Satellite Magnate Argues Post-Brexit Britain Will Be 'Lost In Space' (bbc.com) 122
PolygamousRanchKid quotes the BBC: Will Marshall's "Planet" company operates the world's largest satellite imaging network, with 150 spacecraft able to fully picture Earth on a daily basis. He warns EU withdrawal will do immense harm to Britain's space industry. The UK will be "lost in space", he says.
The UK Space Agency responded by saying home businesses had a positive outlook. The most recent survey of confidence across the sector found that three-quarters of organisations expected growth over the next three years, it added.
Dr Marshall holds particular scorn for the UK government's actions on Galileo, the EU version of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Ministers have decided to walk away from the project because Brussels says a future Britain, as a "third country" outside the EU, cannot be involved in the system's most secure elements — this despite the UK having already invested £1.5bn in Galileo. London says it will build its own sat-nav system instead, but Dr Marshall calls this a "pie in the sky" plan that has significant economic and security implications.
The UK Space Agency responded by saying home businesses had a positive outlook. The most recent survey of confidence across the sector found that three-quarters of organisations expected growth over the next three years, it added.
Dr Marshall holds particular scorn for the UK government's actions on Galileo, the EU version of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Ministers have decided to walk away from the project because Brussels says a future Britain, as a "third country" outside the EU, cannot be involved in the system's most secure elements — this despite the UK having already invested £1.5bn in Galileo. London says it will build its own sat-nav system instead, but Dr Marshall calls this a "pie in the sky" plan that has significant economic and security implications.
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Maybe it should, but considering that all existing positioning services except Galileo are defense projects, and that the UN is unlikely to receive enough funding, the best chance we have is to hope that Galileo will stay civilian and accessible.
Yeah - they'll be asleep. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's kind of what conservative movements are.
If the nation is a body, conservative movements like this are like sleep - closing off from the outside world, consuming internal resources, remembering the past, and quite often living virtual nightmares.
Only in this case, every time the nation as went to sleep for extended periods like this, it lost enormous portions of its body against its will.
That makes nations like this closer to bacteria in dynamic intelligence than people.
Ryan Fenton
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Amazing how Britain did just fine on its own before 1973, huh? I guess they must have been "asleep" for those hundreds of years prior, when they were helping to develop modern civilization, inventing new technology, and improving society just fine without the EU telling them how to wipe their asses.
Re:Yeah - they'll be asleep. (Score:4, Insightful)
Britain on its own doesn't have the size to compete as a first-rate player in space, and space is tied closely to national security so the commercial sector will always be somewhat constrained in crossing borders, varying with how open/friendly ties currently are.
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What you are ignoring is that in prior years there was the CommonWealth, which would at least provide launching, landing, and tracking sites. That's pretty much gone now, though. If they already had a space industry, I might give them as much of a shot as India. I don't, however, believe that's true. Perhaps they'll be able to do a deal with Australia and Canada, and that could be workable. Otherwise...
Re: Yeah - they'll be asleep. (Score:2)
I guess youve never heard of Five Eyes.
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Britain on its own doesn't have the size to compete as a first-rate player in space
Britain doesn't have to.
space is tied closely to national security
Which means it makes excellent sense for the UK to refuse to support the EU in creating something that they can't access.
Personally I'd leave on no deal and sue the fuck out of the EU to get that IP back, backed if needed by limited military action. Which may be why nobody's offered me the job of Prime Minister.
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How long did they spend adapting to the change in conditions from 1973 to now?
I know it's a hard question, there's digits to carry.
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Haven't you heard? According to the EU, without them, Brits won't even be able to wipe their own asses.
Maybe they'll adopt the bidet. They still get enough rainfall to wash their asses, right? They can buy retrofit kits for their toilets from the Japanese. That will cause the Chinese to knock them off, and then maybe we'll buy the knockoffs here in the USA. The one good thing to come out of Brexit might be an improvement in the anal cleanliness of English speakers.
Re:Yeah - they'll be asleep. (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing how Britain did just fine on its own before 1973, huh?
They weren't on their own, they were stealing resources from other nations [wikipedia.org].
I guess they must have been "asleep" for those hundreds of years prior, when they were helping to develop modern civilization,
...in their image, at gunpoint.
Re:Yeah - they'll be asleep. (Score:5, Informative)
Define "fine". The UK was an economic dump, reeling from recessions with major industries were shutting down. Their poor state got them significant pity concessions when they joined the EU, and is one of the reasons you've only ever been one of those "EU lite" members, never seriously part of the club in the first place, and the immediate benefit to the UK is one of the reasons your referendum held only 2 years later was overwhelmingly in favour of continued membership.
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Before joining the EU the UK was known as the "sick man of Europe", even in the UK.
When countries join the EU they are helped to develop. That's the basic idea now - expand the single market but helping new countries come up to standard with it in terms of wages and quality of life, widening the market for high end goods and services. Ireland is a great example.
