New UK Space Agency's logo. Credit: UK Space Agency Caption: Triple Redundancy
Yesterday, the United Kingdom (UK)announced a new, restructured space agency conspicuously called the UK Space Agency, which replaces the older British National Space Centre and is slated to open its doors by April 1st. Including a new International Space Innovation Centre, the UK Space Agency is intended to take responsibility of UK government space activity, serve as a hub for all UK civilian space activity, and foster a new national space technology strategy.
Perhaps this signals a renewed commitment to space exploration activity on the part of the UK?
The old British National Space Centre website has been reconfigured to transition to the new UK Space Agency website on April 1st. Until then, we’ll just have to wait to see whether this announcement represents real change or is merely a change in title…
Astrowright 
This has completely gone over my head. Wow!
My first thought regarding the UK Space Agency is how ultimately ineffective it will be. The cost of space activity is astronomical and I doubt a country the size of Britain would be willing to invest the kind of numbers required to get anything out of it. But then again, I have been wrong before.
I don’t think space agencies of any kind are helpful at all- and that includes NASA. (Shock horror!) Let me explain. In the 21st Century the space program should be looking to more ambitious projects than the where it is currently looking. We should be building outposts on the moon, sending HUMANS (not robots- I loathe NASAs addiction to * unnecessary* unmanned probes) to land on asteroids, lagrange points, and the surface of Mars with the intention of following up with colonies and outposts on the red planet.
To achieve all these objectives, disparate space agencies would have to pool their efforts into a single, unified global effort; rather like a Space UN. This way all nations could contribute a percentage of their budget to this fund, which due to the vastness of contribution would be able to achieve far greater objectives in a short span of time (and even complete them simultaneously). This Global Effort would use the former space agencies (now chapters) to focus on it’s particular talent in assembling the vehicles, technology and recruits needed.
If the political divides could be overcome sufficiently for this to work; we would be on Mars within five years of it happening. I guess it’s all the politics…
Anyway, great blog Astrowright, keep up the good work!
Philip Saunders
http://upism.org/
Philip
– Thanks for reading! I wholeheartedly agree that there is a much better potential architecture for getting us off-world. You’re dead on, though. It’s our current inability to overcome our global political differences that is holding us back. -Guess we’ll have to rely on private entrepreneurs in the meantime?
Cheers,
Ben