Elon Musk’s Starship is the biggest rocket ever built. Sending it into space is hard; bringing it back to Earth, in a fit state to be reused, is even harder. The rocket booster, having just carried a craft into space, must not be allowed to crash into the Atlantic and sink to the seabed. Instead, in order for it to be swiftly relaunched, it must fall vertically – back onto a launchpad.
But as the rocket approaches touchdown, its engines have to fire towards Earth in order to slow its descent. And the colossal heat and force generated by these engines is enough to cause severe damage to the launchpad and surrounding infrastructure. That’s why Musk’s team have devised what they call ‘chopsticks’: mechanical arms with which the 469ft SpaceX launch tower will catch a falling rocket booster.
So far, the chopsticks are just prototypes. Soon, though, they will be used to try to catch a Starship booster. This innovation will help SpaceX make it cheaper than ever before, by a huge margin, to get things into space. It will unlock an exciting new era of both economic activity and adventure.
Some of this economic activity includes the manufacture of drugs and fibre-optic cables, which are best done in the ultra-low gravity one encounters outside the Earth’s atmosphere. By the end of this decade, the space economy will be worth $1 trillion, according to consultancy firm McKinsey. In subsequent decades, our ambitions will expand further. With a fair wind, we will mine asteroids, service extraterrestrial colonies and travel from one point on Earth to another via space. London to Sydney in less than two hours could become a reality.
If Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are serious about economic growth then they should pay attention to this vastly under-tapped market. They should be asking how the UK can best take part in this new and lucrative era of space travel. Our membership of the European Space Agency has enabled us to send astronauts such as Tim Peake to the International Space Station. But the agency’s Ariane rocket programme is far behind SpaceX’s.
Professor Adam Amara, who is chair of the UK Space Agency’s Science Programme Advisory Committee and is one of the key people behind the £1 billion Euclid satellite project, believes that Britain could be upping its game. ‘Ariane sees itself as in competition with SpaceX, but SpaceX is launching things twice a week,’ he tells me. ‘Ariane launches a few a year. I suspect SpaceX doesn’t even notice.’
The UK has the ability to act independently. Bilateral deals are in place between the UK Space Agency and countries such as Australia, which have helped create new British spaceports (i.e. sites from which rockets can be launched). Of this new generation, Spaceport Cornwall has had one (failed) launch attempt. The other spaceports are closing in on completion. The flagship is SaxaVord Spaceport, which is on the island of Unst, at the northern tip of the Shetlands.
This new generation exists because the UK space sector is already strong. Pioneers such as Sir Martin Sweeting have made this country one of the best in the world at satellite engineering. We are good at sensors, magnetometers, infrared optics – but, as Amara says, we don’t put them together in ambitious projects of our own, and we tend to outsource launches. Nevertheless, we have a high existing amount of expertise, and this advantage ought to help us outcompete our peers. ‘We just need to make it all join up so that private investment can pile in,’ says Amara.
By the end of this decade,
the space economy will
be worth $1 trillion
How to do the joining up? The astrophysicist Peter Hague has called for the British government to bring super-heavy space launch to the UK, doing so not by taking a decade or more to build a challenger to Starship, but by building a spaceport that would soon be able to accommodate it, chopsticks and all. Some members of the industry, however, have told Hague they think Britain should stick to satellite components and leave the launch to others. Are they right? ‘I think we should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,’ Hague says.
Here’s how his plan would work. Realistically, the government would need to partner with SpaceX or its competitor Blue Origin, which is owned by Jeff Bezos. Britain would subsidise the construction of a super spaceport that would, in return, bring to our shores the business of one of those two companies. Naturally, the international exchange of rocket hardware raises regulatory eyebrows – but, conveniently enough, the UK and the US have already signed a deal that allows us to import such equipment.
What about our location? Unfortunately, we are far from the equator. This makes the UK a suboptimal place for getting things into equatorial orbit, which is where humanity tends to put space stations. (This is mostly because the Earth rotates fastest at the equator, which means that rockets, if launched eastward, effectively get flung faster.)
But there are two kinds of orbit for which the UK is well-placed. One of these is polar orbit, whereby a satellite’s regular path takes it over, or nearly over, both the North and South Poles. Because the Earth rotates laterally, this orbit allows a satellite to monitor almost every part of the planet. Polar orbit is therefore where we put satellites that are used for mapping, reconnaissance and environmental modelling. Another type of orbit, known as sun-synchronous orbit, offers similar advantages.
Altogether, Britain can corner up to 30 per cent of space activity, says Professor David Stupples, who is a specialist in satellite engineering and space-based surveillance systems. In particular, says Stupples, the UK has a good opportunity to lead the way in satellite maintenance. ‘What we’re going to do in the future is, in fact, replace solar panels, batteries, even some of the scientific instruments on board. And that will be done by a spacecraft going up to do the maintenance.’ Our service economy will have entered the space age.
If we were to build this super spaceport, where would we put it? The site would need to be remote. Space agencies don’t like to create a risk of rockets falling out of the sky and onto populated areas. This issue is one of the reasons why the two remote Scottish spaceports, of which the second will be in Sutherland, are not permitted many launches per year (SaxaVord gets 30). Large areas of land must be cordoned off, lest walkers come to harm.
Nevertheless, one can imagine SaxaVord being upgraded to a super spaceport. And if Scottish nimbys see off the proposals, there are other options. Matvey Boguslavskiy, an engineer with a background in space technology, suggests we could use the North Sea instead. This is not as fanciful an idea as it sounds. In the Gulf of Mexico, a start-up is already trying to demonstrate that you can build oil rig-like launchpads at sea. ‘You want container ships to be able to access it fairly easily,’ says Boguslavskiy. ‘You could do that in Scotland, but the North Sea is already such an industrialised area.’
There would be many other obstacles to overcome. The government might need to justify the launches with a state-backed endeavour, such as a space station. Either way, a super spaceport would make the most of the UK’s scientific advantages at a time when the space economy is entering a boom era. More profoundly, it would enable Britain to participate in some of the greatest adventures in human history. Our species will return to the moon, set foot on Mars, and perhaps even plant a Union flag in the red dust.
Tom Ough is co-producer and presenter of the Anglofuturism podcast.
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