Reddit reviews The Backroom Boys : The Secret Return of the British Boffin

Having read the book "Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin" (amazon.co.uk) I would say Venter gave the government team a bit of a kick in the pants but it was the team from the Wellcome Trust that got the results.

Venter was planning on making his results pay-per-view then the Wellcome Trust got wind of it and brought their billions to the table to shoot him down. They published the results as they got them, preventing Venter from being able to charge for the same information.

In the interview Venter seems to be spinning what happened to make his team sound like a charity - no mention of trying and failing to charge for the information gained from mapping the genome.

Without knowing too much about the Indian agency I imagine it's basically an engine for research & development. A play straight out of the Kennedy moonshot book that kicked off entire industries. The 'problem' with Skylon as I see it is the continued aftermath of the Thatcherite gutting of engineering R&D combined with the eccentric 'backroom boys' perception Alan Bond has. Just look at the funding, he's a recognised genius but RR, BAE, the government don;t have the balls to throw serious funding at him.

Britain got hooked on the Financial markets, stopped serious funding of science & engineering about 40 years ago.

[Edit] I should also say that you have to remember the Brits are part of the ESA, skylon is essentially a startup looking for funding.

For further reading I can highly recommend the book "Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin" http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0571214975?pc_redir=1411418581&robot_redir=1
There is a long chapter on Black Arrow, plus other great stories (such as David Braburn creating Elite on the BBC Micro, Corncorde etc)

If you enjoyed Masters of Doom you will probably enjoy a chapter of Backroom Boys. History of Elite video game programming all with random world generation. An other illustration of a technological breakthrough. The snippet from guardian website here will probably convince you.

I just recommended these in another thread but I think you might like them. Perhaps they're a bit more literary than the other suggestions.

Private Island by James Meek is a more literary on-the-ground bit of about the unseen effects of privatisation in the UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Private-Island-Britain-Belongs-Someone/dp/1784782068

Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford (and Spufford in general for non-fiction) is a kind of history of ideas collection of essays but with a sense of humour and based on interesting characters (it's about British science since WW2) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Backroom-Boys-Secret-Return-British/dp/0571214975