UK Space Agency to be deorbited

 

The UK Space Agency (UKSA) is to become part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

The change is scheduled to take place by April 2026, aimed at streamlining government support for the UK’s space industry.

It follows the agency’s recent announcement that it will provide over £2.5 million for five projects aimed at using satellite data to support public services, and its launch of Europe’s first satellite dedicated to carbon dioxide monitoring.

Space Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “Bringing things in house means we can bring much greater integration and focus to everything we are doing while maintaining the scientific expertise and the immense ambition of the sector."

UKSA was founded in 2010 and currently operates as an executive agency of DSIT. It catalysed investment and revenue of at least £2.2 billion for the UK space sector in 2024-25.

Despite the BBC's attention-grabbing and not strictly true headline "UK independent space agency scrapped to cut costs" this seems like a sensible decision.

UKSA has mostly punched below expectations and has essentially been a quango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation) with little real clout.

Today's announcement follows a commitment from Prime Minister Keir Starmer to reduce costs and cut the number of arms length government bodies.

The agency, its budget and activities will now be absorbed into DSIT which will also coordinate/oversee other space-related activities for the country.

Overall, the UKSA "brand" will continue - just without the extra layer of bureaucracy.

Former CEO of the UKSA, Katherine Courtney said she could understand why the government had taken this decision but didn't believe the change will achieve the stated aims.

"My time in Whitehall taught me that restructuring doesn’t drive efficiency and effectiveness in pubic sector organisations," she added.

"In my experience, ever administration hopes they can reduce costs through restructuring - but what really would make public sector organisations leaner and more effective are clear strategic priorities and greater continuity of ministerial leadership.

"UKSA hasn’t had either of those for over a decade and until the current government recognises the vital strategic role space plays for UK economic growth and national security, that’s unlikely to change."

The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), a long-time advocate of a UK space agency, welcomed the commitment to retain the UKSA’s identity and scientific expertise. 

In a statement issued on social media it said: "We believe efficient and accountable public structures are essential to ensure that British excellence in space continues to flourish. 

"A unified approach is vital to making rapid progress on national space goals - from innovation in small satellites and in-orbit servicing to leadership in space sustainability.

"The BIS is confident that this transition, when implemented consultatively, can preserve the dynamic, pioneering spirit that has characterised the UK’s space endeavours since the 1930s. 

"We urge government and industry to work together in ensuring that the UK’s visionary projects - supporting an £18.6 billion sector and 55,000 highly skilled jobs - continue to receive the focus and clarity they deserve."

Watch this space!

Climate scepticism is a killer

The small city of Silopi in Turkey’s Şırnak province made unwanted history on 25 July 2025 when temperatures surged to 50.5°C (122.9F) – a record not only for Turkey but for continental Europe. 

This broke the country’s previous record of 49.5C set just two years earlier and came amid a wider pattern of searing heat across the region. 

But just as the atmosphere cracked under the weight of heat and smoke, a parallel blaze of apathy dominated the comments of social media posts. 

This is not just weather. It is signal and the fact that so many brush it off as meaningless should alarm us as much as the rising mercury.

The numbers are startling:

•    50.5C in Silopi, verified by Turkish meteorological authorities, marking the hottest temperature ever recorded in the country

•    132 weather stations reported record highs or lows across the country on the same day

•    in cities like Bursa and Karabuk, more than 3,500 residents were evacuated due to wildfires

•    over 80 blazes burned simultaneously in southern and western provinces

•    the death toll – still rising at the time of writing – included firefighters, volunteers and civilians, some overcome by flames, others by the heat itself.

Turkey was not an isolated flashpoint but more akin to the leading edge of a continental burn. In Greece, Italy and across the eastern Mediterranean, similar conditions have prevailed. 

And yet: “Just a hot day.”

Scrolling through the UK Met Office’s Facebook post about Turkey’s record heat, one might expect concern, curiosity or even a sober call for concerted action. 

Instead the voices of indifference seem to shout loudest with many of the top comments veering toward minimisation:

    “It’s Turkey. It’s always hot.”
    “It’s summer. Get over it.”
    “Every year you say it’s the hottest ever – so what?”

Such remarks aren't surprising anymore but they are disappointing and dangerous.

