Knowing Me, Knowing You: A Critique of the UK Space Strategy

Outer space has always been a foreign policy tool for scientific, technological, and military reasons. Both governments and private organizations view space as a form of power, and government’s space policies and programmes increasingly hold influence and prestige in international politics and diplomacy and are central to foreign policies. Over time, space has appeared in different guises, each one waxing and waning in importance and leaving traces behind. Many underpin the UK Space Strategy’s ten-point action plan published in 2021. One could argue that the document is welcome and ambitious in nature but lacks clear strategic direction and is more akin to a policy than a strategy. The many promises given to different stakeholders consulted are unlikely to play out smoothly in the future. Trade-offs will have to be made. This chapter aims to shed light on the underlying assumptions and highlights some anomalies through briefly exploring the following five questions: (1) which space topics can the United Kingdom lead on? (2) which space capabilities should the United Kingdom own, collaborate on, or only seek access to? (3) in seeking to become an innovation Nation, has the United Kingdom lost connection with the science and technology (S&T) research base? (4) is the government sufficiently joined up to support the future of the UK space industry? and (5) has space become fetishised in an attempt to promote the benefits of space-based services?