The news that Cornwall could soon become a designated “spaceport” – an authorised launch site for tourist flights beyond the earth’s atmosphere – opens up a veritable black hole of questions and possibilities. The name for a start. Spaceport Cornwall, the current title, sounds oxymoronic, like Crack Den Camelford. Cape Cornwall is spoken for (it’s the name of the wild and empty promontory I like to think of as the discerning person’s Land’s End) while “the Kernow Space Center” hardly cuts it.

And what of the “space tourists” who will be teleporting west for the ultimate in high-end travel experiences? The bucket-and-spade brigades were referred to disparagingly by the locals as “emmets”, meaning ants. But that epithet will need a re-think – “bransons” might just work.

Yes, the UK Space Agency, the relevant regulatory body, is said to favour Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic as the best provider of these new space launches. Virgin’s bearded ego is about to land west of the Tamar, with Cornwall now earmarked as yet another outpost of his tentacular global empire. It’s a familiar spot apparently. “I’m very fond of Cornwall as I spent many holidays there as a child with a bucket and spade,” he says. The timescale is uncertain but the likely fallout should worry those of us who cherish this least English, most distinctive of England’s counties.

“Cape Cornwall” is already taken Credit: GETTY

To be fair, and notwithstanding its parochial reputation, Cornwall has always had a global (if not sub-orbital) reach and associations with new technology. As far back as the 1870s it was connected to the rest of the world through cable telegraphy on the ocean bed – the cable came ashore at Porthcurno which today bills itself “The most connected valley on the planet”.

The old telegraph station is now a museum but Porthcurno remains plugged into the world as the landing place, on the eastern side of the Atlantic, of FLAG (Fibre-optic Link Around the Globe), a mostly submarine telecommunications cable that carries much of the world’s telephone and internet traffic between North America, Europe and Asia (GCHQ operates a monitoring station a little way inland). Meanwhile Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station, on the Lizard, has links to the European Space Agency and will play a role in any future space launches from the county.

Porthcurno, “The most connected valley on the planet” Credit: GETTY

If “Spaceport Cornwall” achieves lift-off it will be located at Newquay airport and funded initially by some £20 million from the UK Space Agency and Cornwall Council. Another of Branson’s tentacles, Virgin Orbital, will be looking to launch small satellites “horizontally” from a converted jumbo jet from the early 2020s. Based on the same principle, Virgin Galactic’s altogether more ambitious plan is to launch a spaceship containing tourists from a “carrier aircraft” at 50,000 feet. As they travel beyond earth’s atmosphere they will experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the planet – if they peer down closely enough they might even see a barefooted Branson paddling in the rock pools on Kennack Sands.

Virgin Galactic's US spaceport Credit: Virgin Galactic

Much has been said and written about the supposedly scientific benefits of this project – how in time it might lead to sub-orbital flights to Australia in just 90 minutes. But Branson surely has more earthly concerns at heart. “Our mission... means we focus on using space for good while delivering an unparalleled customer experience,” says the Virgin Galactic website. So far his putative customers include the likes of Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet who have paid out eye-watering amounts to ensure they are on the first flights.

These will probably launch initially from the US but Cornwall may yet become synonymous with the folly and vanity of space tourism in Europe. Is this most niche of niche markets really want Cornwall wants or needs? One suggestion to Mr Branson: he’d be doing us all a favour if he offered a special one-way flight with free seats for Westminster politicians – names to be chosen by a popular vote.