‘Galactic Britain’: how Cornwall is winning the European space race

After last week's publication of the national space strategy, photojournalist Jonny Weeks explores how the south-west is primed for the first launch of a satellite-bearing rocket from UK soil

When we first started, people would laugh at us," says Melissa Thorpe as she guides a group of visitors around an exhibition in a vast hangar at Newquay airport. But now look, we're only a matter of months from launch."

Sweeping around a tall black curtain, she reveals a 21-metre space rocket glimmering under red spot lights. Children's eyes widen and the adults in the group are agog.

A model of the 747 aeroplane, nicknamed Cosmic Girl, which will carry the Launcher One rocket beneath one of its wings.