6 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Yeah, similar situations; local councils in rural extremities trying to attract job creating investment.

In the case of the two above they’re both chasing a potential Lockheed-Martin launch.

The Sutherland Spaceport is a prime example of how to waste public money on ludicrous schemes that merely generate meetings and expense claims.

Shetland Space Centre is likely to win over just about anything else as they’re backed by Shetland’s North Sea oil money fund and the area already has a considerable engineering infrastructure to work with.

Once again though, they’ve essentially tied themselves to one company. However, unlike Cornwall’s Spaceport, these two sites actually have permission to launch rockets.

 

 

Very interesting, thanks 

15 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

The press release you posted is just a bit of waffle to try and justify their existence.

 

You find in these conversations that there are those that are optimistic, those that are somewhat pessimistic and those that are cynical. And the cynical ones always think they have the benefit of foresight.

Here's my take on it... 

Mell Thorpe seems to be a talented lady to me and for Mell and her team not to have a "plan b" in the likely event that (known to be underfunded) Virgin Orbit fails, would be utterly moronic. She doesn't come across as a moron to me. 

Spaceport Cornwall have been working with big names like Airbus and ESA for quite a while in regard to their science and tech. 

 

15 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

The Dream Chaser Spaceplane ‘agreement’ means that sometime, in the distant future, if the Dream Chaser actually flies it’ll have the option to make an emergency landing in Cornwall if they can’t make it back to Nellis.

 

Its a bit more sophisticated than that. That's one option of course, but in addition, the option would be for Dream Chaser to land its cargo at Newquay and deliver it straight to the lab or factory at Aerohub. Then Dream Chaser is flown back to Nevada. So no, not just an emergency landing site. Spaceport Cornwall's integration hangar is now ready for that scenario. 

As for "distant scenario"... last I heard was that Dream Chaser's first flight will be this year with a cargo mission. 2026 for a manned flight. 

 

15 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

there’s just no reason to be there.

 

As I have no inside knowledge, I'm going to reserve judgment, and consider that there may be  options the company are aware of that I'm not.

 

Quote

 

The future of Cornwall's spaceport is not at risk, bosses at the UK's only licenced spaceport insisted after news came out that its launch partner had laid off almost all its staff. Melissa Quinn, the head of Spaceport Cornwall, insisted it was business as usual in Newquay even when Virgin Orbit announced it was making 85 per cent of its workforce redundant.

However, Melissa Quinn, head of Spaceport Cornwall, insisted work carries on as normal in Cornwall which is home to the only licenced spaceport in the UK to date. She added: "Spaceport Cornwall continues to operate with no direct impact to the team or project."

Two weeks ago, Spaceport Cornwall and Cornwall Council said they wanted to “grow the space cluster” in Cornwall despite its main operator Virgin Orbit announcing it was pausing all activity. The local authority has invested more than £10million into Spaceport Cornwall and claimed that the venture will result in hundreds of new jobs and attract businesses in the space industry to Cornwall. There are already many companies in the Duchy which have links to the space industry including Goonhilly Earth Station.

Mrs Quinn said that while it was sad to hear the news coming out of America, it should not have any impact on its work as Spaceport Cornwall carries on to develop a space cluster industry and looks for a new launch partner.

 

 

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/spaceport-cornwalls-only-satellite-partner-8310357

 

Harness the power of optimism people its good for you.

Cynicism is toxic though and bad for us. 

👍😺

 

 

Edited April 3, 20233 yr by martin-w

15 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

The UK does have a very vibrant, successful and expanding satellite and component manufacturing industry. It’s based in the UK’s hi-tech manufacturing triangle running from Oxfordshire - Cambridgeshire up into the Midlands….. and Glasgow is a major centre too.

Thats all a long, long way from the north Cornwall coast.

 

256 miles to Birmingham. Some of our US friends would chuckle at that being a "long way". 😀 They would smile at 500 miles to Glasgow too. 

Thank god we have vehicles that can get those Cornish pasties to Birmingham. 😏

4 hours ago, martin-w said:

Mell Thorpe seems to be a talented lady to me and for Mell and her team not to have a "plan b" in the likely event that (known to be underfunded) Virgin Orbit fails, would be utterly moronic. She doesn't come across as a moron to me.

