Does Britain really need its own space programme?
Report argues for the establishment of a UK spaceport
A review of Britain’s space industry has called on the government to define and properly fund a national space programme, in an effort to build on the progress of recent years.
The space industry in the UK, which has been growing at an average of more than seven percent each year through the global recession, needs a more coherent approach to state funding, according to Andy Green, the co-chair of the UK space leadership council, talking to the BBC. “I don’t want this to be a criticism of government because they have done some incredible things for space of late, but we have been doing these things piece by piece,” he said.
Currently, the vast majority of the non-military space budget in the UK goes towards programmes organised through the European Space Agency (ESA). Only a small amount is spent on exclusively British projects, and the funding is usually done on a case-by-case basis. That’s in contrast to Germany, France and Italy, which run national programmes alongside their participation in the ESA.
The Space Innovation & Growth Strategy report suggests putting an ecosystem in place that will allow a British space programme to exist independently of Europe.
Recommended measures include building a British spaceport by 2018, encouraging small and medium-sized companies in the sector, and trying to persuade foreign space companies to invest more in Britain.
With all of that, the report reckons Britain can up its annual space exports from £2 billion to £25 billion by 2030, and grow the UK share of the global space economy to eight percent by 2020 and ten percent by 2030.
Those exports include the various components for spacecraft but also the capacity to launch satellites from the UK. Demonstrating on an international stage that Britain has the technical facilities and know-how to accomplish this is crucial to the plan.
Investing in space
From this, it’s easy to conjure up an image of Britain handing over all its funds earmarked for space exploration to Brussels. But Britain contributes relatively little to the European Space Agency compared to its aforementioned space rivals.
The UK hands over 300 million euros to the ESA each year, compared to 400 million for Italy, almost 750 million from France and nearly 800 million from Germany. As an interesting sidenote, Canada actually contributes 15.5 million euros to the ESA each year.
That means that despite most of Britain’s space cash being spent on European projects, we're still a smaller contributor to the ESA than the countries with significant national space programmes.
The upshot then? Perhaps we should just be spending more money on space in general. If we want to compete with our European neighbours, we need to match their levels of funding for their national programmes.
That’s if competition is our goal, of course. The alternative is working with those same European neighbours, establishing a sustainable space ecosystem across Europe, rather than fighting between ourselves on who can squeeze the most money out of the industry.
But if we’re determined to compete on a national level, then it’s vital that the funding for a British space programme isn’t taken from our commitment to the European Space Agency. That’s a fact acknowledged by the report — growing the UK’s contributions to the ESA can also increase our returns from Europe, it states.
Happily, science minister David Willetts agrees. “What I like about this report is that it is optimistic, forward-looking and ambitious,” he told BBC News, promising a formal response to the report in the New Year.
“It is right to pick up that there are lots of sectors out there — both private and public — who don’t realise just how dependent they already are on space services and how much more use they could be making of satellite applications in the future.”
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