Judge dismisses objections to spaceport in Scotland from billionaire who also wants to build spaceport in Scotland Scotland has taken another step towards commercial vertical launch capability with the dismissal of objections instigated by Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen. The petition had been made by Wildland Limited, responsible for managing the enormous tracts of land owned by Povlsen. At issue was planning permission submitted by the …
I would suggest that the Isle of Unst, as a small island with a rich and comparatively rare number of species on and around it, is at greater risk from a space port being constructed there.
Were anything ecologically threatening to occur there, such a small ecology could be devastated overnight with little hope of it ever recovering.
Care about the environment like charity begins at home.
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From what I know of the Shetland Space Centre, they're using the old infrastructure of Saxa Vord, so it's not really construction, more "weeding and power washing the concrete", and the damage has already been done ecologically in that regard.
As for big rockets going boom and spilling fuel et.al all over the place, the land around there has been getting regular spills since the 60s on and off. I remember a small weather monitoring thing being launched into low-Earth orbit there in the early 90s, and it managed the sum total of 10 feet off the ground, taking out a seagull when it fell back down with a rather loud bang.
Interestingly, if you search on 'unst holiday camp', you get saxavord.com. The summary talks about renting houses.
Click the link and all that saxavord.com does now is talk about being a space port.
Sounds like the holiday business didn't do so well so they went for space travel instead.
Who'd have though that ex-military housing at a difficult to reach location isn't appealing?
It's a fantasic idea for Polar Orbit.
Are you sure? : Whatever the orbit the northern you go the less additional velocity you get from Earth rotation.
If it is an advantage to go north to reach a polar orbit, I wonder why the US launch their rockets from Vandenberg Space Force Base rather than from Alaska?
For a polar orbit the latitude has no rotation advantage. It doesn't matter as much where you launch from, Away from the equator has less Earth velocity to get rid of but for LEO it doesn't really matter. Early equatorial launches really needed the extra boost to get to GSO or the moon.
What you do need is no friendly population, or unfreindly population with tracking stations, immediately north (or south) of you.
It depends on the sort of orbit that you want.
Most usable orbits (eg geostationary etc) benefit from being launched as close to the equator as possible to obtain an instant speed of ~1kps from the earths rotation. Such satellites tend to orbit around the earth basically horizontally around the equator.
You can however go for a polar orbit where the satellite orbits vertically around the poles of the planet, which is about the only thing I can imagine launching from Scotland would be useful for.
All orbits are horizontal, in the sense that they're heading towards (and over!) the horizon. The only way a polar orbit is "vertical" is from the point of view of someone looking at an Earth map with a north-up convention (although south-up would also work, but you don't see many of them).
I'm a little confused as to what you're getting at unless it's a semantic game. The Earth has a rotation, axis, shape and relative position. You could give North, East, South, West any labels you like, but there's a fundamental difference between an equatorial and axis aligned orbit. Maybe "vertical" is a klunky term that you object to.
So Povlsen invested in a spaceport on the island of Unst in the Shetlands, and is suing to prevent the construction of a rival spaceport in northern Scotland? Who is building that Scottish spaceport anyway?
Also, what is both their business plans, besides subsidies, crofters, and sheep? I understand both want to hop on that bandwagon, any bandwagon, but what makes anybody think this won't end as a complete waste of money? (Genuine question, a simple downvote won't do)
Funny thing, I fired up Openstreetsmap to get an idea of where everything was, and lo and behold, the "Space Hub Sutherland" is already proudly displayed. The Unst one isn't though.
Who is building that Scottish spaceport anyway?
That is a good question and far from clear.
Form what I have heard on the grapevine all of the UK spaceports have problems and are going nowhere without some gov support, either directly in terms of grants or indirectly via MOD promised contracts, etc. Sure they all tell you there is a lot of business to be had but as usual the UK is falling far behind other nations (e.g. Norway, China, etc, etc) due to problematic regional rivalry, and more fundamentally a lack of gov commitment to do something.
