British space policy tinkered with

Space is often described as the 'final frontier' - a bleak, empty, featureless and overwhelming void of despair and nothingness. To be fair, though, most of the people who say this don't realise that you can get much the same experience by hopping on a train to Wigan.

Space exploration, you see, has never really been an integral part of British culture. In America, of course, presidential races can be won by proclaiming that the destiny of the nation lies in the stars. In the UK, such a proclamation would be met by sniggers - we can't even get an airport working properly. So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to learn that our governmental space policy is getting a badly-needed revamp.

Several civil servants working within the BNSC - The British National Space Centre, a group set up to deal with civil space activities - are to be moved out of London and also relieved of a great deal of their responsibilities. Why? Because according to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee and the Royal Society, the BNSC is just a big load of bloody rubbish, that's why.

Just listen to this savaging:

"BNSC lacks the authority and resources to direct the wide range of activities within the UK space community, or to represent it adequately on the international stage," the society said in its submission to the UK space review.

"A new, more proactive UK Space Agency needs to be set up in place of BNSC; resolving problems with its current structure requires more than minor modifications."

The hope for something more proactive than the BNSC comes as a welcome one. After all, they are the guys who launched a recent "formal review" as to whether British astronauts should bother going into space altogether. Which does leave Westmonster wondering: what else is someone with that job description going to do?

Written by C J Davies on 14 Apr 2008 11:00 PM. Permalink