Quite right with the regards to changes in funding to various projects, companies and ESA moving forward but that is what makes direct control of these a plus as it allows directing of what will be worked with the funds available.

I guess the difference is in Britain the government has realised just how important space science is to the economy.
In Britain we've lost manufacturing, IT is increasingly offshored but jobs from research and development into such things as new satellites, ESA programs such as telescopes and probes and university and private research programs is if anything increasing.

I can't remember the exact figure but these space programs bring in something like 6.5 Billion GBP ($10.5 Billion) each year to the UK economy so as a small but growing sector it is important to a country the size of the UK.
The reasoning behing the new agency is to protect that income and to ensure we continue to be effective in bringing in new business for this sector.

To be fair it's only recently that the government acknowledges the importance of this income, likely a result of the recession and having to look at all forms of income.

Australia as I understand does have some programs, just not an agency directing them.
I'm thinking of university programs such as large radio telescopes, research programs and some private programs.
Swinburne Astronomy Productions for instance is Australian but they do some fantastic stuff.

Of course actual launches and an active space program I'm not so sure about beyond some companies I'm sure developing components and research. It's a shame, maybe the government needs to be given a stong enough financial incentive for such a program which I'm sure will come with time as the sector grows around the world.

If you look on the BNSC site you'll find more information.

The trouble is, it's being designed from the outset as a jobs program, effectively.

You are right though, jobs is a major part of the new agency since the agency is trying to draw investment and projects to the UK and these technology parks.
If they can show a strong skilled workforce is available then its a big attraction to companies in the sector.

Obama's approach does seem short sighted although I do understand his and other people's criticism of NASA and in particular the Constellation program.

Constellation represents a massive investment for NASA and yet when asked to provide figures for the program cost NASA appeared unable to do so.
Costs up to the development of the Orion and Ares vehicles vary between $30 billion and $40 billion depending on who was asked.
The total cost over 2 decades varied as well with costs generally accepted to be over $230 billion to tax payers.

That's a huge sum of money but the real problem came from NASA's inability to give a business case to the Constellation program.
Obama's suggestion was that given that much money, the brightest minds in the business and so much time it was dissapointing that NASA could only come up with a rework of old tried and tested technologies which displayed no original thinking.
Whether that's a fair criticism is open to very active debate but in a nutshell money has to be saved and $230 billion for a new rocket which NASA couldn't explain the costs for or the benefits of was too much to Obama to just accept.
The suggestion was that NASA was no longer functioning as it should, was no longer pushing back boundaries and was playing safe at the taxpayers expense.

So what Obama is trying to sell is the idea that if NASA won't innovate then they'll give the money to private companies who will. Given market competition they will get more for their money and more original ideas and solutions to problems.

Now I'm not saying that I agree from a technology perspective, asking the private sector to take over so quickly is a big ask but with my business hat on I do see the dangers of just continuing to fund NASA when they seem to have lost control of their own program.
Projected costs and a tight business case is the minimum for any major project. To ask the tax payer to give some large amount of money for a program we think will be of benefit when the company is close to depression doesn't seem realistic.

I don't think this is the end of NASA by a long shot, what it will do is refocus and sharpen a lot of minds in the private sector as well as in NASA leading to better programs when the cash starts flowing again.

OK, as we already knew today was announcement day for the new British space agency so we now have a new organisation for managing investment in the space sector in the UK.

Having spoken to people working in the UK's space sector however I'm feeling a lot of Sinicism about how this new agency will work since there's no new investment leaving Britain very low in its overall commitment to the space sector compared to other European countries.
Indeed even ESA is getting annoyed with Britain only contributing the legal minimum to be part of ESA, investing very little in ESA's additional programs.



To address this I'm looking at starting a petition to get the UK government to realise that it isn't only American's who have enough pride to want a well funded national space program.
We have the research facilities and companies in the UK, we now have the agency and we are in a situation where world powers are now looking at ways to run an international Mars program.
Now is the right time for Britain to really commit to ESA and NASA and new bigger space projects.

Before I start such a petition, is anyone aware of any similar petition or would anyone else want to get involved in organising this petition? I have no experience in running a petition but I do feel that one is needed and with an election only months away then it would be a great time to run one. We could highlight the petition in other advocacy groups and through social networks such as Facebook.

I'd also encourage people to write to their MP's to voice their frustration at Britain's lack of vision or commitment to a space program and to demand more from the next government.

To be fair, having gone over the details of the Space Innovation and Growth Strategy and the most recent investment for the new UK Space Agency it appears that the government is now taking the sector more seriously as a growth industry.

SIGS sets out to grow the UK space sector from 6% to 10% and outlines the required changes for government and business to make this achieveable.
The early steps include an additional £20 million investment by government and the formation of a new space agency. The plan is for R&D spending in industry to grow by £5bn and government space funding to increase to £550m annually by 2020.

Now so far government has taken this report seriously, creating the recommended new agency and starting with an additional £40 million investment instead of the requested £20 million.

I'm fortunate to be located around 15 minutes away from the new space agency as well as ESA and other space companies on the Harwell campus. I plan to keep an eye on how closely this report is followed over the coming years since it sets out a realistic growth level for the UK space sector.

The strategy being proposed and followed can be found at the following URL.
http://spaceigs.co.uk/

Until the new site launches, the main place to access official UK Space Agency information is http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/