Last week a conference was held in Whitehaven about the possibility of expanding the space industry to the area. 

The town council has been running a science show for the past four years, but due to large public interest decided to expand the event significantly this year. 

The event was held on Thursday, June 29, and in the evening a talk was presented by iSH to local businesses with a spokesperson from the North West Space Cluster. 

The aim of the talk was to try to promote the growing industry to companies in our area. 

Miranda Kirschel of iSH said: "We're the Industrial Solutions Hub and we're here to inspire the general communities minds to think about the space sector and how it is close to the nuclear industry in terms of the skills and capabilities that you need. 

"In west Cumbria, we're the best in the world at engineering and have the best experts in this at the Sellafield site and the rest of the nuclear industry. 

"So we're saying look at other sectors as well that are adjacent to the nuclear industry and think about a future where you do both perhaps. 

"We're looking at the space sector and we want to bring the conversation to the general community in west Cumbria to just let them have a look. 

"We have a planetarium here and this is mobile where we'll be showing two shows. 

"One is 'The Sky at Night' and the other explains what astronomers do, we're astronomers. 

"It gives children and adults alike a chance to learn more about the universe and space and start to think about what it could be like to have a job in the space sector. 

"It's not just about astronomers, you can do all sorts of things in this sector like you do in the nuclear industry. 

"Anyone is welcome to attend the event in the evening and ask any questions that they want to talk about space and why we're doing all this."