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Would be beyond ironic, but not altogether surprising with Boris’s track record if we find ourselves in a hi tech joint venture with the Chinese!
Back to languages- I’ve done 2 stints in The Netherlands over the years, both in English speaking work environments. Picked up enough to get the gist of what people are talking about (sometimes to their embarrassment as they didn’t realise how much I understood. However by the time of the second stint we had produced CP junior. He was 5 when we got there, so we put him in the local Dutch school rather than send him to the British School. His teachers were very good, and after 4 months or so he was fluent with no trace of an English accent. We came back when he was 8, and a year later when Dutch friends visited he could still speak Dutch but was, they told me, no longer thinking in Dutch as his sentence construction had changed to indicate he was translating from English as he went along. 12 years later he claims to remember none of it, though I do sometimes threaten to drop him in a non English speaking part of the country so he could see how quickly it came back. I suspect a couple of weeks if people refused to speak English to him! |
Curious PAX
My cousin was a skipper in the Merchant navy, firstly in UK then Europe, on Blue Water ie long haul container ships. His wife is Swedish, and they live in Germany. When their children arrived, a Dutch nanny was employed, and the kids grew up using Dutch/ German / English/ Swedish as a sort of alphabet soup. When they were small they would start a conversation in say English, and then if they did not know an English word they would borrow a German/ Swedish / Dutch one to fit. Made for some bazaar conversations. They are all grown up now but are still multilingual though the Dutch is a might rusty I think, but the language skills have definitely helped in their careers, and indeed outlook on life. Cheers Mr Mac |
Mr Mac
I think you'll probably agree that if you speak English and German then reading and comprehending Dutch is not that difficult. However speaking it, or trying to understand what is being said I find very difficult, verging upon impossible. I did think that if as a result of the lockdown I had too much free time on my hands I'd have a crack at distance learning Dutch, just to see if i could get to grips with it orally. Sadly, or happily I wound up working harder than I was before lockdown as a result of somewhat fortuitous circumstances, but it's an idea I will keep on the back burner. Cheer, ATN |
Many job advertisements in Belgium and Holland specify a requirement for fluency in Dutch, French, German and English, or simply "quadrilingual". Speaking only three languages would put you at a significant disadvantage in the employment market.
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“Way beyond ironic if we found ourselves in a joint venture with the Chinese...”. Yes: heaven forbid we should invest a large amount of money and intellectual capital to a project then find ourselves excluded from it!
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Originally Posted by ATNotts
(Post 10821968)
Mr Mac
I think you'll probably agree that if you speak English and German then reading and comprehending Dutch is not that difficult. However speaking it, or trying to understand what is being said I find very difficult, verging upon impossible. I did think that if as a result of the lockdown I had too much free time on my hands I'd have a crack at distance learning Dutch, just to see if i could get to grips with it orally. Sadly, or happily I wound up working harder than I was before lockdown as a result of somewhat fortuitous circumstances, but it's an idea I will keep on the back burner. Cheer, ATN The Dutch word or phrase I never seem to here is "its my round". Cheers Mr Mac |
Sally Ann[QUOTE]
Perhaps Boris could ask Huawei to get it working for him.[/QUOTE We do have a 'home grown' expert with a lot of experience in launching low cost satellites, including one that is still working while well over 20 years old. Boris could do a lot worse than call in Professor Sir Martin Sweeting of Surrey Satellite Communications - his track record is extremely good... |
You know at this stage in our lament about Uk's inability to manage space "stuff", and our supposed expertise on this I'm going to shout "Black Arrow"...(which my late father worked on as a sub-sub-subcontractor) and ask if the UK has really progressed at all in it's understanding of spaceflight at all in the last 50 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow |
Originally Posted by wiggy
(Post 10823138)
You know at this stage in our lament about Uk's inability to manage space "stuff", and our supposed expertise on this I'm going to shout "Black Arrow"...(which my late father worked on as a sub-sub-subcontractor) and ask if the UK has really progressed at all in it's understanding of spaceflight at all in the last 50 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow |
Not to mention (so I will) our pioneering of nuclear power generation. We let our expertise lapse and now have to buy in from abroad.
