Spaceport West (8 page)

Susan McKenzie was at
Spaceport West
for the weekly session of UK Space Command.

“Captain, what’s first on the agenda for today?”

“First we need to talk about the ongoing dispute with the construction, maintenance and cleaning teams,” began Captain Watkins.

“Right. Have you managed to make any sense of their demands?”

“Ultimately it seems to come down to pay. As you know, many of our human workers are immigrants, and what attracted them initially was pay scales significantly higher than what they are used to back home. However, now they are settled in the UK, their cost of living has increased to the point where they cannot afford to live anywhere near the spaceport.”

“Rents in Cornwall are going through the roof, Minister,” pointed out one of the Captain’s aides.

“They’re becoming quite astronomical, in fact,” added Captain Watkins with a grin.

Susan rolled her eyes resignedly. “Is there any way we can increase their pay? What’s the budget looking like?”

“Actually, we’re running a surplus right now.”

“Really, Captain? That does surprise me.”

“Well, now most of the construction is complete, the day-to-day running costs are proving lower than anticipated.”

“So, had it not occurred to you to simply pay the fellows a little more?”

“I suppose, Minister, we were trying to plot a cautious course.”

“To what end?”

“In case funding dries up. You know, if public opinion turns against us.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen, do you? I propose we release some extra funds and give those on the lowest pay a modest pay rise. What’s next?”

“The next item is slightly sensitive…” began Captain Watkins.

“Carry on.”

“The pilots are unhappy about how the Moon base is being run.”

“And why might that be?”

“Commander Wilder, Minister.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow you.”

“Commander Ian Wilder, who runs the Moon base.”

“Yes I know who Wilder is, what’s the problem?”

“He’s barmy, Minister.”

“Yes. And?”

“Well, that’s it really. Tends to rub the pilots up the wrong way, you know, entrusting their lives and the lives of their passengers to a nutcase.”

“For goodness sake! I thought these pilots were made of tougher stuff than that. I’ve reviewed the safety record of Wilder and the base and there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about. At the end of the day his assistant Alan would never let anything too awful happen. Next!”

Captain Watkins gave his aides an ‘I told you so’ glance and they began furiously scribbling in their notebooks.

“Happy?” asked Susan.

“I’m sorry Susan, it’s just that morale is a little low right now. All this talk of cut backs, mass redundancies, imminent failure. It’s difficult to ignore it completely.”

“Look, Captain, I know there has been lots of talk in the media recently about whether the whole space investment programme has been one enormous mistake, the hubris of neo-colonialism, all that nonsense. But let’s get one thing straight. The UK is now at the forefront of space exploration. We’ve successfully established the first human colony on another planet…”

There were murmurs of dissent at this assertion, which Susan quashed with a smile.

“…and our space presence is going from strength to strength. There is nothing to worry about. This spaceport, your jobs, have an
absolutely
secure future.”

ECONOMICS OF COLONISATION

Ever since the Roman Empire, it has been a common practice for civilisations and nations to boost their domestic economies by increasing their global dominance. With the advent of Space travel, this process has gained new impetus and, in the case of the UK, an expanding Space presence is a central strand of our economic strategy.

Of course, any student of ancient Rome, or more recently the British Empire, will tell you that growing rich off the backs of slavery and the heavy taxation of colonies, is never going to end well.

So what’s different today? Well, for one thing, the Romans never had androids. If they had, we’d probably still be speaking Latin. Whatever one’s personal take on android rights, it can’t be denied that from a cost/benefit point of view, a robotic workforce is a major plus, and they are significantly more docile than marauding Germanic tribes.

Will it be possible, though, to produce economic gain from the development of Mars? Ultimately, of course, only time will tell, but the UK Government is confident that even if the colony is an unmitigated disaster and leads to national bankruptcy, the British electorate will take a pragmatic approach and bring back the Tories to bale us out.

More importantly, however, we will have got there first and thus got our own back on those annoyingly self-confident Americans.

UK Guide to Space, 2025 Edition

In private, the Minister for Space was less convinced. The briefings she had received were not positive, but the question was, could they be trusted? Susan needed first-hand intelligence. She was aware that Tiggy Beauchamp had recently completed a four week posting on Mars and was currently on route back to Earth, so she decided to contact her.

