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The Belfast Telegraph reports on the Spaceflight Bill, proposed legislation that is to be put before Parliament this week.
The government issued a statement on the proposed legislation. According to the statement, Britain could build space-ports on its own territory "by 2020."
Whether the launch facilities would be on the home islands, in the British Overseas Territories (which include islands in the Caribbean such as Montserrat), or both was unclear to the submitter.
[What, if any, advantages are there for launching from Britain vs a location in the Caribbean? -Ed.]
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Space Launches from British Territory to be Proposed
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Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mrchew1982 on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:24PM
I said this above, but it probably won't show up, so I'll put it here too:
equatorial launches (travelling around the world west to east or geostationary) are usually used for communication satellites. If they're going to be launching spy satellites (which would be my guess because there's no other reason to want complete control of the launch facility, commercial launches are just too cheap to justify the expenses...) chances are they'll launch into a polar orbit (north to south over the poles of the earth) because they get to spy on more places on the earth that way.
Cant launch north because that makes Russia crazy (ICBMs would take that path) So they'll probably launch from the south to the south, although they'd have to use an island to the west or end up flying the rocket over Portugal and maybe Spain. An air based launcher would make this easy.
(Score: 2) by subs on Wednesday February 22 2017, @11:03AM
Cant launch north because that makes Russia crazy (ICBMs would take that path)
Yes they could and no ICBMs wouldn't take that path to attack Russia. This is the UK, not America. To launch at Russia from the UK, you'd be launching almost exactly due east. Launching north-northwest from the UK would be launching towards Canada and Alaska. It's also no problem letting all interested parties know before you launch that it's a non-ICBM launch, so they can chill.