{"id":128277,"date":"2025-09-10T19:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T19:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/128277\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T19:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T19:30:07","slug":"scotland-could-fall-behind-in-europes-space-race-mps-warn-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/128277\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland could fall behind in Europe&#8217;s space race, MPs warn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Committee chairwoman and Labour MP for Glasgow West, Patricia Ferguson, said: &#8220;Scotland has real potential to become a leader in space launch, which space ports such as SaxaVord in Shetland are well-placed to seize. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The economic benefits of this would be huge, but it&#8217;s a time-sensitive opportunity we&#8217;re in danger of missing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She added: &#8220;We&#8217;re urging the UK government to commit to sustained financial backing of the sector, and move towards long-term, co-ordinated investment that can match the fantastic ambition and momentum demonstrated by the sector.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">DSIT said it was providing investment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A spokesperson said: &#8220;We are backing Scotland&#8217;s exceptional potential to lead Europe&#8217;s space launch revolution. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Their spaceport, innovative rocket manufacturers, and unrivalled geographical advantages positions Scotland at the forefront of the launch sector.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They added: &#8220;We are supporting this vital sector through sustained investment that matches the scale of this opportunity and have invested \u00a396m into the Scottish launch sector, including \u00a320m into Forres-based Orbex earlier this year.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Committee chairwoman and Labour MP for Glasgow West, Patricia Ferguson, said: &#8220;Scotland has real potential to become a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-128277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}