An interesting look at why the British government decided to eliminate its space agency
Gone, and likely soon to be forgotten
Link here. The article depends almost entirely on anonymous sources, but unlike most propaganda news stories which typically use such sources to push one pro-government perspective, this article includes sources from a range of viewpoints.
According to those sources who wanted the UK Space Agency (UKSA) gone, the agency was eliminated last month because it simply had not been very effective in building up Great Britain’s space industry. First, it was too focused on doing what the European Space Agency wanted.
The U.K. has had a different approach to space than its European counterparts, such as Germany, France and Italy, the source explained. Historically, the U.K. has dedicated most of its resources to the European Space Agency (ESA) rather than pursuing a multipronged approach involving a strong domestic space program and bilateral partnerships independent of ESA. Therefore, over 80% of UKSA’s budget has been placed into ESA. The perception in the government was that UKSA was acting more in line with ESA’s wishes than with the U.K. government’s needs, the source added.
Second, it not only did nothing to alleviate the red tape hampering the industry, its existence added a layer that made things worse. Numerous studies and hearings before Parliament in the past five years have bewailed the situation. The inability of the rocket companies to get launch licenses — for years — proved their correctness.
Meanwhile, the anonymous sources opposing the agency’s elimination argued that without it Great Britain will be in a weaker position negotiating with its ESA partners as well as projecting itself internationally in the space field.
Other sources who have connections to the U.K. space sector but were not familiar with the inside situation at UKSA questioned the move on the basis that all nations aspiring to be serious space players have dedicated space agencies. France and Germany, the two largest ESA contributors, have dedicated space agencies — CNES and DLR, respectively — which manage their own complex space programs and oversee major developments, including the European Ariane rocket family. “When UKSA was created in 2010, everyone was excited that finally the U.K. was getting an executive agency that would have power to shape U.K. space policy and strategy,” one source told Space.com.
Overall, these arguments against the agency seem solid, and the arguments for seem vapid. What is the point of having such a bureaucracy if it fails entirely in its fundamental purpose? And the UK Space Agency was certainly a failure since its creation in 2010. Instead of fostering a British commercial space industry, that industry has been stifled by red tape and bureaucracy. Worse, the agency failed to allow the kind of freedom that the space agencies in Germany, Spain, and France have given their private sector in the past five years. That freedom has resulted in numerous startups doing many different things, from rockets to orbital tugs.
In Britain nothing developed, because apparently everything had to be under the ESA umbrella.
It remains unknown, however, whether the agency’s elimination will actually change anything. The British government has still apparently done little to streamline the red tape. Nor does it appear to be taking any action to encourage private enterprise.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Gone, and likely soon to be forgotten
Link here. The article depends almost entirely on anonymous sources, but unlike most propaganda news stories which typically use such sources to push one pro-government perspective, this article includes sources from a range of viewpoints.
According to those sources who wanted the UK Space Agency (UKSA) gone, the agency was eliminated last month because it simply had not been very effective in building up Great Britain’s space industry. First, it was too focused on doing what the European Space Agency wanted.
The U.K. has had a different approach to space than its European counterparts, such as Germany, France and Italy, the source explained. Historically, the U.K. has dedicated most of its resources to the European Space Agency (ESA) rather than pursuing a multipronged approach involving a strong domestic space program and bilateral partnerships independent of ESA. Therefore, over 80% of UKSA’s budget has been placed into ESA. The perception in the government was that UKSA was acting more in line with ESA’s wishes than with the U.K. government’s needs, the source added.
Second, it not only did nothing to alleviate the red tape hampering the industry, its existence added a layer that made things worse. Numerous studies and hearings before Parliament in the past five years have bewailed the situation. The inability of the rocket companies to get launch licenses — for years — proved their correctness.
Meanwhile, the anonymous sources opposing the agency’s elimination argued that without it Great Britain will be in a weaker position negotiating with its ESA partners as well as projecting itself internationally in the space field.
Other sources who have connections to the U.K. space sector but were not familiar with the inside situation at UKSA questioned the move on the basis that all nations aspiring to be serious space players have dedicated space agencies. France and Germany, the two largest ESA contributors, have dedicated space agencies — CNES and DLR, respectively — which manage their own complex space programs and oversee major developments, including the European Ariane rocket family. “When UKSA was created in 2010, everyone was excited that finally the U.K. was getting an executive agency that would have power to shape U.K. space policy and strategy,” one source told Space.com.
