UK Plans Space Based Radar System 70
First time accepted submitter peepster84 writes "The UK government is to kick-start an innovative project to fly radar satellites around the Earth, with an initial investment of £21m. NovaSar-S would have a number of viewing modes that could enable it to perform a wide range of roles, from flood monitoring and land cover management to disaster mapping and maritime enforcement — notably ship tracking and oil spill detection."
Re:Heard this before. (Score:4, Interesting)
The classic 1980's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_(satellite) [wikipedia.org] shows what "initial investment of £21m" can really mean.
The New Statesman trial showed what happened when the UK lost close to 1 billion pounds into 1980's UK "satellite" tech.
In the end they used US tech for 500 million pounds.
So with any UK space effort watch the cash flow