Island Britain: sleepy Isle of Man moves into the space age

By Martin Fletcher, Times Online, Posted 09/04/09

Link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article6820534.ece

"The Isle of Man, 220 square miles of hill and glen with 82,000 inhabitants, has reinvented itself. Its business now is business, not tourists or kippers. A self-governing island, which belongs to neither the United Kingdom nor the European Union, it responded to the collapse of tourism by slashing taxes and developing a financial sector.

More than a dozen space-related businesses operate from the island, including some of the world’s biggest satellite companies. It has a director of space commerce, an honorary representative to the international space community, and an International Institute of Space Commerce."