“Science Officer Beauchamp, I am sending you this video message in the hope that you receive it on your next waking cycle. I would appreciate it if you are able to reply as a matter of urgency, as UK space policy will be influenced by your response.

“I have received many reports in recent weeks concerning the viability of the Mars Colony, and in particular the possibility of achieving self-sufficiency in a reasonable timeframe.

“What I need is a balanced and frank opinion. I consider you to be in a perfect position to offer this opinion. I look forward to hearing from you.”

🚀

Tiggy was roused from frigosleep as scheduled, and even before she had emerged from the pod, a message was projected onto the frosted glass to alert her of the Minister’s message.

She watched the video whilst doing a spot of Pilates. A bit later, after a soothing cup of camomile tea, Tiggy got round to responding.

“Minister, I have considered your question carefully. Whilst I don’t necessarily have an expert opinion to offer you, I will share my own observations and I trust you will find them helpful.

“The issue of self-sufficiency is clearly a big one. Unless an adequate quantity of food can be grown natively - food that is of a reasonable quality - then of course the colony will not survive. Governor Flinders appears, publicly at least, to be confident that the crop yields are going to improve significantly. I have yet to see any evidence supporting this assertion. Based on what I have seen in the temporary crop facility, the results are not looking good. I can only suggest the situation is reviewed once the biome has been up and running for a time. Even with accelerated plant growth techniques, this will require at least two months before we can say one way or the other if the proposed cultivation methodologies are viable.

“On another matter, Minister, I have noticed a change in some of the recruits even over the short time I was on Mars. I have observed a increasing mood of discontent. In fact I would go as far as saying their mental health is deteriorating. I was not going to say anything at this stage but I only mention it given that you have asked me for a frank assessment. I hope this isn’t out of place and feel free to disregard this comment if you think it’s not relevant. Please do get in touch again if you have any further questions. Oh, and would you mind saying hello to Larry from me if you see him?”

Susan was in the bath watching the
Mars
show when she received Tiggy’s message. She deactivated the vis screen with a mid-air swiping gesture and began dictating some notes on what Tiggy had just revealed. The bit about crop yields was not exactly news, but it did reinforce Susan’s view that perhaps Flinders was not being entirely unbiased in his reports.

The stuff about the mental health of the colonists, however, Susan found really worrying, and was potentially a much bigger problem in the long term. Even with a limitless supply of good quality food, if people couldn’t bear living on Mars, what future did it have as a human settlement?

Susan sat thoughtfully on the bed in her fluffy pink dressing gown, trimming her nails with a laser clipper. She had been planning to message Tiggy again with further questions about the economic benefits that would hopefully start to flow back to the UK from the colony, but given the answers she’d received from her first tranche of questioning, that seemed wholly premature.

As she was still pondering the new reality of life on Mars as detailed by Tiggy, Susan was shaken out of her reverie by a message that blinked onto her bedroom vis screen. It was from the mainframe at MI7.

“Dear Minister for Space, this is an automated notification that your personal file has been accessed by the office of the Prime Minister. As agreed in your privacy settings, certain sections were not disclosed. End of message.”

“What is Ralph up to?” Susan whispered to herself.

🚀

“Madam Speaker I must insist that the house permits me to complete my answer.”

“Order! Please let the honourable gentleman finish his utterly fascinating answer or we will be here all day.”

“Thank you, Madam Speaker. In conclusion, whilst there is no
concrete
evidence, I remain fully committed to a thorough and professional investigation of the possibility that it was the honourable member for Droitwich Spa who inscribed the offensive message on the door of the men’s lavatories.”

There was a murmur of approval from the opposition benches. Stony silence from the government side.

The Speaker, who was currently on a luxury space cruise and appearing via vis screen, moved on. “I now call on the Right Honourable member for Aldgate East.”

The Leader of the Opposition, Terrence Sherborne, got slowly to his feet. He pulled no punches.

“I propose a motion of no confidence in the Government’s Space exploration strategy!”

