logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2017
28m 10s

The UK Space Industry

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

The UK space industry is growing faster than the wider economy. Its application is broad - from manufacturing satellites, earth observation projects, to advanced research and design for space exploration. The government aims to capitalise on all this activity and wants the UK to have its own space port for commercial flights and satellite missions. The programme will hear from the country's top small satellite manufacturer and from a firm developing a revolutionary hypersonic propulsion engine. Evan Davis's guests are:

Catherine Mealing-Jones, UK Space Agency Mark Thomas, Reaction Engines Patrick Wood, Surrey Satellite Technology

Producer: Lesley McAlpine.

Up next
Mar 5
Entrepreneurs: Your Questions Answered
Evan is joined by a panel of top entrepreneurs to answer your listener questions. How do you make your business stand out in a crowded market? Where can you find the information you need to start your own business? Why don't we hear about the failures along the way to success? An ... Show More
36m 34s
Feb 26
Product Innovation: Better, Or Just New?
From smartphones to trainers, confectionary and cleaning products, we live in a culture of constant updates. Companies reformulate, redesign and refresh their products in a continuous race to stay ahead. But how are those decisions made? What counts as meaningful improvement and ... Show More
32m 12s
Feb 19
How Do You Deal with a Workplace Bully?
Across our professional careers, many of us will come into contact with a difficult colleague or hard-to-please superior. But what happens when difficult behaviour crosses over into bullying at work? What effect does this have, not only on our wellbeing, but on our workplace as a ... Show More
32m 23s
Recommended Episodes
May 2024
The Space Industry in 2024, and How to Build a Satellite Company
The space industry is one of the most fascinating areas of technology in 2024. The reduction in launch costs and proliferation of satellites make all kinds of new businesses possible. Today we are joined by Austin Link, the co-founder and CEO of Starfish Space (where Ben and PSL ... Show More
1h 19m
May 2019
Understanding the Space Economy
Sinéad O'Sullivan, entrepreneurship fellow at Harvard Business School, discusses how space is much more important to modern business than most people realize. It plays a role in making food, pricing insurance, and steering self-driving cars. While moonshot projects from SpaceX to ... Show More
19m 57s
Dec 2021
Moon missions and space junk
2021 was another year of firsts in the ever-expanding industry around space, as we moved towards space tourism as a reality. But what about NASA, and its plans to return to the moon? We hear all about it, and the space agency’s ambitious plans for not just the moon, but mars; fro ... Show More
17m 28s
Dec 2021
End-of-Year Encore: Space Investing
tail spinning
4m 29s
Dec 2021
Business to Government and Democratization of Space with Jason Held, CEO of Saber Astronautics
<p>The next business frontier, in terms of physical spaces, is not one you can physically walk on. I’m talking about outer space, and I’m talking about it today with my friend, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaheld/?originalSubdomain=au">Jason Held</a>, CEO of <a href="http ... Show More
39m 54s
Jul 2019
Space Flight
What is the future of space flight? With a successful Nasa landing on Mars and more commercial space travel in development than ever before, astronautical engineers are taking us into a new age. From lift off to landing, rapid innovations are radically changing what's possible an ... Show More
49m 32s
Jun 2024
Business Daily meets: Jane Poynter
23 years ago, the US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito became the world’s first-ever space tourist, funding his own trip into orbit. There was clearly money to be made, and now the lure of making space tourism more accessible to the masses is even greater - with several private compa ... Show More
17m 29s
Apr 2022
A New Era of the Space Race - Can It Be Done Sustainably?
<p>It feels like every other week we hear news about another CEO or billionaire jetting off into space. Are we entering a new era of the Space Race? instead of politicians and governments gloating about their space programs, we now have billionaires live-streaming their afternoon ... Show More
47m 51s
Aug 2023
Beaming 24/7 solar… from space
It’s the highest-intensity solar power you can get. It’s available 24/7. And you can send it anywhere on earth. All you need to do is launch a ten-by-ten kilometer array of solar panels into geosynchronous orbit, capture solar energy, and beam it to earth using a massive antenna ... Show More
47m 52s