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Derek Davis, head of the British National Space Centre, in London, has
been fiercely criticised by people working in Britain’s space industries
for cutting the budget for one of the centre’s projects to such an extent
that Alan Bond, designer of the Hotol spaceplane, has been forced to look
abroad for funding.

‘This level of damage is horrendous,’ says Mark Hempsell, lecturer in
space technology at the University of Bristol. ‘The problem is the BNSC
doesn’t support the basic space industry.’ Bond, who has been trying for
four years to raise money to refine the design of Skylon, a variant of Hotol,
says: ‘I told (Davis) that an important project and technology is going
to die. He simply said: tough, but he didn’t have the money.’

The anger follows the decision by the BNSC to slash funding for the
Future European Space Transportation Investigations Programme (FESTIP),
a European Space Agency project to review space launcher technology and
recommend which European designs should be taken further. When FESTIP was
first mooted in 1988, industry asked the BNSC for £5 million a year.
Since then, the centre has reduced its planned spending on the project to
£2 million, then to £250 000, and finally last week to £50
000.

‘Even £250 000 could only really preserve four or five people
working on the project in this country,’ says Hempsell. ‘But £50 000
isn’t even enough to fund one man-year’s work.’

The BNSC says that the budget cuts have been forced upon it by the Department
of Trade and Industry, and that Davis has been forced to take tough decisions.
‘We have been looking around for ways to get companies involved in FESTIP,’
says a spokesman. ‘Everybody is screwed to the wall financially all around
Europe. We have commitments to other projects that are already running,
such as the Earth Observation Satellite.’

On the criticism of Davis, the spokesman says ‘Derek Davis has an awareness
of science – he has expertise in energy – and I don’t think a scientist
could do any better in his post.’

Bond says that his company, Reaction Engines, based in Stanford in the
Vale, Oxfordshire, will now seek funding from Germany, the US, Russia and
possibly Japan. ‘From August we will be looking at exactly who we can get
interested abroad.’ The Skylon plane would use air-breathing engines similar
to those on Hotol, which would work in the atmosphere and in space. The
plane would travel at up to 19 000 kilometres per hour.