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The UK actually does have a world class and thriving satellite industry - we just pay someone else for delivery, as does/did OneWeb.
Delivery rates from companies such as SpaceX are remarkably cheap, and falling, with other companies joining the market. |
UK consortium offer accepted.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/3/21...-million-space UK government takes $500 million stake in space exploration firm OneWeb https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53279783 |
Further bad news, but at least we now have a stake in a bankrupt company.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/scienc...nment-53251942 |
"We are talking about the biggest Earth observation project in our history. When you look at what it's achieved - to not be involved would be idiotic," he told BBC News."This is not something the UK can replicate on its own. The amount of money, time and expertise means something like Copernicus can only be done across countries and to not be at the heart of it would be a huge mistake." |
https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/c...ish-spaceports
New Agreement Enables Use Of U.S. Launchers From British Spaceports Lomdon and Washington have signed off on security arrangements that will pave the way for U.S. cubesat and small-satellite launchers to be lofted into low Earth orbit from UK spaceports. Two years in the making, the Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA), signed in Washington on June 17, permits U.S. companies to operate from UK spaceports and eases the export of space launch technology between the two countries. While it is not unusual for one country to want to launch satellites from another, transferring the launch systems is wrapped in complexity—due in part to counterproliferation rules such as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), to which the UK and U.S. are both signatories. “Space launch vehicles are technically indistinguishable from weapon delivery systems, so transferring a space launch vehicle from one country to another is caught by the MTCR,” Andrew Kuh, head of international spaceflight policy at the UK Space Agency, tells Aviation Week. Kuh has been closely involved in the negotiations. “The TSA sets out how the U.S. and UK governments will work together to ensure that technology is not transferred . . . [and] making sure it is handled in an appropriate manner,” Kuh adds........ One of the clear beneficiaries of the TSA is Lockheed Martin, which secured £31 million ($39 million) in funding from the UK Space Agency in July 2018 to set up launch operations from Space Hub Sutherland in northern Scotland with U.S.-developed launchers. Company officials had previously suggested they could use the Electron launcher, leaning on their partnership with Rocket Lab. The agreements also smooths the way for Virgin Orbit, which received funding to support horizontal launch operations from Cornwall Airport Newquay in England....... Before launches begin, however, the TSA needs to be ratified by the British Parliament. Lawmakers also must approve the UK’s new Spaceflight Regulations, which are expected to move to a public consultation phase this summer. The regulations will build on the UK’s regulatory framework for aviation and will confirm how licenses will be granted for spaceports, launch vehicle operators, and for the provision of range and control services. While U.S. launch companies may undertake the first launches from the UK, several British satellite launch companies such as Orbex and Skyrora are waiting in the wings to join them. Skyrora recently carried out a full static firing of its Skylark L suborbital rocket, work that supports the development of its three-stage Skyrora XL launcher. Canada-based launch company C6 Launch Systems Inc. has said it wants to use the planned Shetland Space Center, a vertical launch site planned for Saxa Vord in the Shetland Islands. The company told Aviation Week that it does not expect any export restrictions for its launch vehicle, although the UK/U.S. TSA will help with the export of the engines. The UK is seen as an attractive launch location for access to polar and sun-synchronous orbits....... Britain wants to be able to launch satellites as part of its strategy to grow the country's domestic space industry and capture 10% of the global commercial space market by 2030, equivalent to around £40 billion. |
Originally Posted by ORAC
(Post 10830300)
https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/c...ish-spaceports