Its a bit more sophisticated than that. That's one option of course, but in addition, the option would be for Dream Chaser to land its cargo at Newquay and deliver it straight to the lab or factory at Aerohub. Then Dream Chaser is flown back to Nevada. So no, not just an emergency landing site. Spaceport Cornwall's integration hangar is now ready for that scenario. 

As for "distant scenario"... last I heard was that Dream Chaser's first flight will be this year with a cargo mission. 2026 for a manned flight.

Cynicism is toxic though and bad for us. 

👍

Your comments about cynicism are not really worth replying to but believe it or not some of us do have experience of how funding works and have the ability to read between the lines of press releases. 

Mell Thorpe is a charming and very capable lady. I've met her twice now. She's a business administrator btw, not a scientist.

However, none of this deflects from the point that the Cornish Spaceport is now a white elephant; just as so many of these schemes become. There is no 'Plan B'.

The Cornwall Spaceport is a 'horizontal' launch facility. The only commercial group doing horizontal launches was....Virgin Orbit. R.I.P.

Without Virgin Orbit, the Cornwall Spaceport is a business park tacked onto an underused regional airport with lots of signage with the word 'space' on it.

An exchange of emails with Airbus or the ESA is 'working with'.

Since the intention of Dream Chaser is to be launched into orbit on a rocket 'moronic' would be for Dream Chaser to land in Cornwall to 'deliver it's cargo' and then have Dream Chaser 'flown back to Nevada'.

The obvious and much cheaper solution would seem to be to DHL or Fed Ex that cargo to it's eventual destination once back on earth no?

Once again, Newquay is a long old drive from Birmingham, Berkshire or Glasgow if there are no compelling reasons to go there.

 

42 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

Once again, Newquay is a long old drive from Birmingham, Berkshire or Glasgow if there are no compelling reasons to go there.

Not wishing to distract from the original topic but, for comparison, the Shetland Spaceport is at least 350 miles from Glasgow and about half of that it is over the Atlantic Ocean/North Sea. There must be some very compelling reasons to go there.

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

Your comments about cynicism are not really worth replying to but believe it or not some of us do have experience of how funding works and have the ability to read between the lines of press releases. 

 

😄 Okay then. Its just that I come across this  a lot. Doesn't matter  if its the latest EVTOL, the latest supersonic passenger airliner, a new battery technology, or a new recipe for a Cornish Pasty... there are some that will adopt a negative slant no matter what. Well here's the thing, it can't always be "waffle to justify existence" a con to get funding, or some other pessimistic outlook, sometimes its genuine, sometimes a company really does have a few tricks up its sleeve that we, in our armchair wisdom, aren't aware of. So lets keep an open mind instead of automatically adopting a pessimistic, borderline cynical outlook. 

Might be worth remembering that Virgin Orbit have paused operations. Would be too much for you to contemplate a possible unpausing in the future I suppose. That would be too optimistic and not pessimistic enough. 

 

 

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

I've met her twice now.

 

😏 I've met her four times.

 

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

However, none of this deflects from the point that the Cornish Spaceport is now a white elephant; just as so many of these schemes become. There is no 'Plan B'.

 

And quite how do you know that? You weren't even aware that Dream Chaser isn't just an emergency landing option. You don't work for the company and know nothing about what's going on behind the scenes regarding opportunities they may have. 

 

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

Since the intention of Dream Chaser is to be launched into orbit on a rocket 'moronic' would be for Dream Chaser to land in Cornwall to 'deliver it's cargo' and then have Dream Chaser 'flown back to Nevada'.

 

Next time you meet good old Mell you better tell her then, because its seems the "very capable" lady you say you have met multiple times, has lost her capabilities, as it was her statement that this was an option being explored with Sierra Nevada. Have a word with her, let her know that its not workable, I'm sure Mell and Sierra Nevada will welcome your expert opinion. Don't mention the word "moronic" though, that would be rude. 

 

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

Newquay is a long old drive from Birmingham

 

252 miles! 🤣

 

Below... Mellissa seems to think its a great idea. Maybe she knows something you don't. Maybe she actually works for Spaceport Cornwall. And maybe she has actually discussed this with Sierra Nevada. When was your last discussion with Sierra Nevada?

