LAST February, it was announced that eleven British firms had formed a consortium known as the British Space Development Company, with a view to investigating the commercial benefits to be obtained from a British space programme. The principal aims of this consortium were to provide a single national body capable of providing all the diverse skills necessary for a space programme and to give British industry a single negotiating organization. Of the eleven firms which together constitute the British Space Development Company, all are in some way connected with the aircraft industry and the vast majority (Hawker Siddeley Aviation and Rolls‐Royce being the exceptions) are concerned with electronics.