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Space United Kingdom

Britain Is Getting Ready for Its Space Race (nytimes.com) 48

Spurred by Brexit, London is backing companies that will build satellites and haul them into orbit. From a report: Cornwall, in England's far southwest, is known for antique fishing villages and snug, cliff-lined beaches. Soon it may be the scene of something very different: a small but growing space industry. One day in a year or two, a modified Boeing 747 is expected to lift off from the long runway at the region's airport, head out over the Atlantic Ocean and soar into the stratosphere. There, a rocket will drop from below a wing, fire its engines and ferry a load of small satellites into orbit, while the plane returns to the airport. After six years of planning and fund-raising, construction of a bare-bones spaceport, budgeted at about 22 million pounds ($28 million), is beginning this month at the airport in Newquay. The anchor tenant is expected to be Virgin Orbit, a part of Richard Branson's Virgin universe. Its selling point: Putting satellites into orbit via aircraft can be done faster and with less infrastructure than earthbound rockets. It plans to bring its 747 (called the Cosmic Girl) and other gear being tested in the Mojave Desert to Britain with the help of $9.5 million from the U.K. Space Agency.

"At the beginning, people laughed at us," said Melissa Thorpe, head of engagement for Spaceport Cornwall, the developer. "It took a lot of work to convince a lot of people." Among the better arguments: The spaceport, which is owned by the local government, could eventually provide 150 good jobs in what, despite its charm, is a region dependent on low-paid, seasonal work from tourism. Britain is doubling down on the always risky space business after, some would say, years of neglect. Besides Cornwall, the government is putting money behind several other potential launch sites, including one on the remote north coast of Scotland, which is being tailored for an environmentally friendly rocket to be manufactured nearby. This is all new for a country that does not have a deep history of rocketry or launching satellites into space. The case for spaceports in Britain is far from proven. In fact, some analysts say there are already too many such facilities, including in the United States.

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Britain Is Getting Ready for Its Space Race

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    • by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @02:06PM (#60582216)

      exactly
      in june our resident slashdot brexiters have tried to defend the acquisition of oneweb.
      three months later the project was scrapped.

      https://www.theneweuropean.co.... [theneweuropean.co.uk]

      • Oh, but they're going to get a great trade deal with the US, and that will leverage a great trade deal with the EU!

        And they're going to re-divide Northern Ireland, but they're not worried about violating the peace deal, because they forgot that Northern Ireland is... in Ireland.

        • by hoofie ( 201045 )

          Bullshit - there was never any violation of the peace deal.

          Laugh away but Ireland is about to lost it's bridge to the EU via Northern Ireland and the UK. The Irish economy is about to be absolutely smashed. Thank Leo for that one. Go and have a look how long a ferry takes to France from Ireland and how bad the roads are at both ends.

          • Not violated yet but they in the processing a law that will permit breaking the illegally braking the agreement and putting the peace deal at risk. Things will improve for Ireland's new ferry service and makes them less reliant on an unreliable partner willing to break international law.
      • exactly
        in june our resident slashdot brexiters have tried to defend the acquisition of oneweb.
        three months later the project was scrapped.

        https://www.theneweuropean.co.... [theneweuropean.co.uk]

        And the resident remoaners respond with stuff like links from EU propaganda sites. Like "The New European" that describe anything dealing with national independence as "vanity projects".

        Bottom line: you still can't get over that you lost the vote. Learn to deal.

        • I am a German and actually very grateful for brexit - we got rid of a toxic member and are able to watch the quite fascinating and entertaining shitshow of the UK slowly disintegrating. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes and remember that Schadenfreude is a German word.

          As for the scrapped oneweb project, even the torygraph wrote about it.

          • by hoofie ( 201045 )

            Funnily enough the British feel similar - we managed to detach our self from Mutti's incessant drive to take over Europe.

            Good luck with the German economy which now has to work even harder to support the bust economies of Southern Europe.

          • Its was only one toxic party i.e. the Tories, that was the problem, Farage's efforts were just an extension of the Tories as he is a just a far right Tory. Brexiters have created the toxic xenophobic environment that existed in 1930s Germany and UK. And yes, it is a shitshow, the gullible voting public here voted in a bunch of idiots and incompetents.
        • "Bottom line: you still can't get over that you lost the vote. Learn to deal." - this is still your only tagline. i.e. zero economic arguments, only xenophobia
      • That article is incorrect. What's being scrapped is the May era plan for a like for like Galileo replacement. "The UK Space Agency is expected to announce in the coming days that it has terminated the GNSS project, which Mrs May put £92m of taxpayer funds into in 2018." OneWeb was never part of this plan, because OneWeb is an entirely different type of satellite. The GNSS was all about building a classical British owned GPS. The OneWeb idea is about building a non classical British owned GPS. Di
        • by Wheely ( 2500 )

          Even if this made any sense it is still stupid when we could have still had access to Galileo even with leaving the EU. The UK left the Galileo negotiations because again, it didn't understand that the EU looks after its members, not third countries.

    • Yeah, step 1, acquire capability.

      Racing is not even in the top 10 steps when you start a new hobby.

  • and shaped like a police box.
  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @02:12PM (#60582248) Homepage Journal

    They still aren't even going to space, right?

    Calling it the virgin universe is daft as well. It's an empire at best, and let sir dick be happy with that.

