The British National Space Centre (BNSC), Britain’s equivalent of NASA, notes in a new report (UK Civil Space Strategy: 2008-2012 and beyond) that “In 1986, the UK chose not to participate in human space missions.†This decision is still in place in 2008. There were no British manned space programs before 1986 either, so it could be stated that the British government has avoided human spaceflight for the entire duration of the half-century-old Space Age.
Opponents of human spaceflight have maintained the status quo for decades. Even a small, internationally cooperative spaceflight program will meet entrenched political opposition.
This is remarkable because all the other major powers in the world are involved with human spaceflight to some degree. Among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the United States, Russia, and China have the independent capability of launching manned spacecraft, and France is a major partner in the European Space Agency’s manned flight program. In the Group of Eight (G8), again the United Kingdom is the only nation that opposes humans in space and prohibits governmental participation of any kind.
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British space policy on life, the universe, and everything