Plans are afoot to designate a UK spaceport, both for technical and space tourism launches. Where would be the best place to site it?
Doncaster emerged as the clear winner of last week’s poll, gaining 57 per cent of 930 votes. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given the town’s rich aeronautical history and, as an anonymous commentator pointed out, ‘[Doncaster] is more central and is likely to have the best transport links in the foreseeable future.’
The Civil Aviation Authority, in its UK Government Review of commercial spaceplane certification and operations report, identifies Doncaster Sheffield Airport – among many others – as a possible location, subject to runway extensions and the provision of appropriate segregated airspace.
The report concludes: ‘further research required’.
From the other poll options there was a reasonably narrow split between Llanbedr (14 per cent) and Newquay (10 per cent) whilst options in Scotland attracted seven per cent of the votes cast.
Seven per cent were not enamoured by any of the locations offered in the poll and five per cent of you thought a spaceport entirely unnecessary in Britain.
What do you think? Let us know below.
Wherever the spaceport is, it will need excellent transport links so people can get there. That’s why I selected Doncaster as it is more central and is likely to have the best transport links in the foreseeable future.
Doesn’t this all depend on if a geo-stationary orbit is required? (sub orbital are really just joy rides). For geostationary isn’t as near as possible to the equator the best to take advantage of the Earths spin-velocity – so Jersey or Gurnsey?
Or may be there’s now a use for the HMS Queen Elizabeth? – float it off the the mid Atlantic near to the equator – with a rocket on top?
RAF Leuchars would be a great choice.
Ebbw Vale would be good as it’s not far from the west Midlands, it’s high ground with clear air for viewing launches and land prices are low. A link to the M4 and London to South Wales railway could be put in place.
Spaceport location – Boris island as Hotol will be able to use a normal airport
From what I read about this we need a 3 km runway. Perhaps this isn’t completely necessary? If so it rules out a lot of existing runways such as Filton etc. where extension would be difficult to impossible. Doncaster has a good running for this with an extension or a new runway. Norfolk has a good chance of supporting this as well. It would be interesting to see if the location of the space industry may sway the chosen location. As 50% of the space industry is located around London it could pull the spaceport that way.
Doncaster is a good site.
Flat terrain and not much to the East, close to the coast, central location, excellent rail, road and air links, access to large pools of labour and universities at Hull, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leeds etc.
It would be more cost effective per passenger to carve out a new runway on the equator complete with all the required infrastructure and ferry people to and from the UK than to launch from within the UK. This is a “Pie in the Sky” totally unrealistic dream. If you must have a UK location I believe Wigan is noted for it’s pies.
Equator launch is of very limited benefit for a sub-orbital flight.
Regarding ‘SPACEPORT’ for UK, I would suggest ‘FALKLAND’ since we occupy that islands?
Far away where nobody would know what we would be doing.
Hampden Park – always a few rockets going off in there
As a Star Wars fan i believe Newquay would be most suited, afterall “you will never find a greater hive of scum and villainy” Ive waited thirty years to say that, god i must get out more
I would like to see a day when the Sabre engine, Skylon and Lapcat A2 are all being made and launched in the UK. We will be needing multiple spaceports then!
According to Flight – http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1946/1946%20-%201623.html There were plans in 1946 to build a 5 mile runway between RAE Bedford (Thurleigh) and Little Slaughton of up to 5 miles in length- good enough for Skylon?. It’s still all countryside around there – handy links for A and M1 – Cardington and Cranfield nearby ….
@Paul
A lot of space companies around there too.
Weathersfield Airbase in Essex. 2nd biggest US airbase in UK in the 1960s and abandoned as an airfield when the Americans left. Huge place in remote part of Essex, actually could be the third runway for Stansted if linked by high speed rail over 20 miles. Then link to west of England by extending the A120 through Puckeridge (where?) to link up with Stevenage, Luton, Aylesbury, Oxford and Swindon (actually the completion of the London 3rd orbital planned in the 1950s to relieve congestion on the M25 and link East coast ports directly to Midlands and beyond). Simples!
Equatorial launch sites are pretty much essential for East-West launches, though not so important for sub-orbital or polar orbits.
To get the maximum benefit – how about Ascension Island? It could also be used to boost the economy of that place and Britain’s Atlantic Islands.
p.s. I thought Wigan was noted for its piers.
While I would welcome the prospect of a major spaceport at Wigan possibly in the area of Horrocks Flash, there remains some unanswered questions.
Are we looking at a HOTOL style space plane proposed by BAE Warton on the Fylde or are we looking at a Mustard type launch vehicle or both?
I would suggests a long runway is required with sea access
Launch Vehicle construction could then use Warton’s aerospace expertise with engines trucked in or flown in from Reaction Engines in Oxfordshire.