Pandemonium broke out. On both sides of the house, members rose to their feet waving their order papers, jeering loudly. Many MPs were also off planet, or at least couldn’t be bothered to make it to Westminster on this occasion, and were represented by android deputies, who did their best to join in but were generally too polite to raise their voices.

“Order! I will have order!” squeaked Madam Speaker, through her, well, speaker. One enterprising backbencher, overtaken by the moment, unfolded his order paper and draped it over the Speaker’s vis screen, generating even more intense jeering and laughter.

Eventually, Ralph Hampton got to his feet and was able to make himself heard.

“Madam Speaker, if you can still hear me, I call on my Right Honourable friend, the Minister for Space, to explain why the UK Space Programme is so important to the future wellbeing of our nation.”

He gestured to Susan McKenzie who was seated a couple of spaces along from him. As Susan was rising to her feet she caught Ralph’s eye and for a moment absolute silence descended upon the chamber. The two of them were locked in a steely stare whilst Susan tried to read her colleague’s mind. After what seemed like minutes, but was in fact exactly 2.5 seconds, she tore her eyes away and addressed the house.

“Madam Speaker, I have been asked to defend our space investment strategy. I wish to make three points in response, all of which conveniently begin with the letter W. I will then hand back to the Leader of the Opposition who will find himself in the unenviable position of having to make a speech based around the three Xs. We’ll see who fares better.”

Number 10 Downing Street. Weekly Cabinet meeting.

The Foreign Secretary, Charlie English, was red in the face and exasperated.

“But Prime Minister, what if we
had
lost the vote? We’d have been forced to abandon the space programme, and probably, to call a snap election.”

“The point is, my dear fellow, we didn’t lose! I knew we couldn’t, not with Susan here fighting our corner. The outcome was a foregone conclusion.”

“I appreciate your kind words, Prime Minister, but at the end of the day, we scraped through by two votes. Not exactly a resounding mandate,” opined Susan.

“Exactly, we need to demonstrate to the British people that we are on top of this whole Mars thing,” continued Charlie. “We have to get them back on side, and we are only going to achieve that by giving them some good news.”

Benny Wallop, Junior Minister for Economic Development Beyond the M25, decided to chip in at this point. “There’s plenty of good news coming out of Cornwall. For example, local businesses are booming in the vicinity of the spaceport.”

“Yes, and so are house prices, to the detriment of anyone trying to purchase a property there. In any case, I would consider Cornwall a special case, wouldn’t you Benny?” said Susan. Noticing his confused look, she continued, “You
do
know why the spaceport was located in Newquay?”

“I thought it was because it benefitted from excellent transport links, the ability to ditch rockets over the sea in an emergency, and a well educated and motivated workforce?”

The laughter around the conference table was enough to send Larry scampering for cover.

Eventually the Prime Minister composed himself enough to put Benny out of his misery. “Wallop, dear, dear boy. You can’t believe everything you read on the Ministry for Space website you know! The Cornish were threatening to hold a referendum on breaking away from the Union.
Spaceport West
was a sweetener. Golden handcuffs, if you like.”

“Ball and chain, more like,” muttered Charlie.

SPACEPORT WEST

The final decision on where to locate the UK’s first permanent spaceport was long and protracted. Many cities and regions fought tooth and nail to win the project, knowing it would bring a huge influx of investment, jobs and prestige.

It was important that the facility did not endanger or inconvenience major centres of population. Conversely, however, citing the spaceport at too remote a location would diminish potential pecuniary advantages, as the Russians have amply demonstrated.

In the end, political considerations are rumoured to have trumped more rational arguments, and hence
Spaceport West
was born.

The tendency of parts of the United Kingdom to divest themselves of the yoke of Westminster control has been a familiar theme in recent British history. Consider, for example, the 2020 Scottish Independence Referendum. On paper, the 65:35 outcome in favour should have been more than enough to secure victory for the Scottish Nationalists. However, the Westminster Government managed successfully to turn this around by not only threatening to cut off the supply of Sterling (which would have forced the newly-formed nation to resort to a medieval barter system), but by actually beginning work on a substantial restoration of Hadrian’s Wall, even going so far as bricking up sections of the M6 at Gretna Green.

UK Guide to Space, 2025 Edition