    They are running as fast as they can to get into last place.

  • LOLWUT? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 )

    They've voluntarily downgraded themselves to impoverished island nation, the only space race they're going to be in now is with Haiti.

    • Re:LOLWUT? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @02:54PM (#60582466) Homepage Journal

      It's bound to be a fiasco. Everything our government touches goes to shit.

      We don't have the talent and now we can't get it thanks to an increasingly shitty immigration system and brexit. The government will just use it to funnel cash to their friends anyway.

      • The various Virgin brands that claim to be putting things into orbit have been saying that since 2004 and haven't managed it yet.
        I am assuming at this point it is just some scheme for Branson to get some tax breaks or something, because it's obviously not about putting things into orbit, or they would have done it by now.

        I would imagine Branson is one of the friends having cash funneled to him.

      • by ghoul ( 157158 )
        The shittier the immigration system the more committed the talent. After jumping through too many hoops even smart people are too shy to admit to themselves they made a mistake coming and go back. They stick around and work even harder just to prove to themselves they were not idiots to jump through the hoops. Make the system less shittier and when people realize they made a mistake it wont be too late for them to leave.
      • We don't have the talent and now we can't get it thanks to an increasingly shitty immigration system and brexit. The government will just use it to funnel cash to their friends anyway.

        We actually do have the talent (surprising I know, but there is a local aerospace industry), but the government is incapable of recognising talent, doubly so when there's a massive consulting firm full of cronies ready to overcharge for a massive failure.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      They're actually still a member of the ESA. The place where they shot themselves in the foot was Galileo.

      They could have continued as a partner in the satellite navigation system, instead they announced they were going to make their own system. This involved a number of -- let's be charitable and call them "miscalculations", like buying a bankrupt LEO satellite Internet provider OneWeb with the idea of somehow converting the company's communication satellite constellation into a satellite navigation sys

  • Is the major difference that they are using a 747 instead of an L1011 ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • Is the Welsh coal.

    Wrest control of the Welsh coal mines from those pesky Europeans!
    And int the process aim missile at own foot, by cutting Wales out of a 4BN EUR fund for development.

  • never really made peace with the fact that her Colonies are all gone. What failed on earth, might someday work elsewhere...?

  • Brexit is already a disaster and Boris The Incompetent is simply desperately hoping he can threaten the EU with enough problems that he will get a deal that doesn't drive the UK's tottering economy over the edge.
    Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of bigots.

  • When an article has to quote the "head of engagement" of a company to back up its claims of future technical domination, one can only laugh.

  • ...like affordable housing?
  • by swell ( 195815 ) <jabberwock@poetic.com> on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @03:33PM (#60582650)

    "At the beginning, people laughed at us," said Melissa Thorpe, head of engagement
    Not sure what 'engagement' is--marketing?
    What marketing person would make such a statement? It invites laughter. Ms Thorpe might have said "We got a modest start and now we're _ _ _ " for a more useful response.

    Unfortunately with Brexit, the virus, and the errant PM, and the light demand for space services, it's hard to take such a project seriously.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      To justify pissing away large amounts of public money on failed projects they have to have "engagement". If it inspires some kids to study a bit harder then it can be justified.

      It's just free money for Friends of the Tory Party, with a fig leaf of "engagement".

  • A "modified 747" with a rocket underneath?

    Arstechnica is filled with articles on how Branson's stupid VirginOrbit, VirginGalactic, and VirginWhatever are all FAILURES at launch, FAILURES at orbital delivery, and FAILURES at cost containment.

    And now someone thinks they'll launch from Cornwall? Wrong inclination. Wrong direction for backup plan (must launch west to stay over water in case of early failure) and wrong leadership.

    This is just crazy shit quantum cyber future quantum cyber stuff to say to get in

  • Before we know what's happening, they'll be announcing that the TARDIS and its first pilot, The Doctor, have been in service since minus five billion years.

  • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @06:02PM (#60583170)
    The only thing I expect him to build is a giant ponzi scheme.
  • by ghoul ( 157158 ) on Thursday October 08, 2020 @01:54AM (#60583980)
    Britain is too far to the North to launch anything cheaply. There is a reason US launches from Florida, Russia from Kazakhstan and France from South America. The further you are from the equator the more energy it takes t reach orbital velocity.
    • There do exist the "British Overseas Territories", some of which are pretty close to the equator. I'm sure some deal could be worked out so that the self-governments would allow British launches. To be sure, they are pretty remote and inaccessible, and some don't have a permanent resident society, so much or even everything of the needed infrastructure would have to be shipped in, and the support personnel's housing and sustenance would need to be built up from scratch or shipped in. Doable but not cheap, e
      • by ghoul ( 157158 )
        The British Space program used to launch from Australia. But this article specifically states they plan to launch from Wales.
    • If you RTFS, you'll find they're air-launching from a 747-400, which has a cruising range of over 14,000 km. That's enough for a round trip to the equator with some fuel left over, so they can launch at any latitude they please.

      • by ghoul ( 157158 )
        That probably makes more sense. This way you dont have to transport a satellite to Equatorial areas, mate it with a rocket locally and launch. Instead mate it in Wales, fly both rocket and satellite to an Equatorial area and then launch it. Goood for job generation at home but at the cost of size of payload launchable
  • A country that runs its Covid track and trace system on Excel wants to send things to space ? Hmmmm

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