Estimates Committee in orbit
The report of the Estimates Committee on Space is a suitably modish document. Sadly rejecting the idea of a Minister of Space, it settles instead for a Minister of State for Space at the Ministry of Technology, which should become the sponsoring Ministry for all our spatial aspirations. Then we should endow ourselves with a `five year space budget,' and within that budget we should lay the emphasis on the national programme rather than on our contribution to inter- national ventures.
The report has been generally welcomed, notably by the British aerospace industry (which is perhaps hardly surprising, seeing that its evidence obviously weighed heavily with the committee). Whether it deserves to be welcomed is another matter. The achieve- ments to date of the Ministry of Technology which qualify it to overlord a space pro- gramme do not immediately spring to mind. It is surely arguable that the present system, by which different Ministries are each responsible for those sections of the pro- gramme which are of concern to the industries they sponsor, is more likely to yield com- mercial rewards.
Nor is the case for a greater emphasis on national, as opposed to international, pro- jects made out. The committee accepts that international programmes alone offer the prospect of adequate markets for successful contracts, but points out that to win a fair share of contracts a country must.have some- thing to offer, and that this can be achieved only through `a properly organised national programme.'
The real lesson of the various ,European ventures in space to date is that the necessary spirit of European collaboration has been lacking. This is going to be difficult to achieve so long as Britain is excluded from theEuro- pean Community. But if meanwhile -this country attempts to go its own way, the aerospace industry is likely eventually to suffer the fate that has already over- taken the aircraft industry, and for the same reason:
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