However, campaigners drew particular attention to three: the Saxa Vord spaceport in Unst, Shetland; the Orbex spaceport on the A’Mhoine peninsula in Sutherland; and a spaceport in North Uist being proposed by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar in conjunction with private military contractor QinetiQ.“The one in Shetland is right by Hermaness, one of the largest seabird colonies in the UK that is of international importance.
“We need infrastructure in space, we need an understanding of our meteorological systems, and these technologies are a very important part of that. “The UK Space Agency, instead of greenwashing its projects, needs to come up with a code of space ethics and use that to govern the kinds of projects it invests in.”