Shropshire sculpture urges mankind to look after Earth before exploring space
Focus on what we have on Earth and not what might be among the stars - that is the message from a new sculpture.
The British Ironwork Centre, on the outskirts of Oswestry, has unveiled the latest piece of art to feature in its sculpture park.
The piece includes a giant astronaut sat atop the Earth.
Clive Knowles, the chairman of the British Ironwork Centre, said they wanted to encourage mankind to solve the problems we face in the world, before looking to expand our borders into space.
He said: "We feel that there is an incredible, colossal amount of money spent exploring space and sending up satellites, taking samples from planets and all of this is incredibly useful, it is fabulous, but we should not be searching for life elsewhere and pursuing those scientific pursuits while we have so many problems on earth.
"Because if there is a problem with planet Earth the whole population of the Earth are not going to be taken by some imaginary spacecraft to Mars, or Venus or Jupiter."
He added: "We have colossal problems with our own planet and we should not be using the billions we spend exploring other planets when we have got a fire in our own home.
"We have an ever increasing amount of people starving across the world. Some of this money should be channelled into more immediate problems – our environmental crisis, feeding people, stopping wars.
"The point is we are looking elsewhere when we should be looking at home first."
