UK in Space: BNSC video

Rocketeer — Fri, 28/08/2009 - 7:15pm

BNSC has released a promotional video for the UK space industry sector and the newly opened ESA centre at Harwell. The video features Skylon, but makes no mention of Virgin Galactic. Hmm...

Skylon

Virgin is a British

danzi94 — Fri, 28/08/2009 - 7:46pm

Virgin is a British organisation, Mr Brandson is British, so why on Earth is it no included in the video about British space, just because due to our silly laws the first space port could not have been in the UK does not mean its not British.

TO me this sounded way to much like the government and BNSC were using UK private orginisations progress to say how much Britain is doing so that they do not have to pay any more money into doing something for themselves.

Yeah, it baffled me as

Rocketeer — Fri, 28/08/2009 - 7:52pm

Yeah, it baffled me as well.... especially considering that the venture capital funding that VG recently got is on a par with the UK government's entire annual civil space budget ;-)

BNSC may not be long for this world. There are widespread hopes that it will be replaced with a properly-funded national space agency.

BNSC Video

Adam Elkins — Fri, 28/08/2009 - 8:19pm

I think you're making the mistake of thinking that that video has anything to do with reality...

Now let me see:

"Since the dawn of the space age over 50 years ago, the United Kingdom has reached out to explore, understand and utilise space for the benefit of all..." by cancelling British launchers and banning British astronauts.

"While mankind took its first steps on the lunar surface 40 years ago, today, space is part of everyday life – and - thanks to the British National Space Centre - the UK is at the forefront of this 21st Century industry..." but we don't have our own rockets, astronauts or space stations. And don't even mention fuel depots!

"It’s a 6.5 billion pound industry that supports 68,000 UK jobs..." about the same size as NASA then?

"Meanwhile, the innovative UK design for a reusable space-plane, using radical hydrogen propulsion technology may lay the foundation for future green air travel." It's based on the HOTOL launcher that the government cancelled in the 1980s.

From the transcript. Need I go on?

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