Letter: Moon legacy wasted

Sir: With reference to your leading article "The empty legacy of the Moon landings" (17 July) I feel, as the daughter of the scientist responsible for a major British contribution to the success of the mission, that much greater benefit could have accrued.

Mr father, Dr Tom Bacon, spent most of his working life on the development of an economically viable fuel cell for the production of electricity without harmful emissions. This technology was brought to such a pitch for Apollo that it was said at the time that the mission could not have succeeded without it.

Despite this we in this country are almost alone among the developed nations in having no fuel-cell technology at work, even though the skills exist and the hardware is available to produce electricity at an efficiency which makes conventional power generation look stupid, and without polluting the environment.

As with so many British inventions, the development has been carried out overseas and we are the last to benefit from it.