UK Space Agency Fails To Make Contingencies For Possible Brexit

The only one thing which would upset me if Britain decided to leave the European Union would be the potential damage done to the relationship between the UK and the ESA (European Space Agency.) I believe space travel to be one of the most important projects humanity has ever undertaken, and is something that only collaborative efforts can achieve between nations. The way I see it is that the sooner we can leave this planet, the sooner we can get away from the issues of overpopulation, banker-slavery and inter-ethnic troubles. The technology that we may unlock in this pursuit might also help us lessen the impact on nature here on Earth too, and may well enable us to restore this planet to it's former glory for the benefit of all life.

That however is a pipe-dream, something which at this point we can only live in hope of. Nonetheless, it may interest people out there to know that the UK space industry alone was worth a reported £11.3 billion in 2013, and has been growing at an average 7% year on year with 70% of this trade being exported. Britain is obviously a key part of the ESAs operations, particularly in the field of telecommunications. This status is clearly shown by the fact that the ESA opened the science and innovation campus in the Harwell University here. With Government money as well as BAE's being invested in emerging technologies (like Skylon for instance) anyone with half a brain would assume that this industry was being looked after and protected by the UK Space Agency, the Government's own organisation devoted to the UK's fledgling space industry.

With the potential for Britain to leave the European Union, there is a perhaps a small worry that the politics of the day might have an impact on the UK's involvement with the ESA though. Bare in mind that whilst there are countries who are not apart of the EU (like Israel and Canada for instance,) who are members of the ESA, since the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, there has been a concerted effort to bring more of the ESAs operations under a more Federalised EU structure. Given all the scaremongering about the economy and so on surrounding the Brexit referendum, I thought I would email the UKSA about what might happen to the UK's space industry should we vote to leave the EU.

So I wrote:

To who it may concern,

I've recently started a blog and website which I hope will grow and get people interested in spaceflight and technology, in particular projects being undertake in the UK by some incredibly innovative companies like Reaction for instance.

In any case, I hope it is not too much of a cheek to ask for correspondence with yourselves. As is obvious by the title of this email, I'd like to ask if the UKSA has looked into the implications of a Brexit vote in the EU referendum, and whether it would have an affect on the UK's involvement with the European Space Agency?

Many thanks for your time!


The response was not particularly amazing.

Thank you for your email. The UK Space Agency has not made any contingency plans for a possible vote to leave the EU at the 23 June referendum.

Warmest regards

Trying to dissect this single sentence answer is difficult, but still possible. Personally this answer either shows one of three things:

A) The Government is "psychic", and already knows the result of the upcoming referendum. Therefore it has been telling its departments not to bother doing research into, or planning possible contingencies for a vote to leave the European Union.

B) The UK Government knows that there will be genuinely little disruption to the UK economy and exports, and the UKSA/ESA partnership will continue regardless of the result.

C) The woman who answered me couldn't be bothered to go trawling through documents to give me a genuine answer.

I'm not sure which one I should take more seriously, but it's still interesting. Call me a pessimist but I'm very drawn to option A.

What do you readers think? Leave in the comments below!