FROM CAPE CANAVERAL TO... UNST
How a tiny Scottish island (pop. 632) won Britain’s space race
Ness and Saxa Vord, where there were Ministry of Defence sites.
A paper commissioned by the UK Space Agency three years ago identified Unst as an ‘ideal location’ from which to launch satellites into space.
Called the Sceptre report, it was part-funded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and stated: ‘The site offering the maximum payload mass to orbit is Saxavord in the Shetlands [sic].’
Unst’s dwindling population, no doubt faced with the prospect of new lifeblood being injected into the local economy through jobs and cash, is said to be a ‘happy band of crofters’, content with the notion of a spaceport.
Until last week, however, it looked as if the A’Mhoine peninsula in Sutherland was streaks ahead of its rivals and was the UK Space Agency’s preferred location for a vertical-launch site.
After all, the body – which has warned it is at imminent risk of losing out to Scandinavian rivals in creating a spaceport – had paid almost £30 million to two aerospace companies to develop rockets capable of launching there.
Scotland makes more satellites than any country outside of the United States but companies – such as Spire Global and Clyde Space – at present have to ship their satellites from Glasgow to the US and Kazakhstan.
However, the local community in Sutherland has been divided over the loss of acres of rich, peat bog and the potential threat to rare bird species such as sea eagles, not to mention a threat of legal action by billionaire businessman Anders Povlsen.
Campaign group Protect The Mhoine was set up by crofters and locals to oppose the proposal. Chairman John Williams said: ‘The drawbacks of building a spaceport on the Mhoine are far more serious and longer lasting than possible benefits. If you destroy a peatlands area by putting roads across it, concrete in it and rockets on it, the damage will last for hundreds or thousands of years.’
The Westminster Government has aimed to grow the UK’s share of the global space market to 10 per cent by 2030 and has already awarded grants totalling £40 million to establish commercial vertical and horizontal small satellite launches from British spaceports.
Last month they were given court approval to buy a 45 per cent stake in a bankrupt satellite company, OneWeb, for $500 million (£382 million), whose aim before it collapsed was to launch hundreds of small satellites.
Meanwhile, Newquay, in Cornwall, is thought to be favourite still to win the ‘space tourism’ race, eventually offering the first suborbital flights to those wanting to boldly go on holiday to somewhere out of this world. The trips will allow passengers to experience weightlessness and view the curvature of the planet.
It could also mean flight times between the UK and Australia are slashed from at least 22 hours to 90 minutes.
Among those interested in the site are Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin company, which is planning horizontal launches, while rivals intend to take tourists to space by rocket.
There are no proposals for space flights from Unst, which plans to concentrate only on launching rockets up to 100ft in length.
Other spaceport contenders which were offered cash from a UK Government development fund in 2018, provided they could produce a successful business case, included Prestwick in Ayrshire; North Uist, in the Western Isles; Campbeltown, in Argyll; and Llanbedr in Gwynedd, Wales.
However, many projects have faced mixed success with funding partners and some are unlikely to see lift-off.
Putting rockets on land... the damage will last hundreds of years