By 2018, Britain could become the home of one of the first spaceports built outside the United States. The list of potential locations for the construction will be announced this week, according to the British news agency Sky.
The new base can become a center of space flights undertaken for commercial purposes. The plans do space tourism has already said the U.S. firm Virgin Galactic. The company organizes suborbital space flights from the United States. One ticket is $ 250 000.
British spaceport will compete with Spaceport America, the first spaceport for private spaceflight. Eight potential sites for the construction of the new center will be announced at the air show "Farnborough 2014" Tuesday, July 15. Six of them are in Scotland, where in two months will be a referendum on independence. If the majority of Scots vote for independence, in March 2016 Scotland come from the UK.
News on the construction of the spaceport in the United Kingdom for commercial spaceflight launch was preceded by the UK Space Agency satellite the size of a shoe box in the mission Cubesat.
British scientists are actively involved in the development of astronautics. They participated in the construction of the spacecraft "Rosetta" for the study of comets, and are now working on rover ExoMars, which is scheduled to deliver to the Red Planet in 2019.
Annual turnover of the British space industry, which employs more than 28,900 people estimated to be worth about 9 billion pounds. By 2030, Britain will take a tenth of the world space market, increasing the turnover of the industry to $ 40 billion and creating 100,000 jobs.
Space tourism is also interested in Google. Rumor has it that the company plans to buy a stake in Virgin Galactic.