New Agreement Enables Use Of U.S. Launchers From British Spaceports Lomdon and Washington have signed off on security arrangements that will pave the way for U.S. cubesat and small-satellite launchers to be lofted into low Earth orbit from UK spaceports. Two years in the making, the Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA), signed in Washington on June 17, permits U.S. companies to operate from UK spaceports and eases the export of space launch technology between the two countries. While it is not unusual for one country to want to launch satellites from another, transferring the launch systems is wrapped in complexity—due in part to counterproliferation rules such as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), to which the UK and U.S. are both signatories. “Space launch vehicles are technically indistinguishable from weapon delivery systems, so transferring a space launch vehicle from one country to another is caught by the MTCR,” Andrew Kuh, head of international spaceflight policy at the UK Space Agency, tells Aviation Week. Kuh has been closely involved in the negotiations. “The TSA sets out how the U.S. and UK governments will work together to ensure that technology is not transferred . . . [and] making sure it is handled in an appropriate manner,” Kuh adds........ One of the clear beneficiaries of the TSA is Lockheed Martin, which secured £31 million ($39 million) in funding from the UK Space Agency in July 2018 to set up launch operations from Space Hub Sutherland in northern Scotland with U.S.-developed launchers. Company officials had previously suggested they could use the Electron launcher, leaning on their partnership with Rocket Lab. The agreements also smooths the way for Virgin Orbit, which received funding to support horizontal launch operations from Cornwall Airport Newquay in England....... Before launches begin, however, the TSA needs to be ratified by the British Parliament. Lawmakers also must approve the UK’s new Spaceflight Regulations, which are expected to move to a public consultation phase this summer. The regulations will build on the UK’s regulatory framework for aviation and will confirm how licenses will be granted for spaceports, launch vehicle operators, and for the provision of range and control services. While U.S. launch companies may undertake the first launches from the UK, several British satellite launch companies such as Orbex and Skyrora are waiting in the wings to join them. Skyrora recently carried out a full static firing of its Skylark L suborbital rocket, work that supports the development of its three-stage Skyrora XL launcher. Canada-based launch company C6 Launch Systems Inc. has said it wants to use the planned Shetland Space Center, a vertical launch site planned for Saxa Vord in the Shetland Islands. The company told Aviation Week that it does not expect any export restrictions for its launch vehicle, although the UK/U.S. TSA will help with the export of the engines. The UK is seen as an attractive launch location for access to polar and sun-synchronous orbits....... Britain wants to be able to launch satellites as part of its strategy to grow the country's domestic space industry and capture 10% of the global commercial space market by 2030, equivalent to around £40 billion. |
a vertical launch site planned for Saxa Vord in the Shetland Islands |
I hope this comes about, it would be a great booster (sorry!) for our space industry.
But I wonder why a Canadian company would want to come to Scotland to launch satellites when there are existing facilities on their side of the pond. |
Saxa Vord was the first ever place I went on detached duty. My lasting memory of the place is that it is as windy as hell. The wind never ever stops blowing there, it just varies a bit. The whole radar head got blown off the hill years before I went there, with the wind having reached a record speed before breaking the anemometer. Not sure it's exactly an ideal location for a launch facility, as apart from the near-constant high winds it's pretty far north, and I thought that one of the reasons for siting launch facilities near the equator was to reduce the amount of fuel needed to get into orbit.
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VP959, ideal for launching into polar orbit without overflying anyone else. It may be windy, but the weather/climate in equivalent northerly locations in continental America and Europe is far more inhospitable for much of the year due to the absence of the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream.