What we’re seeing isn’t a few keyboard cynics. It’s a growing climate indifference – a conditioned reflex to ignore or downplay events that no longer feel shocking. 

It’s as if the extremes scientists have warned about have become background noise. But to those on the ground – displaced, grieving, choking in smoke – it’s all very real.  

Climate context
This summer’s heat in the northern hemisphere is part of a wider and well-documented trend:

•    Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average.

•    the frequency and duration of heatwaves across the Mediterranean has tripled in the past 20 years.

•    attribution science has made it clear – events like Turkey’s 50.5C day are virtually impossible in the short term without human-induced climate change.

So, no, this is not just “a hot day” for the record books. It is part of a pattern that is remaking our seasons, our safety and our stories of the future. 

Survivability
As global temperatures rise, there’s a growing and often overlooked truth: above certain thresholds, the human body simply cannot survive for long without artificial cooling. 

It is widely accepted that a 35C wet-bulb temperature – a combination of heat and humidity – marks the upper physiological limit for humans. 

Beyond this, sweating becomes ineffective, the body can no longer cool itself and death can occur within hours, even in the shade. In dry heat, conditions above 45-50C without shade, ventilation or hydration can lead to heatstroke, organ failure, and death. 

Turkey’s new record is dangerously close to these thresholds and in a world where access to air conditioning and reliable electricity is not universal, especially in rural or low-income communities, this is no longer just a matter of discomfort.  

Complicit indifference 
It’s tempting to see social media as a misinformation sideshow. But the stories we tell – and the ones we ignore – shape public discourse and political will. 

If each new heat record becomes a meme or a punchline, we lose the urgency. And without urgency, we lose momentum. Indifference breeds delay. Delay costs lives.

That’s why this blog post is not just about numbers. It’s about meaning – about connecting the dots before the hairline cracks become fault lines.

In a moment like this, it's not enough to track the rising heat. We must also track the rising silence – the space where concern should be but isn’t. If records like Turkey’s 50.5C don’t register as wake-up calls, what will?

This is not hyperbole. It’s our future history and the tragedy is already unfolding more quickly than was predicted.

Transformation, if it comes, will demand not just awareness but imagination – a capacity to think far beyond fossil futures and current lifestyles.

Deadly secrets and dystopian fears

The title of this Newark Book Festival talk – Deadly Secrets and Dystopian Fears – could hardly have been more apt. 

In the intimate surrounds of the town’s National Civil War Centre, speculative thriller author Eve Smith took centre stage, joining crime writer Eva Björg Ægisdóttir for a compelling discussion hosted by Dr Tim Rideout. 

But from my perspective it was Smith’s chilling new novel The Cure that dominated the hour, offering a potent blend of science, ethics and imagined futures that now feel all too plausible.

As a writer immersed in my own climate-themed speculative fiction, I found Smith’s candour and insight both reassuring and unsettling. 

Here is someone working at the very edge of what fiction can do – holding up a mirror to the world as it is now, while asking what it might look like just one bad decision (or breakthrough) down the road.

A cure worse than the disease?
Smith’s latest novel (published this spring by Orenda Books) pivots on a discovery no less extraordinary than the mythical fountain of youth. 

Her protagonist, Ruth, stumbles upon a cure for ageing while researching a disease that killed her daughter. It's an accidental find – science as side effect – but one that is quickly hijacked by corporate ambition. 

The resulting gene therapy promises eternal youth but at catastrophic cost. A future where humanity can no longer die naturally demands grim sacrifices to keep the system functioning.

It’s this kind of premise – eerily speculative but firmly rooted in real-world science – that defines Smith’s work. Her books, from The Waiting Rooms to One and now The Cure, begin with a simple, terrifying “what if?” In this case: what if the cure for ageing arrived before we were ready to manage it?

Listening to Smith unpack the real-world science was a revelation. She spoke of biotech companies already offering unregulated gene therapies, of a Silicon Valley outfit called Ambrosia that sold young people’s plasma to ageing elites – what she chillingly dubbed “modern-day vampire science.” And yes, it actually happened. 

The longevity industry is no longer niche futurism, it’s a multi-billion-dollar beast and her thoughts mirrored my own on observation a visit to Milan in 2024 and recorded in “A writer’s imaginative eye”.

For speculative fiction writers, who dwell in the speculative margins of science, this is fertile territory. But it's also fraught with moral complexity. 

