Engineering: How far the moon?

According to a House of Commons Committee report, ‘A Space Policy’, the UK’s involvement in space programmes brings sizable economic and commercial benefits, but these benefits are under threat from the lack of ‘home-grown’ talent, reports Owen Holdaway.

The skill shortage, which at the moment is being filled by overseas talent, is creating serious problems and in the long term is unsustainable.

Sir Martin Sweeting from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd says that: “we tend to recruit not just…from the UK, but worldwide…, but it is quite a struggle”.

The report also highlights flaws in certain government organisations, particularly the lack of co-ordination nationally and the need to reconsider the UK’s reluctance to become involved in human spaceflight.

Coordinating the UK’s space programmes

At the moment, unlike many other countries, Britain does not have a National Space Agency. The British National Space Centre (BNSC), set up in 1985, is a partnership of 11 government departments and research bodies and not a national body.

It has limited power, relying on its partnering departments to act, and some argue that the larger departments tend to dominate the BNSC’s agenda.

Professor Howard Dalton, Departmental Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department for environment and rural affairs (Defra) told the Common’s report that: “we are wondering in many respects whether or not the agenda that has been set by BNSC is coming from the DTI (now the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) or from the membership as a whole.”

It also puts the UK in a weaker negotiating position when dealing with international partners.

“[A National Space Agency] would engage on a more equal footing with the European Space Agency (ESA) and with national agencies in other countries and generally enable the UK to play a stronger international leadership role in space science,” The Royal Society points out.

A national space agency would be prestigious and raise the UK’s national space profile, but some believe it is not possible with the UK’s selective approach to space programmes.

Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director of the ESA says: “you cannot compare, for example [the BNSC] with the fact that there is an agency in France, because French policy is very different from British policy”. British policy is based on the costs and scientific or commercial benefits, France and other national space agencies are happy to pursue the exploration of space for the sake of prestige.

The costs and scientific merit

The space industry as a whole contributes directly 2.4 billion, 0.2% of UK GDP, to the UK’s economy and employs a highly skilled work force estimated at around 17,500. 

Despite this significant size, the UK investment in space is quite low. In 2005-2006 the UK invested only £207 million on space activities, only 0.038% of GDP, considerably less than France, Italy and Germany.

The UK chooses to invest in space programmes that offer the highest commercial and scientific benefits. 

As David Williams of the BNSC says: “we are doing things not just because it is a satellite system or a space system, but because it is useful in the area of application that it is being applied.”

For instance, the government partially funds the Galileo programme, the ESA satellite navigation system, which offers uses for traffic management and the emergency services.

Space regulation

The growth of new sectors - such as space tourism - is also having a strong impact on the UK’s space industry.

Virgin Galactic is now offering bookings for suborbital flights to passengers at approximately $200,000 a seat, and by the end of the decade aims to provide sub-orbital tourism to the general public.

Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic, points out the need for a robust new regulation: “We need to have a legislative background in the UK… or we will lose a massive opportunity.”

His concern is around export controls on their commercial space vehicle, Space-Ship-Two. However, as the private sector begins to move from sub to orbital flights there will be a need to look at other space regulation.

For instance, there are problems with The Outer Space Act which has regulated governmental space activities over the last two decades. It makes no distinction between sub and orbital space flights and may need to be changed.

UK’s partnerships

The UK has strong relationships with NASA and ESA, and has also started to develop partnerships with Chinese and Indian space industries. 

In India the UK has strong ties with the India Space Research Agency, particularly around climate change research, and in China the UK has recently established a blueprint for a working relationship. 

ESA has emphasised the importance of establishing these relationships as: “China has achieved mastery of all space technologies and… India is already at the leading edge of environmental monitoring.”

The UK has had historic links with NASA and is one of their preferred international partners. For instance, of the 900 or so international agreements that NASA has established in the past decade, the UK has been one of ten most regularly chosen partners. 

But, by far the UK has its strongest relationship with ESA. Regular meeting take place between ESA and BNSC staff and the UK is the second highest contributor to ESA’s subscription budget, behind only Germany. 

Human spaceflight

The British government has a long established reluctance to engage in human spaceflight. It has said that using robotic exploration is a much more cost effective way to get the same results.

Professor Len Culhane from the UK Space Academic Network supports this: “[human spaceflight] would be very difficult to justify on purely scientific functionality grounds.”

The costs are high. The entry into ESA’s astronaut programme requires an annual subscription of 150 million Euros.

Despite this some feel human space flight is inspirational and could help to motivate young people to study space-related subjects, such as engineering or physics.

The government has said it would review studies assessing the benefits of human space activities. And while it may be too late for the UK to build an astronaut corps and take advantage of opportunities on the international space station, the UK could involve itself in NASA’s leading programme to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020.

Education and skills

The UK has a skills shortage, particularly in the areas of physics and engineering graduates, and the government is also concerned at the lack of engagement of young people in space sciences. 

The Department for Education and Skills commissioned Barstow report, ‘Bring space into the classroom’, highlighted the need to increase the number of science and engineering graduates in order to fill the skills gap.

Another report by the BNSC, ‘The Size and Health of the UK space industry,’ noted that “almost half of the companies reported a shortage of specific skills. The main shortages identified were in....  engineering disciplines and physics.”

The BNSC is trying to improve this. In 2005 the BNSC developed a National Space Education Initiative aimed to inspire young people to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

However, Professor Barstow, author of the report states “so far substantive progress seems to be slow.”

The House of Commons Committee report does praise the cost effectiveness of British space programmes. However, the report falls short of arguing for radical changes to develop more home grown talent. There is no argument for massive increases in funding and/or an immediate reversal on the UK’s position on human spaceflight. Without these visible programmes, the UK government will have to be very clever in applying its limited funds in inspiring space or educational initiatives to encourage the next generation of British born space scientists and engineers. 

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