Shipment by sea could then be undertaken to Macrahinish from where launch over the Sea could be achieved.
Warton could be the Houston To Macrahinish’s Cape Canaveral.
But that is unlikely as it is more than 1 days travel from Westminster and may well boost northern economies.
I fully recognize the failure to consider all but polar launches and the associated orbital mechanics.
It is far cheaper to launch spacecraft from near the equator as there is a 1% fuel cost saving due to centrifugel forces, space shouldn’t be a race anymore it should be global co-operative.
When you need to reach 11.7 km/s to escape earth then the fuel savings make equator launches favourable. A suborbital launch needs nothing like this speed and as the payload and craft is lighter the energy requirements drop further. As a result the benefit of an equator launch are much less.
Of the government proposed sites, Newquay is the only valid option, simply because of the mild weather.
Scotland is in a nearly permanent state of wind, rain, cold and darkness. Not to mention being under snow for half the year.
Newquay is like a tropical paradise in comparison.
UK rents Mount Kilimanjaro for charity bike rides but secretly diverts money raised to vast subterranean space port, electromagnetic gun sled, vacuum tunnel exiting at crater rim and special lasers to tunnel air ahead of plane. Plane might need strengthening.
Retiring now to feed evil white cat.
The idea of the Falklands sounds good.
But has anyone proposed one in the North – say in Northumberland? It might even be a justification for HS4 with links to Scotland too??
I am just surpised that civil surfants are supporting the space industry. But I would welcome seeing what research and manufacturing is being developed – for both launch and flight technologies.
I suggest that the spaceport be sited in central London for the simple reason that only the ‘leaders’ on their 174 x Average salary will afford the cost of the flights so should save the GHGases by walking from their homes Belgravia /St John’s Wood etc. to the launch pad at a newly cleared Westminster Palace site. Maybe they would recognise what real-life values look like before they take to the skies!
Either this is a joke and won’t happen, because none of the sites are in the Home Counties where all development is required to be placed.
OR it is so dangerous they don’t want it in the Home Counties, in which case it will also never happen because it’s not suitable for the Home Counties and the backstop is that the Health and Safety NAZIs will stop it anyway.
Why not honor that spaceman that headed the beagle Project to Mars, and name it Spaceport Pillinger?
http://twitter.com/waseem_mirza/status/464772854148767744
Well I suppose this will be the next argument after the Thames estuary hub airport, “Boris Island”. It will be argued over for the next ten years or more.
Or we could amalgemate it with the Thames estuary airport, “Boris Island Spaceport”.
Although there is an airport that I think would already fit the bill, with an extended runway, that is not being used at the moment, and that is Manston.
Newquay Cornwall Airport.
Why bother with Scotland, if they vote for Independence then our taxpayer money will be wasted. Show them that Independence will deprive them investment. No further British taxpayers money should go into Scotland till the Independence issue is resolved.
The equatorial factor reduces payload for a given launcher.
It is almost essential for a vertical launch stack, but less so for a space plane like Skylon, mainly because of the mass difference.
777t for Ariane 5 vs 300t (est) for Skylon, for a ~15t payload to LEO.
But also because of the nature of an air breathing space plane, they are not restricted to the same launch profile of a vertical stack.
Yes there is a fuel saving with equatorial launch for an equatorial orbit, but it’s not as significant for a reusable launcher.
Fuel is a minor cost in conventional non-reusable launchers, but as the launcher needs to be built for the launch, there is a need to maximise capability, due to cost.
Reuseability will make fuel more important in terms of launch cost, but at the same time dropping the cost of launching that multiple launches becomes more cost effective and less risky and so peak payload capacity is less of a concern.
Thurleigh Bedfordshire,
Middle of the oxbridge center of brains etc, good com links, away from major centers of poulation.
whats not to like?
A long flat piece of land with a hill at the end to provide a vertical vector on take off. Somewhere behind Newquay may fit the bill. Either that or Barnsley town centre. (I stayed there once!).
As we put everything to London, we might as well put this one there, too.
How does Doncaster get on the poll, never mind get the most votes when it isn’t even on the short list. They are looking for a coastal site so rockets that go wrong will land in the sea.
I am not really sure why Scottish locations are being considered for a UK spaceport when Scotland may not be part of the UK in the near future.
It cant be scotland because theyre breakubg away from the UK!
So Newquay seems the most uncluttered airspace
Sir,
I have lived through all the past “space” programme’s this Country has spent billions on then to decide that it was too costly and abandon the idea, My suggestion, Let another Country do it & use the money to fund hospitals.
We all know its going to end up in London!!!!