Smith’s approach stands out because she doesn’t just pose ethical dilemmas – she drills deep into their human consequences. Her dystopias aren’t all towering glass and techno-doom, they’re rooted in the mess and pain of family, grief, ambition and love.

Fiction as thought experiment
As Smith told the audience, writing is her form of therapy. She researches obsessively – not just to arm herself with facts but to interrogate their implications. 

“If only,” she noted, “our political systems could keep pace with our science.” 

It’s a familiar refrain for any of us exploring the gap between innovation and governance – particularly in a time when climate change, AI and bioengineering are all surging ahead with few brakes in sight.

One of the most powerful ideas from The Cure is the notion of transcendence – a euphemism for euthanasia at the age of 120, required to prevent societal collapse under the weight of the undying. 

It's an Orwellian twist on assisted dying, laced with dark satire. Smith described the “transcendence ceremony” as akin to a wedding with speeches, closure and celebration before the final curtain. It’s dystopian, yes, but presented with a sardonic grin that lands it with an emotional punch.

This blend of science and social commentary felt strikingly familiar as I thought about my own forthcoming novel Flood Waters Down. 

While Smith's lens is biotechnology, mine is climate collapse, but we’re walking similar paths – fictionalising truths we’re already too close to. The dystopia doesn’t feel like a warning so much as a reflection of what’s already beginning to manifest.

Building a believable tomorrow
What sets Smith apart is her approach to world-building. She maps out the political, environmental and social landscape of her imagined futures in early detail before shaping the story itself. 

It’s a technique I’ve increasingly adopted in my own work of fiction which I like to call a “history of the future”. World-building isn't just about dressing the set it's about structuring the story’s moral and logistical scaffolding.

In The Cure, this manifests in a bifurcated future. One legal, state-controlled rejuvenation programme, the other an elite, unregulated underground version for the wealthy and powerful. 

The inequities are stark. Living space is scarce. Green spaces have all but vanished. Young people face mounting costs and diminished opportunity, unless they sign up to the government’s strict longevity contract. 

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. We’re already watching inter-generational tensions play out, already dealing with housing crises and resource limits. What Smith has done is project them forward.

There’s also a recurring motif in her books of mother-daughter dynamics – a personal anchor in the swirl of global-scale issues. 

“I always come back to family,” she said. “That’s where you feel the impact of everything.” 

In The Cure, Ruth’s grief and guilt are the emotional lynchpins of the plot. For Smith, and I suspect for many of us writing in the speculative space, the personal and political are almost indivisible.

Genre bending for real impact
Smith comfortably straddles speculative fiction and thriller territory – a tricky balance that requires both pace and philosophical depth. Her plots move fast but not at the expense of nuance. 

She cited The Handmaid’s Tale – still painfully relevant decades after publication – as a personal touchstone. That resonance is what she’s aiming for and, arguably, achieving. As an audience member noted, her books seem destined to be re-read in years to come with a dawning sense of “Oh, that’s now.”

What I appreciated most from the session was Smith’s humility about her own genre. Speculative fiction is often viewed as second-tier literature – too bleak, too geeky, too niche. 

But as both she and Dr Rideout pointed out, the genre’s roots go deep. HG Wells, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood – and I would add JG Ballard. These writers didn’t just predict the future they shaped how we think about the present. That’s the tradition new writers are stepping into.

Cure for complacency
Towards the end of the talk, Smith revealed she’s not quite done with genetics. Her next novel will explore the idea of parents engineered from scratch – designer biology meets parental trauma. 

She laughed, noting she just can’t seem to escape DNA. But perhaps that’s the point. We’re already entering a world where our biology, once fixed, is becoming malleable. The big question, however, isn’t just what’s possible. It’s who controls it and at what cost?

As someone preparing to release a speculative novel of my own, I left the session not just inspired but sharpened. Smith reminded me that dystopia isn’t all about doom. It’s about consequence. It’s about asking the hardest questions in a format people will engage with. 

And maybe, just maybe, it’s about getting readers to imagine something better by first showing them what might go wrong.

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Photo caption: Tim Rideout with authors Eve Smith-Eva (centre) and Bjorg Aegisdottir at Newark Book Festival, July 2025. 

Flood Waters Down is on the road to publication - further details contact Clive Simpson