UK Spaceship station
The UK spaceship station, soon may become a reality. May’s government has a goal to become the first spaceport in Europe.
Recently it took a very small step to from a dream to a reality. A bill that was introduced a year ago called ‘Draft Spaceflight Bill’ has rebranded ‘Space Industry Bill is going to receive royal assent into UK law. All this bill does is cover things like insurance and safety commitments. Booo! Health and safety! Basically all this bill does is lay the groundwork so the real work and business can begin. Boring bills but they’re necessary. Though there’s no end date before we can shoot ourselves into outer space, 2020 is said to be the time to suit up.
The government are stating that 1/4 of all telecoms satellites are built (we’re going to need to talk to you up there) in the UK. The government are hoping that the UK will become a “one-stop shop” for the private space travel industry. While this sounds super cool and nothing that us normal folk will ever be able to experience. The introduction of Spaceports or UK spaceship station as we like to call them. Will help grant opportunities to researchers and public sectors to use the satellite data. Along with machine learning tech to support roll outs of charging points for electronic cars.
There are quite a few potential UK Spaceship stations under consideration, if it does go ahead, the UK will be the first in Europe. The European Space agency does have it’s own spaceship station. However, it’s cheating because it’s in the South American country of French Guiana.
The UK’s space dreams don’t end with just UK Spaceship stations. The Uk are also set to become the worlds first commercial astronaut training ground. With construction set to start this year.
UK spaceship station: Problems
Everything isn’t all roses and galaxies though. The Space Industry Bill has a €60million liability cap. Shoot a satellite up in the sky. It all goes tits up and crashes back down to earth. The government are only going to give you 60M to clean up your mess.
The government are hoping that this will help the UK space industry grow. But. Not so fast. Signs that it’s infact shrinking. British companies are reportedly being excluded from work within the European Space Agency. Not being kicked out the ESA, but Brexit is looming. So who knows.
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