back to article Wannabe space 'superpower' UK tosses £1.6M at eight research projects

With the noble goal "to grow the UK as a global space superpower," the UK Space Agency (UKSA) has scraped together a princely £1.6 million ($1.9 million) to be divvied up between eight research programs. This is part of "the government's strategy to use our £5 billion investment in space science and technology to grow our £16. …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge

    This Government costs real money.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yet....

      Government bribes, er ad-hoc cost-of-living payments plus the advertising campaign to let the masses know free money is available costs squillions...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ad-hoc cost-of-living payments

        Oh, the bit where they give tax revenue to the poor energy companies to keep their profits up?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: ad-hoc cost-of-living payments

          Both.

  2. Potemkine! Silver badge

    MAC SciTech in South Shields is to receive a poxy £68,000 to investigate "reactors for off-planet life support systems and Martian in-situ resource utilisation."

    I'm not sure it's possible to pay one researcher for one year with that amount of money. I hope he/she'll be very efficient.

    1. Reaps

      I think the research will be:

      do you need power to live on a different planet? YES

      conclusion:

      YES reactors would be a good idea.

      now where's my £68,000

    2. Paul Kinsler

      I'm not sure it's possible to pay one researcher for one year with that amount of money

      It likely isn't enough, once you take into account non-salary employment expenses. But MAC SciTech is not a university, and likely they're already paying somebody to do a related, similar, or even exactly the same thing, and this extra support will part-fund that salary and/or pay for equipment or other expenses.

    3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Remember the university will charge 100-120% overhead on research grant income. So the researchers will get 40-50% of this, so not quite as ridiculously generous as it sounds

      1. skwdenyer

        Ouch, 100-120% these days? In my day (err, 25 years ago), the university I worked in charged 30% overhead, and we thought that was pretty bad!

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Sort of depends how you account for it.

          Dept gets $100K, university takes $30K cut, or dept needs $70K, university will want $80K - grant application is for $150K

          It did 'mildly infuriate' me that we were actually more expensive than the national laboratory next door when you included the university's take, and yet we were being paid post-doc salary while the national lab researchers were being paid a salary "commensurate with private sector" to "attract and retain talent"

        2. Arthur the cat Silver badge

          In my day (err, 25 years ago), the university I worked in charged 30% overhead

          40-45 years back, 40% overhead in my case.

        3. Paul Kinsler

          Ouch, 100-120% these days? I

          Nowadays the overheads are much larger because they are FEC ( full economic costings), and so cover a lot of things that didn't used to be, such as buildings, infrastructure, maintenance, uni services, the vice-chancellor's new carpets :-), and suchlike.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: Ouch, 100-120% these days? I

            Argument used to be that overhead on rich, research grant loaded STEM paid for the poor starving arts departments and that we should be proud of supporting culture.

            Now that they charge the students 10K/year to do poetry and they've closed all the labs cos it's not profitable to teach chemistry for 10K/year

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        That's if you can actually get some money.

  3. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Checkboxes

    All these funding programmes are just PR stunts to make government able to say we support this and that.

    If you look into things like Innovate UK or Help to Grow schemes, you'll find this is all carp.

    I have no idea who would apply for these as requirements are bollocks and any benefits meaningless with the current cost of living and global supply chains like one of the requirement is:

    carry out all your R&D project activity in the UK

    How is that possible when we don't make anything or the things we do are magnitude more expensive than commissioning them to be done in China?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Checkboxes

      While I agree with you, it's worth noting there are always loopholes. eg "Made in Britain" has never meant that 100% of the materials and manufacturing must be "Made in Britain". R&D can easily be said to happen in Britain even if some or even most equipment and/or materials are imported, so long as the actual human bodies doing it are in the UK.

  4. Tubz Silver badge

    A whole £1.6m, that's the coffee and biscuit budget for other nations, UKGOV needs to get real if we are to play in the big boy league !

    1. Paul Kinsler

      A whole £1.6m, that's the coffee and biscuit budget for other nations

      I would not think that 1.6M£ is some sort of national coffee and biscuit budget, unless the nation is rather small, hates coffee and biscuits, or both.

      E.g. if everyone spends an average of £1 a week on c+b, that's approx £50/year each, and so ...