 

Quote

“Our aim,” Melissa explained, “is for Dream Chaser to use the runway at Newquay, land its cargo and deliver it straight to whatever lab or factory off the runway at Aerohub then fly back to Nevada for the next launch. We will have the capacity to do that as our new integration hangar is now coming off the ground and should be ready hopefully before Christmas.”

https://www.business-live.co.uk/regional-development/meet-melissa-thorpe-woman-leading-21601607

 

Edited April 3, 20233 yr by martin-w

49 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

Not wishing to distract from the original topic but, for comparison, the Shetland Spaceport is at least 350 miles from Glasgow and about half of that it is over the Atlantic Ocean/North Sea. There must be some very compelling reasons to go there.

 

And 682 miles to Birmingham. 😄 I gather its a very rough crossing too, to Shetland, on a dodgy flat bottomed ferry. The YouTube guy Angry Astronaut made the crossing and was decidedly green by the time he arrived. 

 

Edited April 3, 20233 yr by martin-w

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

The obvious and much cheaper solution would seem to be to DHL or Fed Ex that cargo to it's eventual destination once back on earth no?

 

Depends how time sensitive it is I suppose, or how precious the cargo is, whether you want some guy from FedX ramming his boot on it. Who knows, ask Melissa next time you see her. Remember me to her.. she might give you some Spaceport Cornwall stickers if you mention my name. 😏

 

Edit: Yes, looks like rapidity for the experiments is one of the motivators to land at Spaceport Cornwall.

 

Quote

Thanks to its ability to land on a runway, returning payloads can be extracted swiftly. Customers on the UK side of the Atlantic can therefore get hold of their experiments should the Dream Chaser touch down on the lengthy Cornwall landing strip.

Roth told us that if all goes well, such a landing might take place in the 2025 time frame depending on the mission.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/09/snc_cornwall/

6 hours ago, martin-w said:

Cynicism is toxic though and bad for us. 

Cynicism that is borne out of experience is not toxic and not bad.  I have watched my govt. literally throw trillions of dollars down the toilet over the past 20 years, teaching me that we must always be skeptical of govt. and its various plans and schemes using our money.

Let's take NASA for example.  This agency has received nearly a trillion dollars over the past 50 years, yet the most they have managed to do over that time is launch some satellites, probes, and Mars rovers.  50 years and a trillion dollars later, NASA *may* finally send people back to the moon sometime in the next 10 years during which they will receive another 250 billion dollars in funding.

SpaceX has accomplished more in 15 years than NASA in 50 and with a lot less money.  To be fair, they did receive a few billion in NASA contracts which helped the company, especially in its early years.  NASA made a good call there which paid off. 

Why couldn't NASA send people back to the moon 10 or 20 years ago?  Why has it taken so long and so much money?  SpaceX will send people to the moon within the next 5-10 years and do it for less money.

Like I said, I'm not against govt. funding of research and development, but you have to be realistic and understand that a lot of the money will end up being wasted.

Dave

 

Edited April 3, 20233 yr by dave2013

53 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 I gather its a very rough crossing too, to Shetland, on a dodgy flat bottomed ferry

As far as I can tell, you have to take a ferry from Aberdeen to Kirkwall, Orkneys, then Kirkwall to Lerwick on the southernmost Shetland island. These are good sized ferries and definitely not dodgy or flat bottomed. Next you have to drive to the north end of the island and take a smaller ferry to the next island, then drive to the north end and take one more ferry to the next island then drive to the north of that island to reach the spaceport site. Each ferry you take is progressively smaller, so the last one could be flat bottomed. There is an airport at the south end of the southernmost Shetand island: it has a 4915ft runway.

For perspective, the Shetland Spaceport is closer to Bergen, Norway than to Glasgow or even to Aberdeen.

Edited April 3, 20233 yr by dmwalker

12 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Cynicism that is borne out of experience is not toxic and not bad.  I have watched my govt. literally throw trillions of dollars down the toilet over the past 20 years, teaching me that we must always be skeptical of govt. and its various plans and schemes using our money.

 

Cynicism is always bad!