Overall, these arguments against the agency seem solid, and the arguments for seem vapid. What is the point of having such a bureaucracy if it fails entirely in its fundamental purpose? And the UK Space Agency was certainly a failure since its creation in 2010. Instead of fostering a British commercial space industry, that industry has been stifled by red tape and bureaucracy. Worse, the agency failed to allow the kind of freedom that the space agencies in Germany, Spain, and France have given their private sector in the past five years. That freedom has resulted in numerous startups doing many different things, from rockets to orbital tugs.
In Britain nothing developed, because apparently everything had to be under the ESA umbrella.
It remains unknown, however, whether the agency’s elimination will actually change anything. The British government has still apparently done little to streamline the red tape. Nor does it appear to be taking any action to encourage private enterprise.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It is very tough to get the Brits to spend real money on space.
Instead of building TSR-2, they allowed F-111 to be pawned off on them. Carriers they build. They should let us Yanks worry with carriers and put their naval budgets towards space.
Thanks to Greens, they are only now working towards an additional runway at Heathrow.
It saddens me that the best space think-tank (BIS) is in the country most hostile to space spending.
The UK police state has much worse problems than this.
“Other sources who have connections to the U.K. space sector but were not familiar with the inside situation at UKSA … CNES and DLR, respectively — which manage their own complex space programs and oversee major developments, including the European Ariane rocket family.”
OK, so these people use European (unsuccessful) agencies as examples and not NASA & USA Commercial space. It seems there’s still a lot of people in London who still have a pre-Brexit mentality of “Euro is best” when UK has a chance to cherry pick from the best examples from around the world and not just ‘enhance Euro regulation with additional Britishness’
I was very apprehensive when it was announced a while back the UK had negotiated keeping membership in ESA in return for €m instead of a project by project basis in the way NASA & JAXA partner with ESA. Seems UKSA became a regional office of ESA after all.
So if the agency goes away but the red tape rules remain, it would seem things can only go from wretched to fatal for any domestic British space company – the paperwork will still have to be filed, but there will be no one to read it or act on it. The UK, under the current Labour government, is looking more and more like Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil. The only solution has to start with getting rid of the Labour government.
It is a heckuva note when continental Europe has its act together better than the UK, but here we are. That said, when it comes to the consequential future of space endeavor, especially of the manned variety, neither the UK nor continental Europe seem likely to be more than quite marginal players. The Indians are light years ahead of their former imperial masters and are roughly tied with the continental Europeans. In as little as two more years, the Indians seem virtually certain to be solidly ahead of both.
Could Britain’s space industry create a company or organization that interacts with the government for cutting through red tape and for assisting with compliance to government regulations, rules, and needs in the same way that Nanoracks did for companies that sent experiments to the ISS through NASA?
Such an organization would be in a good position to advocate to the government for smoother navigation through the government processes. If the U.K. government truly wants a space industry, then the U.K. government must clear away the obstacles, but someone has to be able to express to the government both what those obstacles are and ways to ease them.
If that was the job of the U.K. space agency, then that was not done well. If the U.K. space agency was intended to provide government-level exploration of space, as NASA does, then it seems to have failed there, too.
From the article:
That may be true, but do those space agencies work on national space projects or are they assisting their nations’ commercial space companies? Luxembourg’s space agency is dedicated to the assistance of commercial space companies. NASA looks like it is doing so, too. What about others?
Maybe little has changed, and that may be the problem. The success of others is not happening in the U.K.
Or, from a comment Robert made in another post, today:
“… Europe’s major shift from its traditional government-run space program that could accomplish little …”
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/european-commission-calls-for-a-fast-launch-capability-from-its-new-rocket-startups/
Even Europe’s ESA could not accomplish much.
Whenever and wherever we let government run the space programs, we only get what government wants, and not always that, either. Now that we are running our own commercial space programs, we are starting to get enough of what we want that enough of the rest of us are willing to pay for it so that it keeps going.
To Mr. Eagleson
Now that Modi is batting eyelashes at China, India’s space path will find more to draw from.
I bet it was the National Review types who put our call centers over there to begin with.
India–a scab nation