BREXIT WHAT IT MEANS FOR ASTRONOMY AND SPACE EXPLORATION
Professor Richard Massey is on a beach, enjoying a short break from his role of Royal Society Research Fellow at the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University. All About Space interrupts him with a question about Brexit and he immediately drops everything. “I feel strongly about this issue,” he tells us, before launching into a passionate take on a subject that has split the United Kingdom down the middle.
There is no getting away from Brexit – the UK's departure from the European Union (EU) which, at the time of writing, has been set for 31 October – but we know that it will inevitably affect the UK, Europe and the wider world in some way, whether good or bad.
The impact will be felt in space, too: the UK's efforts in space exploration, astronomy and astrophysics depend to a great extent on global co-operation, and since the UK's interests are very much intertwined with that of Europe there's a good chance contracts will be jeopardised.
“Brexit has already been a disaster for British science,” argues Massey. “Scientific research is a long-term activity, and the uncertainty of
