Is Britain falling behind its European and Global competitors with a lacklustre space science policy?

NASA’s budget for 2008 is $20.2 billion, amounting to around 0.16% of US GDP. The current annual budget for the UK civil space programmes is £207 million – just 0.006% of UK GDP. Can the UK compete effectively in progressive space research when it commits so little spending to this area?

60% of the UK space budget is used to fund projects through the European Space Agency (ESA). Indeed, the UK is the biggest single contributor to the ESA’s Aurora exploration strategy to Mars, but it does not participate in the parts that will involve human spaceflight. The US, Russia and China have their own manned space programmes, while France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, Israel and Brazil have all made payments to other countries to allow their astronauts to join foreign missions. However, successive UK Governments have proclaimed that the benefits of human spaceflight are not worth the high financial costs or risk to life. A report published by the Royal Astronomical Society in 2006 estimated that the additional cost of being involved in manned space flight would be an extra £150 million per year (for comparison, that is the same cost to the UK taxpayer as maintaining the British Monarchy). Is this really too much to pay for the undoubted boost to the engagement with science in the British public which would result from having our own astronauts?

According to the British National Space Centre (BNSC) report ‘UK Civil Space Strategy: 2008-2012 and beyond’, some of the strengths of the UK’s space programme include scientific excellence in Earth science and climate understanding and world-class environmental forecasting. Whilst this is certainly commendable, in a recent consultation exercise the Royal Society said the ‘British National Space Centre has neither the power nor the funds to implement an effective space policy’ and called for the centre to be replaced by a fully fledged UK space agency. Despite this, recent moves to de-centralise public sector activities out of London have resulted in the break-up of the BNSC and some of its activities will now be controlled by the DIUS funded Technology Strategy Board. Will this result in a further watering down of the UK’s space science organisation?

So what do you think – is space exploration still inspiring and exciting? Is our Government’s space policy lagging behind the UK’s global scientific and economic competitors? Should the UK be funding manned missions?

Stephen Hawking once wrote “I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.” Many agree with him and see manned space travel as the only means to the long term survival of the Human race, but is Britain playing its part in this vision?