Future for The UK Space Agency

[Sky_walker]

Yes you do! In fact, it's one of the founding members of the ESA, and the fifth largest budget contributor.

It's... 9.6% contribution.

It's not a race - your spot doesn't matter much, your contribution does, and UK contributes some pathetic amount of money to ESA considering how well-developed their space program used to be. Just to put it in a perspective: Belgium contributes 6%.

Ripped from todays' headlines.

http://www.space.com/26838-air-force-hypersonic-skylon-space-plane.html

US attitude "everyone serve us" shines from this article.

"The Air Force research laboratories in the States have carried out some modeling to verify that the SABRE does actually work, that it is a real engine" - yea, we did that in Europe already some time ago. That's why they got funding for a large-scale prototype. But what do I know - everything that wasn't verified by the US isn't meaningful.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Nibb31]

"The Air Force research laboratories in the States have carried out some modeling to verify that the SABRE does actually work, that it is a real engine" - yea, we did that in Europe already some time ago. That's why they got funding for a large-scale prototype. But what do I know - everything that wasn't verified by the US isn't meaningful.

It's good scientific method to validate another organization's findings. It's called peer review.

It also makes sense to do your own homework when you are going to invest in a new toy, rather than to blindly trust the sales pitch.

Although I'm not immensely optimistic about Skylon, it isn't surprising that some funding is coming from DoD or DARPA instead of the UK government or ESA. Note that due to ITAR regulations, it would not be possible for a European government or company to invest in US space technology in the same manner. Europe is way too laxist in allowing strategic technologies to be bought up by foreign entities.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Nibb31

[Kryten]

In capitalist countries, sure; however, in communist countries (e.g. USSR), aren't the producers of rockets also employed by the government and directed by the space agency?

Most USSR rocketry work was directed by the military independent of Roskosmos; even today they have their own completely independent launch capability.

[Idobox]

You must have messed up a conversion somewhere; UK contribution to ESA is roughly 0.5 billion Euros, JAXA budget is roughly €2 billion.

Wow, I managed to get really confused on that one 300 million € vs 230 billion yen ~2.4 billion $. UK is actually closer to south Korea in terms of budget.

In short, UK can't do .... alone with this kind of budget.