Spaced Out!
In a surprise development, Hertford College JCR announced this week an intention to move to the moon. Apparently its students feel that Oxford is seriously overcrowded, and fails to provide the modern-day student with sufficient amenities to maintain an enjoyable standard of living. Lunar-tic undergraduate James Balment put forward a proposal to this effect in last Sunday's JCR meeting, saying that the "current location of the college in Oxford, though historically established, is merely arbitrary and could make better use of links elsewhere".
The resolution was accepted by a large majority, but the students were not prepared to accept any old new location. The Millennium Dome and the state of Alabama had been identified as viable alternative options but were both rejected by the JCR as being too "down to earth". The new location had to have lots of space; and as Balment himself pointed out "where better to have lots of space than being quite literally 'in space'?" The moon was enthusiastically accepted as the obvious choice, although there were criticisms that it suffered from a lack of atmosphere.
JCR President Johan Berggren told the Oxford Student that "JCR meetings can often be pretty dry affairs" and that it "seemed quite funny at the time." It would appear that he is constitutionally bound to implement the decision and he may well become less amused when trying to stretch the JCR budget to cover the "astronomical" costs of keeping 350 students fed, housed and alive on the moon.
Initial reactions in college were varied as to their new location. It appeared that almost all students had failed to attend the meeting and hence were unaware of the impending move. Undergraduate Claire Watkinson gave a typical response, saying "I think it's silly. It's a bit cold to live on the moon." Another student wondered whether they would be entitled to travel bursaries, given the anticipated travel costs of approximately forty million pounds for each student per term. However, not everyone was downbeat. "It would not just represent a real advance in space travel to put a whole college on the moon, but also be of benefit to the rest of the university" said Lincoln astrophysics student Steve Smith eagerly.
There were suggestions by several students that the motion may have actually been nothing more than a joke, but this contention was strongly rejected by Belment, who said the idea was "entirely serious."
It does, however, appear that the group of moon-crazy students will ultimately be disappointed. As an observant porter pointed out, "to move to the moon would probably be impractical anyway".
9th Nov 2000