Westminster

zagubov

What a fascinating topic!

If you lived in Washington DC you'd have no congressmen and no senators at all and one single "delegate" in the House of Representatives with hardly any powers !

Still, since 1960, you'd have been allowed to help vote for the President!

How lucky the people of Westminster are!

.string. wrote: »

Re the distributon of the money: Government unveils £6bn funding to 'fire up local economies'

Of course that's not the total story: Cameron unveils £500m funding for Glasgow before 'no' campaign rally

... But all this is in the future, essentially after the Referendum results are in.

Also for the future (perhaps) Scotland could be base for spaceport, says UK government

People are getting excited: Scotland's great opportunity

Actually I've yet to be convinced that the latter is a real option rather than a speculative dream. For most launches, the further North you go, the more expensive the launch.

We've all got our doubts about that.

.string.

Yes, HAMISH_MCTAVISH, you're right, there are satellites that use the polar orbits (that's why I used the word "more"). It's nice to know you have an interest in these things. I worked for ESA for several years but am retired now.

ESA is cerebrating its 50th birthday this year and in that context I'm going to Farnborough this Thursday and will enjoy looking around the stands, meeting old colleagues and with an air display thrown in. Life can be fun sometimes.

On the matter of the Spaceport, the Government is due to make an announcement on Tuesday at Farnborough on that - exciting times - so hopefully there will be a stand there to get some sort of information on it. I would hope to get rid of some of my scepticism about viability of a new launch site, who their customers are likely to be and if, indeed, they are after some sort of niche market.

I suppose the Space tourism business a la Virgin could be a customer. It's a bit of a fairground attraction thing, but then if it brings in the money then why not?

Then there's the "Skylon"; maybe there's some information on that. Having seen many of those ideas come and not go anywhere, again I'm reserved about it, but then one never knows until you try these things.

But let's hope the thing takes off (pun intended).

Exciting times for the UK!

pogofish

.string. wrote: »

Also for the future (perhaps) Scotland could be base for spaceport, says UK government

People are getting excited: Scotland's great opportunity

Actually I've yet to be convinced that the latter is a real option rather than a speculative dream. For most launches, the further North you go, the more expensive the launch.

This is not new news - it has been in development since 2006, when Virgin punted the idea of launching their space flights from Lossie and Moray Council latched-on because of the then possibility of its closure under the strategic base review.


Still I rather like the idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcPgsMqPQpI




And here is the original article from 2006:

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Space-tourists-set-for-Lossiemouth.2789376.jp

.string.

It's not clear to me what space missions would be launched by this proposed "Space Port". There's a bit more information here and from that it may be that the facility would be limited at least initially to joy rides of the Virgin type. But those are not real space launches - the height reached is just over 100km, the nominal "start" of Space, but these are not heights needed for even a a "Low Earth Orbit" satellite which are somewhat higher, around 160 km or so and up. The Space Station is, for example, at a height or (it varies) 330 km (205 mi) to 410 km. Geostationary orbits (ASTRA etc) are higher at around 35000 km!.

The ambitions seem to cover launches to these higher orbits but what vehicles might be used is still work in progress.

Nevertheless its an interesting ambition.

There is clearly a political element to this, the UK government trying to get in first with its plan and also offering a carrot to Scotland.

All good stuff.

.string.

This is just to tidy up my last post when I mentioned that I would be going to the Farnborough Air show. I’ll try not to make it too long.

It was good to meet old colleagues but regrettably the Air show itself was a disappointment. One or two planes of interest; the massive Airbus 300 and the A350 and a propellant version of the Airbus in military decor, a couple of fighters, one American and one Italian but noticeable (actually not noticeable) was the absence of the F35, the Euro Fighter and the Vulcan, for old time’s sake. I'm sure it’s better on the Public days but the highlight for me was talking to the pilot of a home-made gaudy-coloured biplane which was parked a few meters away. He took off, flew past and did a nice landing.

The exhibition was huge and defeated my intent to find data on the Skylon and the new Spaceport. I did find a small unmanned display on the Engines and there was rumoured to be one on the Skylon itself but I never found it. However I did pick up a few facts and opinions from my ex-colleagues.

Even the meagre supply of publicity stuff is too much to scan and post here, but I can give a couple of links.

The famous Mr Cable announced the Spaceport officially at Farnborough this week the UK Government’s intention to build a “Spaceport” by 2018. It has a short list of potential sites; 6 in Scotland, 1 in Wales and 1 in Cornwall. Key elements are that it should not be near populations and (therefore) that the take-off is over the sea.

It’s not clear yet who the potential customers might be eventually, but initial possibilities are the Virgin “Spaceship-two” (Spaceship-one was a development craft - you want to book? Off you go!) and the Skylon which is more in the concept phase. The engines for Skylon are in a more advanced stage of pre-development following a technology development contract issued though ESA followed by a UK Government contract (£60m) to build some engine hardware. The engine is planned to hit the market in 2018. You can read more at this site – see the menu bar along the top of that page


The Skylon may be in competition with other projects. One, which is much more advanced, is the SpaceX Dragon V2 reusable spacecraft which is aiming for a launch in 2017 and in one version would be man-rated to dock with the Space Station, but the Skylon has the advantage of having a feasible composite rocket/air breathing technology. Still, the Skylon is an interesting vehicle, it also has reusable elements and can launch some 15 tonnes at a time into Low Earth Orbit; the satellite would use a second stage or its own Boost Motor to adjust the orbit or take it further.

Back to the Spaceport: Whether either of these customers arrive is uncertain. For example the Galaxy Spaceship-one is based in and flies from the US and the Skylon is still a gleam in the eye, even though the engines are coming on well. I suspect the key is whether Virgin can be (maybe they have already been) persuaded to based one/some of their fleet (!) at the UK Spaceport since that would bring in some bread and butter money while other developments catch up. The local area's economy would benefit enormously from the Spaceport.

However, information seems somewhat sparse about the Spaceport. I thought the artist's impression of it (referenced above) was more comic than technical and shows how much more thought has to be done in identifying the scope of facilities and how to present it to a knowledgeable public. But then maybe it’s just symbolic and showing a lot of facilities all grouped together is always going to be a challenge.