The UK space sector – Do we need a space port?
By now, most people will have heard of Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson’s plans of putting people into space for a short period of time for a “relatively” low price. For now most of that development has been going on over in the US and that’s where Virgin have planned their $200 million Spaceport America, but now plans have been announced to bring something similar to the UK. A report came out yesterday at a meeting at the Insititute of Directors titled “Space: Britain’s New Infrastructure Frontier.” praising the merits of having a space port built in the United Kingdom and it seems that Scotland is the place to be. The report said that RAF Lossiemouth, north of the English border, would be the ideal place to base a space port that would be used to house and deploy aircraft that will take people into space on short trips. Whether or not the interest is there for the infrastructure to be put into place in the UK is yet to be decided, however over 100,000 people have registered their interest in Virgin Galactic and over 400 people already having paid for their tickets (at a whopping $200,000 each!) including high profile celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Ashton Kutcher, Brad Pitt and even our very own Princess Beatrice. By my calculations that brings the total ticket income to $80 million and once the initial flights are completed, hundreds of other passengers will pluck up the courage and book themselves their own tickets.
Do we need this or would this work in the UK though? Well, business leaders say that the UK could miss out on billions of pounds of revenue if we don’t build ourselves a space port soon with the purpose of launching satellites and commercial flights into orbit, as well as missing out on the opportunity of providing thousands of jobs to local economies. The other big point that the leaders made was that it could really kick start the UK space industry and increase interest in its plans because let’s face it, it’s mainly Russia and the US that you think of when you think of the space industry! Whether or not you think it’s a good idea yourself, there’s no denying that something like this in the UK could be extremely promising and provide a wealth of opportunities in multiple fields. We’ll be sure to follow its progress!