UK will start building its own spaceport

Britain is considering eight sites for the construction of a new commercial spaceport. Officials of the island nation have even begun to lean in favor of one of the options. The final decision officials intend to announce in the framework of the Farnborough Airshow on July 15.

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The new spaceport will be for the UK platform for launching commercial satellites and carry out manned missions. According to the British newspaper the Guardian, on the basis of the spaceport will begin regular tourist flights by Virgin Galactic and the us company XCOR (also specializiruetsya on space tourism).

The British are planning to launch a spaceport in operation after 4 years. According to The Guardian, the government has already selected a location for a future spaceport. Among the potential locations considered most likely to the North of Scotland, Norfolk island, Bristol and the Outer Hebrides.

Among the main aspects, the location of the spaceport noted the need to consider the opinions of inventor Alan bond. On the basis of his company Reaction Engines is already available spacecraft Skylon. The project bond is considered to be in the UK so promising that the government officially invested 60 million pounds. The first flights of the Skylon space plane will start in the late 2010s, and in the future are all built Skylon will be based at the new spaceport.

The plans of great Britain to build a spaceport indicate a significant change in the attitude of the government to the space industry. Until recently, the higher ranks in the UK are not particularly interested in this field, but the recent success of the British space companies forced the government look at the space industry.

Source: scienceblog.ru