The leftwing British think tank, Demos, has released a report ambitiously named —— of all things  —— 'Masters of the Universe'. It may sound like a well known cartoon, or Tom Wolfe's description of a bond trader party. But beware: this report is nothing short of a European socialist blueprint for colonizing the galaxy.

If the US came out with a report named 'Masters of the Universe' you'd never hear the end of it, but nobody in Britain seems to have blinked an eye at the audacious title.

'Masters of the Universe' urges the UK government to support European efforts to prevent the US from dominating outer space. Someone obviously forgot to explain to the authors, Melissa Mean and James Wilsden, that space is an awfully large place, even if the magic of Euro—socialist science manages somehow to develop warp—drive. Dominating every last galaxy of that space stuff is probably going to take a few billion years.

The main thrust of this intriguing report proposes that more British taxpayers' money be allocated to ESA, the European Space Agency. The socialist 'Masters of the Universe' claim that their vision of space colonization — contrary to that of the Americans — will be environmentally friendly and driven by peaceful research. I hope someone told them that you can't smoke grass up there in Space — there's no oxygen.

Its front—page blurb starts off innocently enough: 'Forget Apollo versus Sputnik...a place for peaceful scientific research, a source of innovation, or the ultimate arena for military power?'  Of, course the military power is the US, and ultimately — those dangerous folks down at NASA.

In a more sinister tone it continues: 'The stakes are high with a battle on between Europe, America and emerging space nations such as China'. That's a bit rough on the Chinese isn't it? Unlike the super advanced Europeans — the emerging Chinese have actually put a man in orbit. At least these subtle semantics prove that the Europeans patronize everyone — not just Americans. Of course, it also shows a clear will to confront the US and China in Space. 'Good luck' is all I can say.

Now they get to the crux of the matter: 'Will public space win, or will a more sinister vision based on domination and weaponisation prevail?' No weapons in Space eh? Well, you go tell that to the Klingons! Let's see how smart you guys are then.

What they are really saying there is that if we do happen to run across any aliens, we'll tell the Americans to come fight them. Don't count on us.

If you're interested in more on the European socialist's space colonization, you can see the full report at the Demos website. But not for free. Socialist ideals about sharing seem to stop where their own wallets begin. Its only ten pounds, but worth it alone for the laughs.

All fun aside, there are serious issues relating to the Europeans and Space. Only recently, after many years of ratty negotiations, a deal was struck between the US and EU over the Europeans' planned Galileo project, which is supposed to become the EU equivalent of America's GPS (Global Positioning System).

In essence, the Europeans wanted to use specific frequencies that could have interfered with US military GPS communications. Further complications arose because 'emerging' China has joined up as a partner on Galileo.

The EU and US have now agreed to adopt a common and flexible baseline signal structure. But you can be sure that there will be plenty more rows as the socialists continue to roll out their public space program. The British Mars probe Beagle 2, having gone dark, is out there somewhere and he's alone, very alone. And jealous the US's Mars Global Surveyor, whose images sent back to earth are getting all the attention.

Michael Morris is our London Correspondent