UK government continues to dither about fixing its serious red tape issues relating to space
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Three different news articles from three different British news sources in the past 24 hours strongly suggest that the factions within the government of the United Kingdom are still unfocused about fixing the serious regulatory red tape that not only bankrupted the rocket startup Virgin Orbit but has delayed for years the first launches from either of its two proposed spaceports in Scotland. The headlines might sound positive, but the details are far less encouraging:
- UK Must Foster Sovereign Launch Capability, Experts Tell Committee
- Scottish spaceport SaxaVord ‘to see UK’s first launch this year’
- UK government backs spaceports but issues warning
The first article describes the comments of industry officials at a House of Lords committee hearing, where they pleaded with the government to help foster a British launch capability. Sounds good, eh? The problem is that such hearings have been held now repeatedly for the last several years, and Britain’s parliament has done nothing to reform its very cumbersome, complex, and byzantine launch licensing process. Getting approvals still takes months if not years.
It appears that this particular hearing is no different. While it provided government officials the chance to express sympathy for industry in front of news cameras, there is no indication parliament will do anything to fix anything.
The second article describes comments by the Labor government’s technology secretary Peter Kyle before the House of Commons. Though he claimed with “certainty” that the Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands will complete its first launch in 2025, this has been a promise that both the government and Saxavord officials have been making for the last four years, with nothing happening. A launch by the German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg was scheduled for last year, but it didn’t happen when the rocket was destroyed during a static fire test on the launchpad. The company has not provided any recent updates, so it is very unlikely it will be ready to launch this year.
Furthermore, Kyle’s testimony was simply blather about the wonderful work the Starmer Labor government is doing, not actual statements from the companies or spaceports involved. This is a typical example:
Mr Kyle replied: “When we came into office, we did not inherit a clear strategy for delivering on our priorities for space, that strategy is now being developed.
“You can see from the investments that we are making as a department and a Government into space, and the way that we are making sure that our relationship with the European Space Agency, ESA, is delivering for the British sector, because we have more grants being delivered now in the UK, in the latest fund, than any other country.
“It shows that we are delivering.”
Nothing Kyle said gave any indication that the present UK government is doing anything concrete to fix its space regulatory tangles.
The third article describes the content of a “briefing document” issued by the present Labor UK government, and actually puts the lie to Kyle’s claims. It appears sadly to contain a lot of the same vague language about the need “to work closely with launch operators and Scottish spaceports.” Where that language finally became clear and focused, however, it focuses on the risks and dangers of launch operations, noting “that space launches involve inherent risk, citing the high failure rates of new operators’ initial launches.”
From this language, it appears the Starmer Labor government is more interested in increasing, not streamlining, its space-related regulatory processes.
All in all Great Britain is doing a great job of choosing failure as its goal. It first proposed putting a spaceport in Scotland almost seven years ago. Since then, the two spaceports as well as the rocket companies that proposed launching from them have faced nothing but red tape and government interference, with nothing getting done. It also appears that these issues have driven other rocket startups away, sending them to other spaceports such as Andoya in Norway (which is about to get its first launch).
It also appears from these news reports that the present UK government likes this situation, and plans to pile on.
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As long as there is a Labour government, don’t hold your breath waiting for red tape to be cut. For anything.
@ Catch Thirty-Thr33
Unless I am very much mistaken, it would have been fatal holding your breath under the how many years of conservative government also. Not enough friends in the industry to make it worthwhile to grease the wheels and get stuff done.
It is misdirection to blame the current government for red tape holding up launch licenses. Labour inherited policy from the Tories, and hopefully spaceports have not been very high on their list of priorities given the rest of the mess they are having to deal with, things left by the previous government which actually affect my friends and family back in the UK.
Never mind spaceports.. we all here want to see success in the industry, but I would rather my best friend doesn’t have to work a 40 hour week and have to scrape the pennies together to eat and pay the bills.
Due to over a decade of conservative government. If you live in the UK, you are reaping the rewards of conservative rule. It’s a broken society that is going to take time to fix, and we have to remember that hopefully the guys in charge have their eyes on different balls than regulations in the space industry.
It is enough ( from an outsiders perspective) to make you wonder if they are serious about having launches in general.
There is certainly no public mandate dogging the MPs. But as of late, what the public wants does not appear too important there anyway.
The Green movement is just pure poison…when “progress” was deemed a dirty word by Earth Day types–stories like this are sure to follow.
It’s quite simple. The governing class, all major parties, are trying to figure out how they, party apparatus and high level bureaucrats as well as MPs, can profit off the industry and launches. It’s hard because these are mostly small independent firms not used to playing the grease the palms game. That is one reason the UK and EU are relatively moribund at entrepreneurism.
Lee, have you been watching the news in the UK? They are not recovering.
It’s all collapsing like the final pages of Atlas Shrugged, and we have front row seats. The US dodged a bullet electing Trump.
“Patience has its limits”
– Buddha
https://t.ly/r_pmK
James
I have heard other people say that as well.
I.am less optimistic.
We are not out of the woods yet. We may have found a path through the woods, and we hope it is the right path,but we are far from the clearing.
Or sticking with your analogy, we have dodged a bullet, but they are still shooting.
Lee S,
So, if I understand you correctly, seven years ago the Tories encouraged the founding of high technology launch companies, but now that Labour is in power, the high-paying high-tech jobs at British spaceports and space companies have not been high on their list of priorities. No wonder your best friend cannot find a better job. The better jobs are low priority to Labour.
You noted that a decade of conservative government was not enough time to fix all the problems that Labour had left them. Apparently, it takes a decade or more for the high-paying space jobs to get started, considering that the bureaucrats sabotage the Tories in order to support the Labour Party that the bureaucrats belong to. The U.K.’s government is just as infiltrated with leftists as is the U.S. government. No wonder both countries are having such a hard time.
You noted that the bureaucrats in the U.K. are corrupt and take bribes, so bribes seem to be the only solution to the red tape, but the launch companies are not yet experienced enough to play: the corrupt game of greasing palms to grease the wheels and get stuff done. There really is not liberty in the U.K., which would explain why you fled to another country.
And now we begin to see the results of corruption and tyranny. Because of the higher cost of doing business, job creators have a much harder time creating the good-paying jobs, so workers, like your best friend, cannot get good-paying jobs. Instead, he works hard at a job at which his productivity is not worth much money. You think he could do better, that his productivity could be worth much more, but Labour is not interested in him being more productive. You said that they have other priorities. They do not care about your best friend, and they cannot even entice you back to live and work in the U.K. The Tories probably could, except that you are far too leftist to ever work in a conservative country.
It would have been so much better, had the conservatives been allowed to continue encouraging the high-paying high-tech work. Instead, those jobs are lower priority than the bribery, corruption, and tyranny of the leftist Labour Party.
Since the Black Swan that was Margaret Thatcher was shown the door by her own party, the Tories have been barely distinguishable from their alleged opponents on the left and the country has been sliding down the slippery slope to statist dystopia at an accelerating rate.
One can certainly expect no improvement to the UK’s general condition under the current dhimmi Labour government. It has no functionaries to devote to frivolous matters like spaceport and launch licensing when all hands are needed to round up and jail anyone with the impertinence to object to the epidemic rape of young English girls by immigrant Muslim welfare clients or who publicly disrespect any member of His Majesty’s government.