Why does Britain not have a space programme?

Answer 1

UK doesn't have its own entire programme, but it IS in the space programme. New update:

http://www.physorg.com/news69329657.html

Answer 2

Britain had an active space program back in the 1950's. Rockets such as Blue Streak and Black Knight flew sucessfully. In fact the Black Knight shares a honour with the Saturn V rocket having a 100% successfull flight record!! Howver because of costs Britain developed the ELDO along with France and Germany. The British first stage was sucessfull (basically it was Blue Streak) but the second and third stages were not, but by the 1970's Britain had dropped out altogether. In the early eighties Alan Bond developed the RB 454 hybrid engine - part rocket and part jet engine. This was developed by Rolls Royce with a body developed by british aerospace - called HOTOL. The conservative government cancelled the funding and there were problems with the design. Alan Bond has now created Reaction Engines is developing Skylon a new spaceplane using SABRE engines (a development or the RB454). This system is far more advanced than anything else shown by any other country!

Answer 3

Britain is a member of the European Space Agency, which has quite an ambitious space programme. They launch space craft from Kourou, French Guyana, which is spot on the Equator, the ideal launch site because if you launch rockets west to east you can take advantage of the Earth's spin velocity to save fuel. The ESA is building a satellite positioning system like the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS. They haven't launched any manned space missions, unlike America, Russia and China, but like many smaller countries their astronauts have flown on American and Russian missions. Britain and many much smaller countries like New Zealand contribute to space research in other ways too; they design experiments for space flights and build them, they sell hardware to both America and Russia for their space programmes and their scientists work in other countries'space programmes.

Answer 4

The british do have a space programme. It is usually works for the European Space Agency (ESA) because it is cheaper to do so. The last only british rocket to be sent into space was in 2004, when a small satelite was sent up.

There have been talks of using a small British dependency, Anguilla, in the Caribbean, as a launch pad for further British and ESA projects.

Answer 5

Does anyone have one these days.

We still send up satelites and probes.

What about the recent Mars probe.

We work with other nations these days, it is not a nationalistic thing, but more a scientific and commerce activity and these tend to be multinational these days especially when they need such large amounts of funding and have global significance.

I am sure there is a private project to put a British rocket in space, but this more like trying to break the land speed record or walk to the poles. It is just to say we have done it. It is not a serious commercial or scientific venture

Answer 6

In a way we do. Currentl;y we are members of the European space agency that launches probes and rckets every year; just look at the recent Huygens probe to Titan. There is a space program called auroa that aims to have men on the moon and mars soon after or even before the americans.
We do have a space agency as well that is based in Leister.

Answer 7

ESA the European space agency is funded with the UK so we partially own ESA as well as all the other countries in Western Europe.
European Space Agency-ESA.
We do not have the space programme in our country as it would pollute the land. The UK is full with nature and modern facilities. ESA has some barron land to do a space agency.
We have astronomy ground programmes but not space agencies.

Answer 8

Britain does have a space program but due to budget and location problems it is part of the larger European space agency. They went to Mars at the same time as NASA with the beagle2 probe but it failed to call home, Perhaps it could not find a phone box.

Answer 9

Apparently, we do have some space related industry know-how left, even if we don't publicise it much-- my friend works for JAXA, the Japanese space agency, and he's come to Guildford to study British made small-scale satellites. He says we're pretty good at that.

It is strange though- our government is quite prepared to throw money away on a pointless war and a pointless ID card system, and goodness knows what else... you might have thought they'd be ready to waste a few billion on space as well.

Answer 10

Actually we do. The UK is a member of ESA.

There is also a UK government space agency. The British National Space Agency. http://www.bnsc.gov.uk.

As well as that we also have a space minister, Lord Sainsbury of Turville!

The UK did launch satellites in the 1960's from Woomera, Australia but the Labour government of the time cancelled this.

But the UK does build satellites and in conjunction with ESA, NASA and other space agencies the UK also launches them.

Answer 11

Because they no longer have anywhere that is energy efficient to launch from. They are part of the ESA, though. The best launch sites are close to or on the earth's equator. The surface is moving the fastest at this point due to the earth's rotation. Some of this spin imparts energy to the rocket being launched causing less fuel to be needed.