Most governments since the WW2 seem to have been very short sighted (ok, there was a country to get back in order in the late '40s). It seems to me that's why things like the railways & road network are in such a state - instead of spending £millions years ago making things better a little at a time because 'it cost too much', it's now costing £billions just to stop these things falling apart. (Imagine what £56 billion could do for the upgrade of the nation's entire rail network!)

I can't help but wonder why?

Various governments destroyed our aerospace industry years ago, why now? Anyone remember TSR2 and Black Prince?

I'd also have thought that Macrihanish would be a better place for anything like this rather than Prestwick. - Macrihanish was listed as a possible landing site for the space shuttle should an emergency arise.

With a lot of talk about building a UK space port in the news recently ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38229169 ), I thought a bit of history about the UK's involvement in space might be useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_space_programme