I'm surprised that anyone wants to launch from that far north. Most launch sites are further south, so you get more velocity from the earth's rotation.

Oh, the branding opportunities!

There are more costs than just the launch itself though. The UK has a pretty big space industry. Lots of satellites and satellite components are made here. Not needing to ship your payload to Kazakstan probably saves a few quid if you're building a lot of it in the UK, and the reduced risk of it being damaged in transit will help significantly.

The reason is that Scotland and northerly launch sites favour launches into polar orbits.

The rocket was developed and built in the US and projected to be launched from multiple countries around the world.

So nothing UK specific in it.

Scotland is actually a pretty good location for polar and sun-synchronous (SSO) orbits. You can do coastal launches over the sea, while still being relatively close to populated regions with good transport link and infrastructure.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-48119118.amp

The route to the Highlands site is an A-road in name only - it's one way for most of the route. The nearest train station is about 15 miles away.

The route to the Shetlands site is a prop plane or a ferry and then a decent drive on fairly minor roads including another ferry.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1214197384382754816.html (or https://nitter.net/garius/status/1214197384382754816)

Common problem in UK big project funding.

From what I remember they convinced treasury that launching rocket and satellite is the cheapest form of disposing it

And besides, the fuel could be resold, and all the metals would have had scrap value.

Same as any other airport that can accomodate a 747? You can call it a "horizontal space launch" to make it sound important, but it's basically just a plane taking off?

All of these things routinely get trucked around and there's already an established system of rules for doing so.

Sure, assembling and fueling the vehicle is a little different but it's not much different than the fuel truck and the oxygen truck showing up to a chemical plant on the same morning. Airports already have precedent and procedure for handling exotic fuels.

The cargo here is no more interesting or deserving of special care (and in some cases it's less) than the stuff the oil and gas industry flies around the north sea.

I'm sure "but safety" is how the bureaucrats justify the extra make-work but that's a pretty worthless justification in a world where you don't need a special site permit to load a case of explosives or hazmat onto a chopper so long as you follow the preexisting handling requirements for whatever it is you're handling.

So yeah, I see this as pointless red tape and it's doubly a nuisance seeing as commercial space flight is a fledging industry that probably should be nurtured by government rather than fought. If they were actually shooting off rockets I'd feel differently but that's not the case.

An airport needs a special license to be a spaceport not because it is fundamentally harder, just because it requires a different skillset.

True for launches but we have a lot of innovation in satellite design and manufacture. E.g. ion drives used in Earth orbit and for planetary missions [0] and [1]

[0] https://www.qinetiq.com/en/blogs/postcards-from-space-ion-th...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrey_Satellite_Technology#Sa...

For some orbits (for example around the poles) the UK is actually a good place. Though I don't know the exact details.