Does it matter if you don't build things?
The UK forged the industrial revolution. It was a nation of engineers; or at least that was what my grandfather told me.
It certainly resonated with this particular boy, who was brought up in the city of (Bristol) and who went to a school at the end of the runway where used to take off on test flights.
This misty-eyed reflection has been prompted by something I've just read in an industry submission to the government consultation on whether or not there should be a dedicated UK space agency (see my previous post).
Certain sectors of industry are desperate to see the establishment of a space agency because they dislike intensely the way policy in the UK is currently developed and executed.
They feel the devolution of decision-making and budgets to government departments and research councils has effectively castrated UK space strategy.
They complain bitterly about the way in which these groups (and their wallets) must first be corralled into moving in one direction before Britain can make any sort of commitment to a major European project.
The submission in front of me reads:
"Almost by definition, the current approach ensures that the UK never initiates a European programme but simply finds itself in the position of follower having to take a view on the merits and then, if positively disposed, trying to fight for an appropriate role for its industry and to ensure the system requirements meet UK needs."
This corner of industry believes the present arrangements force it to live off scraps. In particular, to live off the crumbs that fall from the tables of France and Germany. These are the two industrial power-houses in European space activity.
These nations consistently put large sums of money into European space programmes to guarantee their companies get the choice contracts.
Who builds Europe's mighty ? Not the UK. Who builds Europe's biggest, most sophisticated spacecraft, the ? Not the UK.
Who is building the Sentinel spacecraft that will spearhead Europe's far-reaching environmental monitoring programme, ? Not the UK (not yet anyway).
Who will build the for Europe? Not the UK.
Who leads the production of Europe's which will obtain remarkable new scientific datasets on the state of the planet? The UK has just of the first seven.
Now, for sure, British industry provides important - and often critical - instruments, sub-systems and components. But I'm left asking myself: when was the last time this particular reporter went to a British factory to witness the grand unveiling of a major European spacecraft prior to launch?
I'm hoping it will happen soon with the satellite, which will test the technology needed to detect the ripples in space-time generated by colliding super-massive black holes. Or perhaps , a satellite to measure the Earth's winds.
British industry is acting as the prime contractor on these missions. To find the last major European spacecraft on which UK PLC had the same role, you have to go back to the likes of at the beginning of this decade, and even into the 1980s and the comet-chasing Giotto probe.
But does that really matter? Does it really matter to the UK Met Office who builds the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) spacecraft so long as it gets the data from them to make its weather forecasts?
Does it matter to British land hydrologists and oceanographers that Europe's , due to launch in a couple of weeks, was built in France and Spain, just as long as they too have access to the data?
If you are just a "user" of space, the answer might seem to be "no, it doesn't matter". And this explains a lot about current British space policy. It's driven by "user need", for the reasons I've previously posted on.
But go back to that quote: "... and to ensure the system requirements meet UK needs." That is an interesting segment.
It reminds me very much of some comments I received last year from Professor Alan O'Neill, the director of the UK's National Centre for Earth Observation. He was concerned at the time that the "user wallets" would not find sufficient unidirectional momentum to give Britain a plum role on one of the forthcoming GMES Sentinels. He said:
"If we are a downstream recipient of data, a third-party user, we will not be involved in influencing the agenda and the prioritisation for the instruments. Our industry will not be competing to build those instruments.
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"And by not having close proximity to the actual data, we will lose first-mover advantage, not just in science but in downstream applications. So we're either in the vanguard and mixing it, or gradually over time we will become third division."
In other words, it matters even to the users of data that the UK actually gets to lead the production of major European spacecraft from time to time.
The point he was making - and industry has now made to the space agency consultation - is that it is by building things that you gain influence.
Incidentally, picking up the previous post, if you want to read the STFC submission, it is now .
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