British Space Agency About to Launch

Somehow the words Britain and space agency don't go together, and yet that's exactly what's going to happen next month when the first British space agency starts operations.

This is obvious part of branding Britain and a point of national pride, but it is also practical in that hopes are it'll create a large number of jobs that will be resistant to future recessionary periods. At least that's what the British government hopes.

The UK Space Agency has an original budget of $346 million to get itself operational, and is estimated to eventually create tens of thousands of jobs in the country.

Although this sounds like a sexy business, the fact is at this time the space industry in the U.K. concerns itself with developing small satellites, telecommunications and robotics. This of course ends up relating to the technologies used for interconnected industries like GPS and high speed Internet access.

Wisely, in my estimation, Britain won't be entering into the manned space flight arena, which while seemingly the ultimate in branding a country, is a poor business proposition, and really does little to create real jobs, and of course is extremely risky as some of the tragedies related to the American space program have proven.

I actually like this, as it keeps the space program grounded, rather than attempting to become a big player in order to impress others, rather than be a legitimate business enterprise.

Even so, it does distribute funds to the European Space Agency, which on their part are working on putting together a flight to Mars in the future.

According to Science and Innovation Minister Paul Drayson, the new space agency could end up creating up to 100,000 new jobs over the next 20 years, while generating 40 billion pounds on a yearly basis.

That assertion is of course unprovable and must be taken with a grain of salt, but it seems even if it was a fifth of that it would be a good initiative and program for British workers.