Sutherland Spaceport – are there better options?

A news article on the BBC recently brought to question the choice of site for Scotland’s new spaceport in which experts cited the Sutherland location as raising too many concerns. The article was then picked up by a significant number of publications, including the Highlands-based Press & Journal and the Irish Times.

Experts from Heriot-Watt and Glasgow Caledonian Universities, who were both quoted in the article, came under fire from Orbex Ltd, one of the companies that have been in receipt of government funding to support the provision of launch services. Orbex let loose on Twitter with a number of attacks when another potential launch site started to share the news.

Unfortunately, the social media outbursts didn’t shed a good light on the company, as was pointed out by a number of onlookers. The whole scenario came across as a bit of a meltdown, and was assisted by a number of contributors also pointing out that Orbex weren’t coming across very well.