A physiologist who believes space-based research would help scientists more quickly discover treatments for bone and muscle wasting diseases is urging Britain to actively participate in the Paris-based European Space Agency's (ESA) human spaceflight program.

Michael J. Rennie, of the University of Nottingham's School of Biomedical Sciences, told The Scientist that lack of participation by Britain effectively bars UK scientists from participating in space-based research.

"My mission in life at the moment is to stop people from wasting away as they grow older," Rennie said, adding that being effectively barred from using ESA space platforms is frustrating.

Dieter Isakeit, head of the Erasmus User Centre and the communication office at the ESA's Directorate of Human Spaceflight, confirmed to The Scientist that winning a research slot is unlikely for scientists from the five ESA member nations not participating in the agency's human spaceflight program. Those nations are the United Kingdom, Austria, Finland, Norway, and Portugal.

Isakeit, who is based in the Netherlands, said that the ESA currently has an abundance of "excellent proposals" by scientists from nations who contribute financially to the ESA human space program. Preference is given to scientists from contributing nations, he added. "As long as we are overbooked with proposals from scientists from member nations, then Prof. Rennie will not even be taken into consideration," he said. If the ESA were to accept a proposal from one of the five noncontributing nations, the scientist would be required to pay an "entrance fee," he said.

Space-based research offers benefits over earth-bound studies for bone- and muscle-wasting diseases, Rennie said, and would significantly cut the time needed to develop treatments.

People who have spent 6 to 8 weeks in zero gravity on space stations lose 2 to 3% of bone mass, he said, compared with losses of only 0.5 to 1% for research subjects confined to beds on earth for similar periods.

Rennie said the UK's Medical Research Council and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have in the past been opposed to granting money for space-based bioresearch, preferring instead such methods as confining research subjects to bed.

"Their attitude is that space is a very expensive way of getting zero gravity," he said.

Andrew McLaughlin, BBSRC spokesman, told The Scientist that the council would consider space applications, but currently is not funding any.

He said the two main fields of space research that BBSRC encounters are the growth of proteins, cells, or tissues under microgravity conditions and the search for "signs of primitive life in planetary and cometary material." Seven hundred participants met at the third Astrobiology Science Conference in California last month to discuss some of these issues.

But McLaughlin said: "In both of these fields, the merit of space-based research, as opposed to other approaches, is not yet well established, and applicants may have difficulty convincing their peers of the value of such work in competition for funds."