      1. JT_3K

        Re: A whole £1.6m, that's the coffee and biscuit budget for other nations

        Each to their own. I've got builders in at the moment and it's costing me ~£11/day in Creme Eggs, Fanta and a variety of chocolate biscuits. Worth it though to make sure they know how pleased I am with what they're doing.

    2. R Soul Silver badge

      NASA's budget for paperclips is likely to be more than £1.6M

      1. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Well worth it, after all, NASA's paperclips are rated for zero-g environments.

        1. Fonant

          And they have to also cope with high-g acceleration, once.

        2. TheSirFin

          the one thing we can definitely say about this government is that is has zero gravity, about this or any other topic it spouts forth on!

          1. John H Woods Silver badge
            Pint

            Yours, I believe ...

            1. that one in the corner Silver badge

              Ah, that looks like it has gravity, specifically about a 1.013

    3. Michael Strorm Silver badge

      You joke, but £1.6m here, £1.6m there, pretty soon it adds up to...

      ...a pathetic drop in the ocean.

      Seriously, this is *nothing*. It's the equivalent of less than 3p from every person living in the United Kingdom.

      Why even bother announcing it? Did they think no-one would notice the difference between £1.6bn and £1.6m?

      It's several orders of magnitude smaller than the sort of money you'd expect them to be spending on anything remotely serious if Britain was to develop a serious space industry as they suggest.

      1. Spherical Cow Silver badge

        Re: You joke, but £1.6m here, £1.6m there, pretty soon it adds up to...

        You'll be amazed how many people don't notice the difference between million and billion when they hear the words in the news. All they hear is "shedloads".

  5. alain williams Silver badge

    You can tell where the Gov't priorities are

    Compare to the cost of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda So far the UK has paid the Rwandan government £140m for the scheme.

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: You can tell where the Gov't priorities are

      Rwanda must have some space program if they've got all that moolah.

      1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: You can tell where the Gov't priorities are

        I'm fairly sure I've seen some collectable stamps issued by Rwanda featuring space vehicles

        1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

          Afronauts

          Zambia had a space programme to get to Mars in the 60s. I first read about it in a very good novel called "The Old Drift" and assumed it was fiction, but the notes in the book implied it was based on real events so I read up on it and it was one of those "fact is stranger than fiction" things.

          https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/zambian-space-programme

          1. spuck

            Re: Afronauts

            Seems like the time is right for a sequel to that novel to reflect the state of the 21st century space race. Might I suggest as a title: "The Old Grift"

          2. StudeJeff

            Re: Afronauts

            Then there was the North Korean scheme to land the first man on the sun. Of course they planned on doing it at night...

    2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: You can tell where the Gov't priorities are

      Or £200 million PPE contracts to preferred suppliers

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: You can tell where the Gov't priorities are

        I find it a little odd that, especially in this context, that "preferred suppliers" comes across as a pejorative. Preferred suppliers is just normal business practice. The potential scandal isn't using preferred suppliers, it's how those suppliers came to be on the list in the first place. Generally, it's because they provide value for money or being the friend of the barmen at the Ministers local.

      2. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge

        Re: You can tell where the Gov't priorities are

        >>Or £200 million PPE contracts to preferred suppliers

        preferred suppliers who didn't exist mere days before contract award.... or are directed by Honorable Member's relatives... Eyes passim

        All completely legal of course becasue the Covid act allowed award of tenders with no scrutiny at all - with no sunset clause either....

  6. VoiceOfTruth Silver badge

    That's real money

    A hundred and sixty-two dollars and thirty-nine cents a week? Well, boy! Sam, you take him outside but treat him easy, because a man that makes a hundred and sixty-two dollars and thirty-nine cents a week, man, we do not want to ruffle him!

  7. nijam Silver badge

    > 'superpower'

    I think you mean 'superpoor'.

    1. mpi Silver badge

      Supperpower.

  8. Paul Herber Silver badge
    Holmes

    £1.6M ? What's that in proper El-Reg units? 2 Prime Minister Loans?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Considerably less than 0.001% of a Kwarteng-Truss

      1. Alien Doctor 1.1

        what does a kwarteng-truss hold up?

        Oh yeah, economic and social improvements/growth.

  9. Tron Silver badge

    Before the Brexit referendum, £1.6m would have been $2.64m.

