Hmm, I never thought the close military relationship between the US and UK would be anything but beneficial for the UK, but this shows a pitfall of that kind of thinking...since its "cheaper" just to purchase from the US, the UK forfeits the development of its own MIC.<p>I think I remember reading somewhere that the continuous wars between the UK and the other European powers was one of the main reasons for the demand that led to the industrial revolution. If that's true, then what to make of this situation?
See also <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_(satellite)" rel="nofollow">http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_(satellite)</a><p>There's a small satellite industry in the UK, which seems to be thriving despite official neglect.<p>UK procurement is just too small-minded and penny-pinching to do these kind of projects.
It is amazing what ambition post WW2 Britain had for Cold War hardware. Despite the country having been bombed to bits (albeit not quite on Tokyo/Hiroshima/Dresden/etc. scale) there were many companies in the aerospace sector, plus a 'space program' of military ambitions only, that Concorde thing, not to mention various flavours of atom bomb. Incredible! Nowadays there is no huge fleet in the skies, at sea or on land. Right now there isn't even an aircraft carrier with actual planes. Despite that the cost of military hardware is forever going skyward with planes costing $100 million dollars a piece (you could buy and run an F1 team on less).
Hopefully this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon</a><p>will put us back in the space race.