UK space policy — a problem of culture

According to the UK government, the announcement in July 1987 of a freeze on the British National Space Centre's (BNSC) budget was based solely on lack of money and the belief that private industry, rather than the state, should fund space activities. In challenging the validity of this view, the author suggests that it has also been used to conceal internal bureaucratic competition and a myopic, market-driven mind-set.