    Boris doesn't get out of bed for that sort of money.

  10. Tron Silver badge

    Modest proposal.

    American space agency: NASA.

    European Space agency: ESA.

    Japanese space agency: JAXA.

    British space agency: BRASSIC.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Modest proposal.

      British space agency: BRASSIC.[SPB]

      https://www.theregister.com/2011/07/01/spb_launch/

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Modest proposal.

        The SPB had a much bigger budget too!!!

      2. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: Modest proposal.

        Sadly missed!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Risibly pathetic proposal

      Little Englander Space Service.

      "You believed us when we promised that Britain going it alone would deliver more, and that's why you've ended up with LESS."

  11. ploppy
    Coat

    > British space agency: BRASSIC.

    A "few years" ago, a university department of which I was a former member, announced it merging with a number of other departments. Suggestions for the new name of the merged department were invited ...

    Unfortunately my suggestion SCRAPIE (SChool of Remaining Assets in Physics Informatics and Engineering) didn't go down too well.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1.6 million for space? spent more on that developing a prepayment gas meter!

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      How far can you travel on a newly built motorway for that? At anything between £10M-£20M per mile, something in the order of 0.1 miles. That ain't gonna get one anywhere near the moon. I can drive up a hill and get closer :-)

  13. RobLang

    An idea to boost that funding...

    How about the Reg commenters have a whip-round and see if we can raise another couple of grand? I've got a fiver in the penny jar.

  14. Antony Shepherd

    They put the Mekon in the House of Lords

    They think they can be Dan Dare, on a Button Moon budget.

    Clearly they never grew out of their old Eagle comics.

    Global space superpower my arse.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: They put the Mekon in the House of Lords

      Took me a moment to realise who you were talking about there.... Still waiting for Dan Dare and Digby to turn up in the House of Commons...

    2. Michael Strorm Silver badge

      Re: They put the Mekon in the House of Lords

      They think want the public to think they can be Dan Dare, on a Button Moon budget.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All related to confidence in the bedroom

    You have to just pretend to be engaged while the US,china,india etc spend money to show they are important. The UK is clever enough to know there is nothing worth exploring in reach.

    Which country's population has the biggest knobs? Bet they dont have a space program.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Which country's population has the biggest knobs?

      Not sure about that but the biggest bell-ends are in the House of Commons.

      1. Nifty Silver badge

        Re: Which country's population has the biggest knobs?

        Dame Julia King was interviewed in a recent Life Scientific and noted the lack of Scientists in the HoC (1?) pointing out that they're much better represented in the HoL (20?).

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001jshz?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

        King wrote the pivotal 2008 King Review that was apparently the seed guidance to government that the UK can be ready for net zero transportation by 2050. During the interview she was firmly optimistic about the speed with which battery technology improvements will get us there...

  16. mpi Silver badge

    Well, at least they are part of an economically powerful, supranational group who work together on research and developement .... ohhhhh wait....

  17. GruntyMcPugh Silver badge

    All of those Mars projects, shame there isn't a rich idiot with an interest in colonising Mars handing out money.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Aw. Bless.

    It's so heartwarming to see a uk.gov think they have any kind of bearing on the world whatsoever.

  19. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    First World Problems

    Thankless ... I would be able to do a lot of space research with £1.6 million a month. (The first thing I'd buy is a microscope to study the stars).

  20. DHJ

    Unfair comparison

    This is one of 6 rounds of funding in the uksa emerging technologies call; and is one of many different funding calls they announce each year. As such its unfair to compare the £1.6m announced here to the total annual r&d budget of NASA.

    1. Cris E
      Meh

      Re: Unfair comparison

      6 * 1.6m = 10 Miiiiiilllion pounds (using my austin powers voice there)

  21. bpfh
    Boffin

    Off topic but...

    Back in I think 1986 or 87 as a youngun, I remember looking at an estate agent near Nutmeg Wharf in London, and marvelling at the new dock lands penthouses at 800 000 to just a little over a million and thinking who on earth can afford that astronomical price?

    Fast forward to Austin Powers and Dr. Evil asking for one meeeelion dollars and everyone burst out laughing.

    Fast forward to today. 1.6 million, and think, yeah that will cover an office, office management and the payroll of 5 engineers for one year if we're careful...

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