The NASA preferred polar launch site is Kodiak in Alaska which for much of the year is somewhat...... chilly. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy...ets/sites.html |
Big D--
Any chance we could launch Boris and his band of merry men into the outer space? ORAC-- The NASA preferred polar launch site is Kodiak in Alaska which for much of the year is somewhat...... chilly. Much as we would all love to see a British space launch programme up and running , I fear there is very little serious interest in the corridors of power at the moment , despite the best efforts of interested (professional ) parties . Alok Sharma teaming up with Mr Bharti does not fill one with confidence . |
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/06/30/u...-brexit-farce/
More perspectives on the Galileo saga . One has to think the government is juggling an awful lot of balls in the air right now as we head towards December 31st... |
Originally Posted by Phantom Driver
(Post 10834189)
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/06/30/u...-brexit-farce/
More perspectives on the Galileo saga . One has to think the government is juggling an awful lot of balls in the air right now as we head towards December 31st... |
In Brussels, the move was largely dismissed as “completely pointless” since everyone knew and experts agreed that it would be a highly irrational move from the UK to spend four or five times the money it had already invested for a worse system decades down the line. Everyone concurred that it was “just not a believable option”. |
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/l...port-ptgbp596l
Lift-off for Shetland as island wins race for UK spaceport A remote Scottish island has won the race to be the home of the UK’s first spaceport. Unst, on the northern tip of Shetland, is now the top choice by the UK Space Agency (UKSA) and the US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin for a commercial rocket launch site. The first launch, carrying small satellites into low Earth orbit, is set to take place next year if planning permission is given. The move is seen a major advance for Britain’s ambitions to be a key player in the burgeoning space industry. An announcement about Shetland is due to be made later this month by the official bodies involved in the multimillion-pound project, dashing the hopes of rivals across the country. John Neilson, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, which was awarded £23.5 million by the UKSA to identify and develop a vertical-launch site in Britain, said: “We are proud to be working in partnership with the UK Space Agency and partners, including both Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Shetland Space Centre, to deliver a first vertical satellite launch from Scotland. Its mission will be to collect data from space that will help drive economic growth across the country.” The news of Shetland’s success will come as a particularly heavy blow for those behind a rival £17.3 million scheme in the Highlands. It is only two months since Space Hub Sutherland received planning permission for their project. It is understood Lockheed Martin will continue to work with the Sutherland site but is in the process of transferring the bulk of its business interests and grant funding to Shetland. Mr Neilson said: “With a project of this complexity, we continually review our plans to maximise the chance of mission success.” It is understood the decision to focus on Shetland follows tests which showed that more than twice as many rockets, carrying a wider range of payloads, could be launched from Unst compared with Sutherland, which would be limited to 12 per year. Industry sources have said Lockheed Martin now sees the facilities as being complementary and suited for launches of different types for different clients. A full planning application for the Shetland Space Centre is expected to go before the local authority within the next two months for three launch pads at Lamba Ness and Saxa Vord — one to be operated by Lockheed Martin and two smaller ones to be used by other interested companies. It is understood the local landowner and crofters have given the project their backing, as has the 600-strong island community. Sutherland residents are divided over their spaceport plans and the threat to peatland and wildlife on the A’Mhoine peninsula. Scotland’s largest private landowner, Anders Povlsen, whose Wildland Limited company has estates nearby, has threatened legal action if the project, by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, goes ahead. |
Orac
How is this system going to be better than that already provided ? We have no current launch vehicle so would be using surprise surprise, a Russian one in the first instance. Another BJ bridge, hopefully this one maybe a little too far for him and his career. Kind regards Mr Mac |
How is this system going to be better than that already provided ? We have no current launch vehicle so would be using surprise surprise, a Russian one in the first instance In the case of the above, LM has teamed with Orbex to provide the launchers. Though I would assume the government would go out to gender and, with their volume, SpaxeX would be hard to beat. I think the government is more interested in the satellite end of the business than the fireworks end.... https://orbex.space/ |
Orac
I think the UK is a little late to the party for GPS systems as unless we can supply something radically different and most importantly useful and reliable I can not see why some one would change from current suppliers. I take the point about the firework end but again not cheap which ever way we go. Cheers Mr Mac |
Since we have a proven UK capability in building satellites, and will shortly have a launch site in Scotland complete with launch vehicles, why did Boris/Cummings throw away £400m on buying useless second-hand satellites from a bankrupt company?
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Originally Posted by Sallyann1234
(Post 10858033)
Since we have a proven UK capability in building satellites, and will shortly have a launch site in Scotland complete with launch vehicles, why did Boris/Cummings throw away £400m on buying useless second-hand satellites from a bankrupt company?
