So, that's cheerio the nou to Dundee Satellite Receiving Station: Over 40 years of service axed for the sake of £338,000 While the UK government has been trumpeting Blighty's ambitions in the great beyond, a little bit of Scottish satellite infrastructure will close its doors for the last time this month. Following a decision last year by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to cut funding for the facility, the University of Dundee …
>the Scottish Govt pay less than £2000 per year per student to the Universities, whereas they can charge £9000(+?) for RUK and non-EU students.
Bugger...
Connecticut, USA:
*Community College* which is the lowest cost, usually non-residential (i.e. live at home), tier average tuition is $5200 per student in tuition PLUS $14.000 in taxpayer money.
Our public research university on par with Dundee the tuition and mandatory fees for state residents are $13,000/year on top of the state taxpayer subsidies. Add another $12,000 for room and board if you want to live on campus, thought quick googling Dundee that looks to be about the same for what the list as "living expenses" near the campus.
Our public research university on par with Dundee the tuition and mandatory fees for state residents are $13,000/year on top of the state taxpayer subsidies. Add another $12,000 for room and board if you want to live on campus, thought quick googling Dundee that looks to be about the same for what the list as "living expenses" near the campus.
* * * *
The US has always seemed expensive to me in that regard.
Curious, I looked up my old school, and tuition runs about $7,000 a year for locals and more like $50K a year for international students.
On the other hand, Dundee comes in at about #300 in the world, as opposed to in the top 50. I'm not sure it matters, but not sure it doesn't. YMMV.
With Brexit looming, it's only a matter of time before Downing Street puts the ghost of Ron Obvious in charge of the space program. Obvious, known for his attempts at jumping across the English Channel and at running to Mercury, is sure to bring much-needed enthusiasm to the troubled Space Agency.
Sherlock, because Obvious.
> The decision also seems perverse in light of predictions that Scotland's space sector could be worth £4bn by 2030
Don't mix up dreams (free) and expenses (cost £££).
Prestige projects are only proper as long as someone else pays for them, else they just cut into what you could put into your own pocket.
Oh money is available for space work, just not for Dundee it seems:
"Lockheed Martin will receive £23.5 million ($31.1 million) and Orbex will get £5.5 million ($7.3 million) from the U.K. Space Agency to advance work on their launcher programs."
https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/07/16/scotland-site-selected-as-launch-base-for-lockheed-martin-orbex/
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As far as I remember, keeping the Muirhead machines going was not so difficult as they got something like 4 or 5 machines originally, and for a while ran 2 and cannibalised the others for mechanical bits.
The biggest issue was the light source as originally it was a galvanometer-style cell with a tapered aperture to deflect the light from a filament lamp and so modulate the brightness (with gamma correction for the photographic paper's sensitivity). Replacing that was difficult as at the time LEDs were not really available with the intensity and short wavelength needed for normal photographic paper, so instead "glow modulators" were used. There were cold cathode valves that gave off a modest amount of blue-violet-ish light and so could be used for exposing the paper, but needed a current drive for a few/tens of mA but with some 100-200V capability to get them going.
I wonder how much gets spent on glossy uni promotional materials (be that paper, online, video etc)
Article already mentioned the top paper shufflers salaries (not forbetting golden handshakes, pension pots)
Dundee head honcho has buisness (and China relations) in their background, so a bit of short termism like cutting the satellite data processing (as data can be done elsewhere and regarding the unit purely as a lossmaker instead of something that adds prestige and hidden addes value) will come naturally .
Let's not forget that it's not that long ago that the British Science and Technology Facilities Council were going to withdraw their funding for Jodrell Bank, which would have probably led to its closure.
It seems that whether it be the English, Scottish or Welsh governments, they really don't understand the benefits of science and technology, and only look at the short-term costs.
I mean, £338,000. It's a rounding error in an MP's expenses claim, isn't it?
It doesn't sound like the uni really tried hard to find alternative funding.
It doesn't sound like the uni really tried hard to find alternative funding.
They (as an institution) did nothing to find alternative funding. Instead the staff (who are all engineers, not business folk) were given that task. Also it might have been futile anyway, as there were a number of aspects that suggested top brass' minds were made up as soon as NERC pulled the plug.
