SKYLON: Impoverished UK dreams of having a 'new' Spaceport on recycled aerodromes

Skylon, a concept space plane from Reaction Engines Ltd., is an entirely reusable single stage-to-orbit launch vehicle, based on revolutionary engine technology.

Credit: Adrian Mann

The UK, impoverished and technically challenged by a floundering coalition government, is hoping it could re-badge a derelict air force base as a spaceport by 2018.

Pending the usual convoluted administrative approach of a regulatory report to be published July 2014 and a technical feasibility study that is underway with the UK's National Space Technology Programme (NSTP), it may be possible that the country could convert an aging air base and claim that it hosts a spaceport, within the next five years.

A new National Space Flight Coordination Group, chaired by the UK's financially shackled Space Agency, will oversee these reports and the future work for this UK 'spaceport.'

UK Government officials made a political statement saying that they hoped this will be the start of commercial spaceflight for the country.

The politically appointed steering group and the 2018 date were announced with the publication of the "UK Government Response to the U.K. Space Innovation and Growth Strategy 2014-2030," published in November 2013 by friends in the UK aerospace industry.

This publication optimistically claims the UK's space sector could be worth 40 billion GBPs ($67 billion) by 2030. The industry is allegedly worth 9 billion GBP ($15 billion) today but most of it is sub-contracted to European (EADS) and US (Lockheed, Boeing, etc) corporations. Very little of the UK's aerospace industry is 'homegrown.'

"This [National Space Flight Coordination] group reports to [government] ministers," the government's response says.

"Its cross-cutting nature is recognition of the scale of the challenge inherent in identifying, approving and building a U.K. spaceport and in supporting all the necessary innovation and technology that it would require."



These are not the first attempts at reports and studies that the U.K. government has undertaken in its quest to appear to have a viable spaceport, it is merely the first time the government has set a date for the creation of such a facility.

In 2009, the British National Space Centre (BNSC), which preceded the U.K. Space Agency created in 2010, funded a study into spaceport candidate locations. That study concluded that Lossiemouth in Scotland would be the best site.

Located in northern Scotland, Lossiemouth is on the coast of the North Sea and has a recently-closed Royal Air Force base with a runway suitable for the types of launch systems that favour, UK Tax exile, billionaire and hedonist, Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.

The Scottish people have an excellent and long history of engineering and are renowned as innovative, motivated and dedicated engineers and scientists, but they are both politically and physically a long way from the decisions being made in London, by the London-based government, which favour developments that will boost its flagging popularity with voters in the South of England.

Mars: Are Dreams of Human Habitation and exploration achievable?

NASA and private sector experts now agree that a man or woman could be sent on a mission to Mars over the next 20 years, despite huge challenges.

The biggest names in space exploration, among them top officials from the US space agency and Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, will discuss the latest projects at a three-day conference starting Monday in the US capital.

Renewed interest in the red planet has triggered the launch of several initiatives in recent months, including one proposing a simple one-way trip to cut costs.

The American public also favours sending astronauts to Mars, according to a survey by non-profit group Explore Mars and US aerospace giant, Boeing.

The poll in March of more than a thousand people published in March found that 71 percent of Americans expect that humans will land on Mars by 2033.

Seventy-five percent say NASA’s budget should be doubled to one percent of the federal budget to fund a mission to Mars and other initiatives.

Buzz Aldrin

NASA receives only 0.5 percent of the US federal budget, compared to four percent during the Apollo project to conquer the moon in the 1960s.

The US space agency’s chief, and ex-astronaut, Charles Bolden has stressed that ‘a human mission to Mars is a priority.’

But the US financial crisis is a major obstacle to such a project.

‘If we started today, it’s possible to land on Mars in 20 years,’ said G. Scott Hubbard of Stanford University.

‘It doesn’t require miracles, it requires money and a plan to address the technological engineering challenges,’ added Hubbard, who served as NASA’s first Mars program director and successfully restructured the entire Mars program in the wake of mission failures.

Scott Hubbard

Placing a mass of 30-40 tonnes — the amount estimated to be necessary to make a habitat on the red planet — would be one of the greatest challenges, along with the well-known problem of carrying or producing enough fuel to get back, Hubbard stressed.

The Curiosity rover took a nail-biting seven minutes in August to make its descent on Mars, but it only weighed one tonne.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity mission, which is set to last at least two years, aims to study the Martian environment and to hunt for evidence of water in preparation for a possible future manned mission.

Robotic missions will therefore be necessary to prove the system works before scientists can even contemplate sending humans aboard.

NASA is currently developing a Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion Crew transport capsule for distant space exploration.

The Orion Transportation Capsule, shown below, will be powered by the European ATV power unit, part of a long-standing collaborative agreement with ESA.