Saxa Vord Spaceport

[pxr5]

The first UK spaceport for vertical rocket launches is on Unst in The Shetland Islands. Impressive as this is I do wonder why this place was chosen. It's a twat of a place to get to and the weather is absolutely horrendous (it holds the UK's wind speed record). I lived there for 2 years in the early 80s and I've never known wind like it - scary stuff. So bad that in the 90s one of the radars there was ripped out from inside its dome and flung bits of metal all over the island. Before that, in the 50s a massive radar was blown off the cliffside. A strange choice indeed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-67741864

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Saxa_Vord

[Slim]

The only advantage I can think of is that it's not close to a population centre. But received wisdom has it that putting objects into orbit is easier from a point near the equator, because the surface of the Earth is spinning faster there - whereas this location is not that far, relatively speaking, from the North Pole.