Britain to Create New Space Agency
Britain will create a new space agency, according to the BBC. Britian is a member of the European Space Agency, but the British government has had an on and off interest in space activities — other than remote sensing — for many years. The British National Space Centre has been the main governmental body coordinating civil space activities, but the BBC has a pretty harsh assessment of it:
” … the UK’s approach has been to devolve space policy decisions to a club of “users” facilitated by a civil service unit called the British National Space Centre (BNSC).
“These users are the government departments and research councils that have interests in space science or space-borne services.
“The arrangement was supposed to ensure that limited space funding chased “need” and “value”. But critics complained the approach only promoted self-interest and made it hard for the UK to adopt coherent positions on big international programmes – where much space activity is now directed.”
The new space agency is supposed to fix that “and drive more and better cooperation among the different space users” according to the BBC, which also notes that it is not yet clear how the agency will be funded.
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