I ALWAYS thought I would want to be around when mankind conquered the stars - but now I'm not so sure. For more than a decade scientists have been discussing the possibility of inter-stellar travel and a meeting of the world's top scientific brains has revealed details of what could happen in the next 50 to 100 years.

They are predicting a 200-year round trip to another solar system on a weird-looking laser-driven craft (you would need an extremely understanding travel insurance company for medical - and most likely funeral - bills).

They believe that the first colonists will be English-speaking, and - wait for it - they will probably all be women.

As a NASA scientist said: "We can leave behind the unnecessary part of the human race, namely the man, and send a crew of females. They can bring a sperm bank, and get all the genetic diversity you need."

He also said women would reduce the chance of conflict among the crew (who is he kidding - didn't he watch Survivor or Big Brother?) and added: "They may discover that humanity doesn't actually need men at after all, and they'll engineer a society without them."

Regular readers of this column might imagine that someone like me would be thrilled by such news, and that I would have already booked my ticket for the year 2050.

Not so. Men may be a pain in the neck, but they have their uses.

Who would cut our hair (men are infinitely better hair stylists), do the cooking (I know of few households where this task falls on the woman) and put up shelves? (B&Q can hold as many 'Women and Power Tools' courses as they like, but to my mind DIY is still a 'man thing').

Women may be seen as 'the gentle sex' but they knock spots off men in the art of manipulation, deviousness and scheming.

Anyone who hasn't experienced that in real life needs only to tune in to any soap opera to find evidence of it.

Women also hold PhDs - as opposed to a bloke's eleven-pluses - in the art of gossip and back-stabbing (what's the point of a coffee morning with female friends if it isn't to update each other on the scandal surrounding the friends that couldn't make it?)

Men, on the other hand, tend to be more concerned with the state of Michael Owen's hamstring than the alleged affairs of others.

Of course they can be devious (who can forget JR Ewing?) but as a rule they are fairly up-front and straight with others.

They're terrible gossips in that they really don't know how to do it.

Trying to extract information about another individual from my husband is like asking our cat to bake a cake.

It's irritating when you know they are withholding valuable tittle-tattle, but heartening all the same, and makes men good, trustworthy friends.

Imagine a life awash with female back-biting.

And, of course, there's romance. Those who prefer the same sex would be in paradise, but the majority of us still hanker after the traditional Mills & Boon man-woman relationship.

A selection of tall, dark and handsome types on the solar expedition would be nice.

But if life on Alpha Centauri is going to be an all-female affair, I think I would rather stay down here.

Women are great.

They make up 95 per cent of my friends and are far better company on a night out than my husband.

But every so often, I do like a decent cut and blow-dry.

Updated: 10:39 Monday, February 25, 2002