Great Britain’s first commercial crewed spaceflight is in the works

Recently, the United Kingdom’s UK Space Agency and Axiom Space, a company based in Houston, Texas, signed an agreement for a possible space mission on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon with an all-British crew. 

SpaceX was not specifically named in the contract, but Axiom, which is developing commercial modules for the ISS with a plan to eventually build a private space station, is serving as a middleman between SpaceX and entities desiring to travel into space. The company provides training, mission planning and other services for private spaceflights. Thus far Axiom has flown two commercial spaceflights, dubbed Ax-1 and Ax-2, with two more, Ax-3 and Ax-4, in the works.

Somewhere, the late Arthur C. Clarke must be smiling. His novel, “Prelude to Space,” published in 1951, posited a privately funded British space mission to the moon, set in an alternate 1970s.

The real-life British space mission is not going to the moon. The mission is envisioned to last two weeks in low Earth orbit, where the crew will perform a variety of experiments. Many details are still to be worked out.

One of those details is who will actually fly on the mission. A story in Space.com indicates that Tim Peake, the first British astronaut to visit the International Space Station, could come out of retirement to command the mission. Peake was also the first British astronaut to walk in space to repair a failed voltage regulator for one of the ISS’s solar panels. He was the first British subject to be honored by the Queen while in space when she made him a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. The UK Space Agency announced that no decision had been made about Peake’s participation in the mission.

The BBC indicates that the total cost of the mission will be in the range of $244 million. The all-U.K. space flight would be paid for by corporate and other institutional sponsors. The British taxpayers will not be asked to foot the bill.

The first British crewed spaceflight represents a departure from the traditional path for a country becoming a spacefaring power. Some countries, such as the United States, the old Soviet Union, China, and most recently India adopted a government-centric space program as their model. The United States has been moving toward outsourcing a lot of space flight operations to the commercial sector. However, NASA remains a strong government agency that, for the time being, drives space policy in the United States.

The U.K. lacks the resources to develop its own crewed space program. However, as the world begins to realize the benefits of space exploration, Great Britain is keen to get in on the expansion of human civilization beyond Earth. That’s where the commercial space sector comes in.

Because SpaceX has lowered the cost of space travel by making both its Crew Dragon and the first stage of the Falcon 9 reusable, more private people and organizations can afford to travel to low Earth orbit. Indeed, it can safely be said that SpaceX has developed the first true commercial space line, servicing both government and private customers.

The program that eventually created the SpaceX Crew Dragon was undertaken because President George W. Bush slated the space shuttle fleet for cancellation. Ever since its first flight in June 2020, the Crew Dragon has performed magnificently. The cost of keeping the ISS resupplied and crewed has dropped substantially since the end of the space shuttle program. The rise of the Crew Dragon as a private space travel spaceship has been a happy side effect.

Russia used to have a monopoly in private spaceflight, selling seats to the ISS to the well-heeled and adventurous like Dennis Tito, Richard Garriott and Anousheh Ansari. Russia’s private space service has been moribund for the past decade or so, with only one recent flight, involving Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and an assistant, taking place two years ago.

Currently, SpaceX has a virtual monopoly on private crewed orbital flights. That monopoly will be temporary as the market expands, commercial space stations begin to be deployed, and more players jump in. The sky is literally the limit, meaning there are no limits to the future of commercial space travel.

Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.