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

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:

… all nations aspiring to be serious space players have dedicated space agencies.

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?

“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. “In France and Germany, CNES and DLR drove the development of strong space industries, largely via ESA projects, and the U.K. wanted to emulate that success. So, what has changed now?”

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.

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.

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.

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.