Some existing users of the data were already paying (if not eligible for NERC grants) and others had indicated their willingness to pay for the combination of reliable delivery (over 99.95% of passes were successfully taken in the year), timely delivery (essential for services like fire or flood risk monitoring, etc.), and having multiple satellites all from the same easy-to-use site. So really the station was closed for the risk of it being £50k short or thereabouts.
Also it is worth noting the university talks of internal re-deployment of the staff, but in fact not a single person has been offered an interview via the internal process, let alone a job!
AC for obvious reasons!
Also a university that turned out a lot of good computing grads, had an industry board to guide the course and yet did nothing to assist graduates into work, not even by approaching their industry board to discuss what skills they really wanted from graduates but weren't seeing.
"no thats not the kind of thing we would do" "you come here for the experience not to help you find a job"
The former art college is now chock ablock with massive class sizes, little or no contact with teaching staff and requires students be in 9-5 5 or more days a week as they are seemingly terrified the university will shut them down (it also encompasses architecture, product design and other useful stuff and one of their buildings is listed)
Its all going to hell in a handbasket at under grad level from what I hear, very much cost of everything, value of nothing.
I mean, £338,000. It's a rounding error in an MP's expenses claim, isn't it?
I calculate it as about four and a half feet of HS2. A hundredth of the compensation paid to EuroTunnel for Chris Grayling being a wanker.
The one with the 'Making Britain Great Again' hat in the pocket. Yes, the one with the 'Made In China' label.
.... and yet the brexiters seem to be happy that brexit has so far cost us £65,000 million.
"... laying the blame for the closure of the station firmly at the door of the agency and its decision to turn off the cash taps, and 'move a substantial part of its service from Scotland to Plymouth'."
TBH, this line DID have me wondering... Didn't a majority of Scottish voters go for "remain"? could the initial government funding decision have had any "We want to keep this in our hands if that lot up north decide to split" component to it?
Heck, I have little understanding of finances, but that sounds like the sort of amount that might be raised by crowd-funding. And as noted, given the claimed desire to boost the UK's space industry, it seems insane to have closed this down for such a paltry amount given the huge amounts wasted on oh, I dunno, slightly faster trains and aircraft carriers that can't (yet), to name but two.
If anyone thinks that in ten years the UK will still be a major player in ESA they are deluded.
For the past sixty years we have seen a steady decline in our capability in science, engineering and production. Don't worry though as I'm sure we can buy everything we need from the rest of the world, not sure how we'll pay for it though.
"I'm sure we can buy everything we need from the rest of the world"
That was the belief around GEC HQ when Weinstock was on his decades-long investment strike. They didn't need to invest in people, products, technologies; they could put the money in the bank instead, and if push came to shove, use it to set up a Joint Venture with a company that had the skills but not the money. It had worked for decades, why would it not carry on working.
"Not sure how we'll pay for it though."
Why does it have to be paid for? Surely if the right accountants and auditors are on the job,,,
The "hostile environment," pinch-purse beat-ups on disabled people, library closures, sackings of legions of police and other civil servants along with this particular degenerative event all seem to indicate a general loss of pride in the UK. Pretty much along the lines of not mowing the lawn at home, letting the paint on the walls of a home flake off, etc.
These days, political leadership is an exercise in humiliation of constituents. Let no opportunity for embarrassment go untapped.
Change the operation to one of a required internship and under the a little suffering improves the soul doctrine attach a fee. The lower division undergraduates do the scut work at the station. The upper division is privileged to perform ROUTINE maintenance on suitable equipment. Graduates do what all graduates do but add APPLIED SUPERVISION to the description as they will deal with the undergraduates and the post docs just carry on. Now the station has personal and janitorial taken care of, the accounting people will as their part of the multidisciplinary juggle the books to show a profit. Let's do a department check: Accounting, Management, and Electrical Engineering. We've now created a new program and one that might teach electrical design engineers not to put the most likely to fail component behind soldered in PC boards. Marking and Drama can get involved if public tours are offered.
A sad loss for Dundee. Where is the Scottish govt in all of this? I did my honours project in the lab on the top floor of the Ewing building. If I remember the staff were having great difficulty in persuading the Sun computer to read the data in real time - as it insisted on doing it's data checking routines - which slowed everything down
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