Rocketeers.co.uk - a British view of commercial spaceflight

In recent comments on Hobbyspace, Charles Lurio had some fairly pointed criticism for the UK space community:-

Re these two items from the UK, they both show a cluelessness that seems all to endemic among some there. I've been seeing that for years from here, and it was clear when I visited last June.

-- The technology is a "wow!" but the way NOT to put the UK in the vanguard of new space activities is Bond's/Reaction Engine's vehicle, which would require on the order of $14 billion and a decade before the investors start seeing a return.

-- There is no mystery about what Virgin wants to be able to fly from Lossemouth. They want an explicit framework and a clear regulatory authority to turn to. I.e., the equivalent of the CSLAA provisions in the US and the FAA/AST to administer them. In "theory" it may be possible to fly under present conditions, in practice it is likely incredibly awkward and uncertain to try to get all the "i"'s dotted and "t"'s crossed.

Thing is, I think he has a point.

I'm a cheerleader for our homegrown SSTO, I think it's a technically elegant and aesthetically beautiful vehicle and I'd dearly love to see it fly. That said, I think we should also actively be pursuing other routes to spaceflight as well, at the same time, notably the "build a little, fly a little" incremental route being followed by XCOR, Armadillo, Masten and others with steadily growing success.

It's not just an "eggs in one basket" concern. I want to see a growing UK base of expertise in rapid "cut-and-try" engineering in reliable, reusable liquid biprop engines, along with operational experience in actual flying vehicles. Nothing inspires confidence (and attracts public interest, potential investors and government support) better than an actual flying prototype. I want these UK companies to have a revenue-generating stream of products and services as early as possible. As a scientist interested in microgravity applications, I want to be able to run experiments on UK-built and operated suborbital spacecraft. Even after the development of SSTOs, this base of experience will still be useful, providing a source of reliable, economic propulsion systems for OTVs and landers. REL's Fluyt OTV proposes to use the French-built Vinci upper-stage engine. I'd much rather it used a British engine ;-)

This is not a new concept for us. David Ashford of Bristol Spaceplanes has been promoting the incremental route for decades. We certainly have the expertise, we have rocketry startups with better ground-test facilities than the likes of Masten... what we don't seem to have are friendly dot.com millionaires who like to fund playing with rockets ;-) If you happen to be on good terms with any of these guys, by all means let me know, and I'll point them in the right direction!

As for Charles' second point, I also agree there. Given a disagreement between Whitehorn (who has aviation lawyers on tap working for Virgin Group), and an MP who spent an afternoon reading up on the subject, I know which I'd go with :p Charles is quite right, we need an equivalent to the CSLAA, and a specific subdivision of the CAA responsible for administering UK commercial spaceflight (along with a mandate to *promote* the industry, same as with FAA/AST). I'll be writing more about this when I get the chance.

Charles: To paraphrase William Gibson, Clue is already here, it's just not evenly distributed ;-)