to be killed by a newly disturbed planet of master-race aliens, that’s not a problem. There are thousands of people up for that.

But run the risk of jetting to Mars — while slowly turning into Greg Wallace from Masterchef? What foolhardy idiot would volunteer for that? You’d go up Han, and come back Yoda. It’s literally not going to fly. And I hardly need to go into how this will play out with the ladymonauts. No chick on Earth is going to sign up for six months wetting yourself in a spacesuit, and then coming back as Danny DeVito’s stunt-double.

The “short, fat and bald” zinger comes at a particularly bad time for Nasa. Despite Barack Obama’s pledge to return man to the Moon by 2020, his budgeting proposals are being hampered by America’s continuing economic troubles. Additionally, there is controversy over Nasa’s choice of technology in the first place — with some factions within the space programme claiming that trillions are being invested in ultimately unworkable technology. The 40th anniversary of the Moon landings is starting to look a little woebegone.

Given this parlous state of affairs, then, would it be so out of place for a fresh approach to be taken on man’s affair with space? That fresh approach is mine and it’s this — simple thought: why bother? Why not sack the whole, incomprehensibly expensive and dangerous thing off and declare the space race over? After all:

1. Whatever we do, it’s never going to be as good as the Moon landings.

The Moon landings had it all: evocative black and white footage. Great catchphrases (“The Eagle has landed.” “This is one small step . . .”) Astronaut names like rock stars — Buzz Aldrin. Neil Armstrong — a man whose arms are so strong, they ended up being the first arms on the Moon. But return to the Moon? Go back to the Moon? That’s a bit like remaking The Italian Job. There’s no way it can be anything other than a thunderous disappointment, compared to the last time. I think that, on reflection, we will come to think of going to the Moon as one of those things — such as kipper ties, purple hearts and saying “Wally” — that people did in the Sixties, but wouldn’t do now. It would look a bit weird.

2. Space is a bit rubbish, really.

Let’s face it — you get the very best out of the Moon by standing on a lawn at 1am, a bottle of Cava to the good, smoking a fag, staring at it and sighing, “It looks like a giant, silver scone,” to a fellow drunkard. The Moon looks great in the sky. It is a brilliant accessory for the Earth. A timeless piece.

When you look at footage of astronauts actually on the Moon, on the other hand, it becomes rapidly apparent that the Moon is rubbish. Bleak, barren; fatal without the correct protective clothing — it’s very like Manchester in the mid-Eighties. All space programmes still seem to be working on the presumption that mankind will, one day, live on other planets. Why? Why? Let’s all remind ourselves: other planets don’t have Paris on them. They don’t have honeysuckle or English breakfast tea or tubas or blackbirds. They don’t have enough reception to pick up Seinfeld reruns on Comedy Central. On other planets you can’t breathe, your wee floats up into the air and you’re constantly at risk of Klingon attack. If space was featured on Watchdog, Nicky Campbell would give it a right kicking.

3. If we cancelled all space programmes, wise-arse kids would have to torment Careers Advice Officers another way.

As generations of wayward children have discovered, “Actually, I'm gonna be an astronaut, Miss,” is a technically acceptable way of saying “f*** off out of my face, Miss,” for which Miss can’t touch you. It’s always interesting to note that the kids planning to “be an astronaut, Miss”, seem to have chosen the occupation on the basis that it will involve shooting aliens, or bullying Martians by spreading rumours that they are “gay” — rather than running complex analyses on radial gravitational anomalies, collecting uncontaminated samples of igneous rock, etc., as is more often the case on space missions.

4. With our gaze turned from the skies, we would rediscover our own, dear Earth.

“Why roam the galaxy searching for fresh wonders, when 90 per cent of the world’s oceans are still a mystery to us?” the slightly trite are apt to say. While I personally can’t condone deep-sea exploration — as I explained in a column a few months ago, I believe that underwater is no place for mankind and that fish understandably dislike us and would make bad, possibly murderous, hosts — it cannot be denied that this is a world still ripe for further reconnaissance.

Mid-Wales, for instance, is still a mysterious and unvisited outpost to most people. As a consequence, there isn’t a boho-luxe cottage rental to be had between Lampeter and Machyllneth. Nasa’s gigantic resources would, surely, be put to better use in doing up a half-dozen sheep-sheds in Farrow & Ball off-whites, and opening some delis, than doing something as weird as throwing a man up into the sky and then leaving him there for a few weeks.

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