Shetland = good north location, abysmal weather and limited access from mainland. Planning turned down as they want to remove WW2 stuff, company behind it has "interesting" history/structures.
Sutherland = reasonable location, getting there involves single track roads so pretty poor access for lorries of fuel, etc. Actually has planning permission, but sod-all done on the ground.
Macrihanish = real infrastructure and tolerable road access, risk of Cambletown being hit by vertical launch (jury out on that being good or bad...)
Prestwick = good roads, ridiculously close to major population
Snowdonia = much like Macrihanish
Cornwall = a bit like Prestwick (but gets the UK space agency love).
Here in Scotland the gov talks bullishly about a space future, but actually does very little to help. Yes, they have poured a lot of money in to some companies like ClydeSpace (now owned by the Swedish, AAC) and Spire (basically USA) but not much in to actual Scottish work. Much of the money spent so far on the spaceports has been consultancy by Lockheed Martin (yup, USA again).
> Form what I have heard on the grapevine
Thank you, that confirms my first impression that it is all just a means to siphon off taxpayers' money. At worst they will bulldozer a little around, then, after a suitable time to let people forget (year or so), it will be definitely canned.
How can people believe this nonsense? It's not like we're desperately lacking independent spaceports. The vast majority of rocket builders have their own launching facilities, not to mention shipping a big, ready to launch rocket to northern Scotland or the Shetlands will definitely cost a fortune and require a large, well-equipped harbor and large, non-sloping roads between it and the launching facility. Unless they also build a rocket factory and a fuel depot besides them, those spaceports will be just a useless waste of concrete.
Do they think it's like an airport, but for "spaceships"?...
"Prestwick = good roads, ridiculously close to major population"
You do realise that Glasgow Prestwick Airport is nowhere near Glasgow? The Trident nuclear missiles are far closer. Actually, there's a solution. Decommission the nukes, launch the satellites into space from the subs.
Yes, but Glasgow (and greater Glasgow area) is a big area to hit having the majority of Scotland's population, and rockets (or debris from commanded destruction) can come down many miles from launch.
Also Ayr is immediately adjacent to Prestwick and has about ten times the population of Cambletown, and Troon just to the north-west has just over 3 times, then a little further and Irvine about 7 times, etc.
"We're especially pleased for the crofters of the Melness Crofters Estate, who will be able to protect and develop their community with modern jobs. Sutherland is still the only UK spaceport with planning permission and now, with this ruling, the countdown to space launch from the UK can begin."
That's pretty condescending: these crofters might well prefer crofting rather than be forced to take up jobs at the site as security guards, cleaners or B&B operators because Orbex has also imported a bunch of technicians who will price the locals out their homes.
No, no, it is well known that spaceports require a huge amount of unqualified workers. To load/unload the hay bales from the spaceships and all that.
Seriously, as you said most workers (if there are ever workers required) will be imported. It's cheaper than to train the locals, but most of all, you'd have to hire the locals, while else you just outsource to service companies (security, cleaning, catering, and so on).
Crofting is rarely a full time job - every one I know of has at least one other job in order to earn a living.
( the original crofts were assigned to people cleared from their homes and were intended to be insufficient to support a family, hence providing a source of local labour for the landowners )
Gordon Jackson, Donald Sinden and Ronnie Corbett all in the one movie? Wow.
Off topic anecdote: I flew into Lerwick to fix a computer in the ATC tower and was picked up straight from the aircraft. In the terminal a wheen of paparazzi cameras started flashing. I said to the driver, that's enthusiastic plane spotters. He replied, they think you are Jarvis Cocker. I replied, Aye, I get that everywhere I go. No offence but how do you even know who Jarvis is? (He was quite old and since I'd been a Pulp fan since they were an '80s Peel band I still was surprised by their success).
Oh, they are playing here tonight. Jarvis is flying in later and the rest of the group are on the ferry.
I could pay to stay overnight, what's the chances I could buy a ticket? He just laughed and laughed.
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