Space race? this is STAR wars!
A Highland rocket base sounded like science fiction. But now it’s been cleared for lift-off – and is threatening to tear a community apart...
‘The space sector is a key priority’
some kind has long been needed. But the idea that it might arise from the UK space programme would, even a few years ago, have been dismissed as science fiction.
That space has, in some sense, ‘chosen’ their area is considered by some to be a miracle.
To others it is the stuff of nightmares – ‘environmental vandalism’ as one group puts it.
‘We need jobs but not at the expense of this unique habitat, whose protection is our duty to leave as a legacy to future generations as their birthright,’ says Alistair Gow.
He laments the strained relationships and intimidation which eats away at the instinctive neighbourliness which is part and parcel of rural Highland life.
‘I would love to see a project producing sustainable, eco-friendly jobs that the community could all support and benefit from,’ he says. ‘I have made many suggestions but lacked funding.’
The space project fares rather better in that department. It is led by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), which submitted the application for change of use for the land, which is owned by crofters under the umbrella of the Melness Crofting Estate.
The hub has £17.3million in funding – £9.8million coming from HIE, £5million from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the remaining £2.5million from the UK Space Agency.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s contribution reflects its pledge to help create jobs to replace those lost from the eventual closure of the Dounreay nuclear power plant in Caithness.
No one disputes that the hub will also give the area an employment boost, though arguments do rage over its scale. According to HIE, by 2024 it will support 177 jobs across Scotland – 139 in the Highlands, with more than 40 of these posts in and around the launch site.
Critics claim the new jobs total will be nearer to 40 – and almost all of them highly specialised and therefore of little benefit to locals.
Just as passionately disputed are the environmental implications. While the planned launch site may look like a wilderness, this part of
Scotland, known as the Flow Country, is in fact Europe’s largest peat bog and home to approximately 400million tons of carbon.
Peat is highly flammable and carbon emissions already exceed Scotland’s own prescribed limits.
What happens, ask spaceport sceptics, when a launch goes wrong and crashes in flames in the Flow
Country? Last May, a single wildfire in the area burned for almost a week, releasing an amount of carbon into the atmosphere equivalent to six days’ worth of Scotland’s total greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report by the World Wildlife Fund.
Despite Mr Larmour’s assurances, there are also concerns about rocket debris. According to an environmental impact assessment, 12 tons of plastic and metal will be dropped into the sea each year from rockets taking off from the peninsula.
This, says the report, ‘poses a risk to marine life through direct collision and through ingestion of macro and microplastics’.
How can it be, ask the spaceport opponents, that a council which only last December declared a climate and ecological emergency and pledged to ‘become an exemplar’ in its response to it has given the go-ahead to an enterprise which concretes over a natural wilderness and threatens massive carbon emissions?
One answer is the spaceport will actually help to improve the environment. ‘We wouldn’t know about things like the ozone hole over the Antarctic without satellites,’ says Mr Larmour. ‘We wouldn’t be able to monitor CO2 levels globally without satellites, so some of these satellites definitely help our understanding of the environmental crisis and educate us on what to do.’
Following Highland Council’s approval of the space hub last week, Scottish ministers have 28 days to decide whether to call in the scheme, which has been warmly welcomed at UK Government level.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The space sector is a key priority for the Scottish Government, as highlighted within our Programme for Government that outlines our ambition to become the first country in Europe to provide an end-to-end solution for small satellite manufacture, launch and innovation in satellite data analysis, and in doing so capture a £4billion share of the global space market by 2030.
‘That ambition includes the development of launch capability – both horizontal and vertical – to serve small satellites.’
The spokesman added: ‘As the application is due to be brought before Scottish ministers it would be inappropriate to comment on the specifics.’
Until now, the Scottish space programme’s steps have been tiny ones. Will there be a giant leap by 2022? The countdown is on. j.brocklebank@dailymail.co.uk