The drama yesterday as Rosetta finally emerged after 10 years of travel and 25 years of planning, launching its lander module Philae which then appears to have bounced on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko provide a wonderful contrast with our political environment. When the mission was first being planned Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, when the Probe was launched Tony Blair was Prime Minister and throughout all of that time there must have been many hiccups and challenges for the Scientists to contend with. There must have been many disagreements amongst the team. Yet despite all that (along with the advantage of not needing to be accountable publicly to an electorate) they have simply focused on the process in hand and in the end landed on the target. Having acknowledged the external accountability which means our Politicians can’t hide their difficulties behind closed doors, and the extent to which some of us like to select a Politician based on had badly the last set of policies where constructed, there is surely a way of embedding a long termism into our nations decision making in the same way that Rosetta was constructed. One imagines if there had been as many changes of direction for the mission as we have experienced in our nation, the module would still be in parts on someones workbench, with the plans locked in someone’s filing cabinet.