This week, the potential locations of a new dedicated spaceport will be announced by the UK Government, with Scotland very likely to be in the running.
Lossiemouth in Moray has already been pinpointed by Virgin Atlantic as a possible site for launching its spaceplanes, although eight locations in all will be announced.
The government's stated aim is to grab more of the international space market with Business Secretary Vince Cable summoning up the spirit of Neil Armstrong when he said he wanted to take one giant leap towards creating the first British spaceport and making space travel a realistic option for everyone.
Some progress has already been made. The UK space sector has grown by seven per cent in the past two years and Scotland has been a central part of that growth. Last week, Ukube-1, the first satellite designed and built in Scotland, was launched into space.
It proves Scotland already has some of the skills and industry needed to become the location for the new spaceport. And the potential prize is great: in space, there will be a new tourism industry; on earth, there will be many thousands of new jobs.
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