Its blindingly obvious Cummings and Johnson rushed into this in a vain attempt to throw their supporters some red meat to keep them happy, given the wealth of bad news around. |
Sallyann1234,
I think the main driver is we get the orbits, frequencies and ground stations up front. The 90 satellites are useful, the military always need bandwidth for voice and data and, if you remember, the US snapped up Iridium and never looked back. For the future, cubesats are packing more and more in and a single satellite could serve multiple functions for commas, navigation, Elint etc. Evrybody has an idea of a large satellite with large aerials - but to give an idea of how small - and I mean very small - a modern satellite transceiver can be, see here... https://www.inverse.com/innovation/s...et-transceiver As for GPS, as long as you have a ground station you have triangulation. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield...-a-gps-backup/ https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/small...S6NextOnPad/5/ https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/v...ntext=smallsat https://spacenews.com/first-hawkeye-...nting-signals/ https://www.seradata.com/hawkeye-360...on-from-utias/ https://www.sbir.gov/node/1620975 |
Slight difference. Iridium was and is a fully functioning network - a good investment.
The partial system that Boris bought into was failing because it required futher private investment wasn't available in the face of several competing systems. If the UK wants the system we will have to provide that extra investment. Interesting that you mention the military. Did they ask the government to buy into this? Were they even consulted? |
https://www.aerosociety.com/news/one...se-investment/
OneWeb and the UK - a wise investment? Pat Norris FRIN FRAeS (member of the RAeS Space Specialist Group Committee) looks at the UK proposal to invest in the OneWeb satellite constellation to create a LEO satellite navigation system. |
Ah fond memories of Shetland weather and explaining to our contractor why their lifting plans for 500t modules really weren't going to work in the time frames they were planning.
Here's a quote from the Shetland website: Our average windspeed throughout the year is 16.7 mph and in January, the windiest month, it’s 20.8 mph. Even in summer, the average remains above 12 mph. Unofficially, the RAF station at Saxa Vord in Unst holds the British wind speed record; a gust of 197 mph was recorded in 1992, after which the measuring equipment blew away. However, the maximum recorded at Lerwick is 109 mph, some way short of other places around Britain, for example, 115mph at the Isle of Wight, 124 mph in South Wales and 142 mph at Fraserburgh. However, the radar station holds the unofficial British record for wind speed, which in 1962 was recorded at 177 mph; just before the measuring equipment blew away. This was clearly well in excess of the speeds which the aerials were designed to survive. It was decided in view of such weather conditions that a radome should be built over the aerial array and, with Saxa Vord providing cover of value to NATO, the latter organisation provided the radome, while the RAF, in the form of No. 91 Signals Unit, operated the radar from 1957 onwards. |
Originally Posted by LowNSlow
(Post 10858249)
Ah fond memories of Shetland weather and explaining to our contractor why their lifting plans for 500t modules really weren't going to work in the time frames they were planning.
Here's a quote from the Shetland website: The anemometer also blew away in 1962: |
There's a reason that nothing much grows above ankle height on Unst - anything higher just gets blown away. During the time I was there I don't think the wind ever dropped much below about 30kts. Two of us tried to walk around Burra Firth and up to Hermaness, to get a view of the Muckle Flugga lighthouse, on the only relatively calm day off whilst we were there. We didn't make it, as we ended up knackered from trying to walk against the wind. Interesting anecdote; when my mother passed away a couple of years ago, we found the postcard I'd sent her whilst I was working up there. Has a neat post mark from the small post office in Haroldswick, hand franked with a stamp that reads "UK's most Northerly Post Office". There used to be an information board in the mess at Saxa Vord that had all the standard stuff about local amenities etc. Under "nearest railway station" it had Bergen, Norway listed.
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Originally Posted by PDR1
(Post 10858269)
So an ideal spaceport location then. An assessor went there to see the proposed location and was completely blown away by it...
PDR Perhaps we could pioneer an innovative kite-based satellite launch system? Semi-serious question: what's the transport infrastructure like there? Rail link? |
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