But yes Dave, Skepticism is fine, skepticism is something I'm a fan of. What I'm talking about is when skepticism becomes cynicism. The nice thing about skepticism is that it enables one to both doubt and believe. Skeptics are positive, open minded, prepared to either believe or not believe. Cynics, however, are closed minded, negative, obsessed wit negatives. Its actually quite hard to be a true skeptic because it takes effort and critical thinking. Its much easier to be cynical and negative, no matter what.

 

18 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

eaching me that we must always be skeptical of govt.

 

Yep, I agree but as a skeptic you accept that its possible for those plans to be sometimes laudable. A skeptic would believe those plans are ALWAYS untoward. A skeptic requires evidence, a cynic requires none. 

I recall when the first announcements were made regarding the Lilliam EVTOL Jet. A guy I knew argued vehemently that because they had called it a jet when it was really a ducted fan, that it proved the company were definitively con men and just after funding. He claimed it was ridiculous and that multiple ducted fans could never be efficient enough to fly. Of course, it did fly, so he then claimed it would never achieve transition to level flight. And yes, it did that too, and now its flying complete circuits and making great progress. I was skeptical initially but prepared to modify my opinion based on evidence, he was locked into an utterly cynical mindset with no hope of escape.

 

 

43 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

 

Let's take NASA for example.  This agency has received nearly a trillion dollars over the past 50 years, yet the most they have managed to do over that time is launch some satellites, probes, and Mars rovers.  50 years and a trillion dollars later, NASA *may* finally send people back to the moon sometime in the next 10 years during which they will receive another 250 billion dollars in funding.

 

Why couldn't NASA send people back to the moon 10 or 20 years ago?  Why has it taken so long and so much money?  SpaceX will send people to the moon within the next 5-10 years and do it for less money.

 

Well, we would be delving into a prohibited topic, but to keep it brief, we went to the Moon initially to beat the Russians, once we had dome that political will evaporated. Now, there is both a commercial and political imperative that's manifest. There are certain other nations that have their eyes on the high ground. 

 

43 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Like I said, I'm not against govt. funding of research and development, but you have to be realistic and understand that a lot of the money will end up being wasted.

 

Exactly. Nice to agree on something for a change.

The ISS has enabled us to carry out experiments in orbit, and learn to assemble structures in orbit, but that's about it. Some years back, on a different forum, I was mocked for suggesting that private companies were the future for space flight, and would be cheaper better and accelerate out technological progress. 🙄

Edited April 3, 20233 yr by martin-w

35 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Let's take NASA for example.  This agency has received nearly a trillion dollars over the past 50 years, yet the most they have managed to do over that time is launch some satellites, probes, and Mars rovers.  50 years and a trillion dollars later, NASA *may* finally send people back to the moon sometime in the next 10 years during which they will receive another 250 billion dollars in funding.

NASA tends to do a lot of valuable work that is actually cost-effective if it can slip below the radar. The challenge it has had over the years (really, since Apollo) is managing and then executing on a coherent vision between changes of Administration, NASA administrators and (especially) the chairs of the various Congressional oversight committees.

Not to wade too far into politics, but SLS and its previous incarnations have been in large part due to Senators wanting to ensure a steady stream of high-paying engineering jobs into their state. It wasn't nicknamed the "Senatorial Launch System" for nothing. Whether it actually launches is somewhat beside the point. Congresscritters don't care much about aerial sampling (we had a NASA ER-2 operating out of Atlanta last month) or Mars rovers so those have a chance at success (albeit with a smaller budget). Once you get into the billions, they sink their hooks in.

And it's not like most of these folks have a clue, as the recent "Tic Tac" hearings demonstrated.

Cheers

 

53 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

These are good sized ferries and definitely not dodgy or flat bottomed

 

It was on his channel, Angry Astronaut. It certainly was a big ferry, but yes, he said it was flat bottomed and decidedly uncomfortable.

4:23 in the video, he mentions that he'd discovered its more of a flat bottomed ferry. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 20233 yr by martin-w

18 minutes ago, martin-w said:

he said it was flat bottomed and decidedly uncomfortable

Maybe flat-ish. Its draught is listed at about 18ft. Anyway, it sounds a bit borderline for that route.