SCOTLAND is in the running to host the first British spaceport, with six out of eight potential locations sited north of the Border.
Representatives from the UK Space Agency will join Government ministers at this week's Farnborough air show to reveal the possible locations for a dedicated spaceport which they hope will be ready by 2018.
Sites understood to have been shortlisted include Kinloss, Stornoway Airport, Prestwick Airport, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Leuchars and Campbeltown Airport. The others are in Wales and Cornwall. While none of the eight locations have been officially named, Chief Secretary to the Treasurer Danny Alexander has talked up Scotland's potential contribution to the sector.
He said: "Scotland has a proud association with space exploration. We celebrated Neil Armstrong's Scottish ancestry when he became the first man on the Moon and only last week an amazing Scottish company was responsible for building the UK Space Agency's first satellite. The UK space industry is one of our great success stories and I am sure there will be a role for Scotland to play in the future."
The Government aims to capture 10 per cent of the world's space market by 2030, citing figures that the UK sector has grown by just over seven per cent in the past two years, making it worth £11 billion and employing 34,000 people.
Business Secretary Vince Cable, who will join representatives from the Department for Transport in making the announcement tomorrow, said the UK space sector is booming.
"This week we will announce the next steps for this country's space race and how we will take one giant leap towards creating the first British spaceport, making space travel one step closer for all," he said.
First Minister Alex Salmond has said the space sector offers "huge economic potential" for Scotland. Just last week, the country's first satellite was launched into space by a Russian rocket. UKube-1, a state-of-the-art nanosatellite, was built by Glasgow-based Clyde Space.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article