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Every country has had that nickname at one time or another.
Except Pakistan, obviously. Are you still malingering behind the lines or have they sent you to the front yet?
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Before joining the EU the UK was known as the "sick man of Europe", even in the UK.
Yeah, anybody would think the UK bankrupted an empire to defeat the nazis.
When countries join the EU they are helped to develop
Yeah, using money provided by the UK. Fuck that.
Ireland is a great example.
Yeah, bailing out Ireland is a fucking fantastic example.
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You really don't seem to understand what the EU is or does. Seriously. You're embarrassing yourself.
Yes, the UK bankrupted itself fighting Nazis - many countries did. The money from the EU to other countries is paid by all members, and all receive benefits from it. Reducing it to a simple "they're spending our money!" shows a staggering ingorance of what's actually happening.
And the ECB is not the EU.
You're not really helping dispel the notion that leavers aren't well informed.
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Yes, the UK bankrupted itself fighting Nazis - many countries did.
Hmm, no, many countries either came out of the war stronger than they went in or received reparations.
Shit, Germany came out of the war stronger than the UK because they received so much rebuilding investment.
The money from the EU to other countries is paid by all members, and all receive benefits from it.
That's astonishingly disingenuous. Check the fucking net spend charts, very few EU countries contribute more than they receive and the UK is consistently near the top of that list.
Reducing it to a simple "they're spending our money!" shows a staggering ingorance of what's actually happening.
Simple fact: UK contributes more than it receives. Logical conclusion: They're spending our money.
Ignorance is pretending f
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The UK did receive reparations, mostly in form of intellectual property, but also in form of machines for their industry (which parts of your industry - or what ever you have left of it - have used for decades after the war), exactly as decided during the Yalta conference.
Nope, the UK was by far the la
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You mean the direction would actually not be democratically chosen anymore?
That's up for debate. Hell, 44% of the UK would prefer a no deal exit right now, which is hardly a minority.
Me, I'd happily accept a second referendum: Accept May's shitty deal or go no deal. I think no deal would win.
But no, Europe's approach to democracy is very fucking obvious: "We didn't get the result we wanted so run the referendum again." We see that time after fucking time, and it's the same fucking response from the Europhiles in the UK.
Trust me, not leaving the EU will damage the UK far more than
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Looks like you are the one who is spreading lies. Reruns happen only after changes are made.
Don't be ridiculous. A bunch of old farts protesting isn't really scary. The UK ain't France. But like I said, good riddance.
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I'd rather be an unruly child than an adult sheep. You keep baaing away though, and good fucking luck when we're not funding you.
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Calling other people sheep is indeed a very childish notion.
And as for the money, paying a couple of Euros more in taxes would be a small price to pay for finally having you out. We can afford this.
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Their poor state got them significant pity concessions when they joined the EU, and is one of the reasons you've only ever been one of those "EU lite" members, never seriously part of the club in the first place,
The biggest reason is that when they joined, they had a strong currency, and didn't want to give it up, so they never truly committed to being part of the EU. They thought they were gonna run things for ever and ever amen, and be first among equals, more equal than others, etc etc. They learned the wrong lesson from Animal Farm. Now they're preparing to get still more lost in their fantasy of reclaimed imperialism, but they have absolutely zero chance to reclaim their prior dominance, so it's just sad. The
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Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, the United Kingdom was frequently called the "sick man of Europe", first by foreign commentators, and later at home by critics of the third Wilson/Callaghan ministry, because of industrial strife and poor economic performance compared to other European countries.
It wasn't doing fine. It was doing terribly, actually. Membership of the EEC (and later EU) helped massively. That's why Britain repeatedly tried to join.
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The country devalued its currency due to the ERM too, so don't go pretending EU membership made a big fucking difference on that count.
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North Korea.
Do I win five pounds?
As long as we get a robot (Score:1)
I'm okay with it.
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Here you go [memegenerator.net]
Wow, the authoritarians must REALLY be scared (Score:1)
They're REALLY ramping up on the fear-mongering propaganda today.
Again, you would think Britain hadn't existed just fine on its own for hundreds of years before 1973.
Re:Wow, the authoritarians must REALLY be scared (Score:4, Interesting)
Again, you would think Britain hadn't existed just fine on its own for hundreds of years before 1973.
That's probably because it didn't [wikipedia.org]. Its success was due to imperialism, which became less profitable for them in recent times, so they abandoned it and moved towards free trade instead. Brexit will interfere with free trade, and they can't realistically go back to imperialism...
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We really don't need advice from Americans, thanks anyway.
That's the attitude that's got you where you are today... at the brink of Brexit. But go on with your badself, it ought to be good for a laugh.
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I'm sorry, but remind me again how the U.S. is doing just fine without being a member of the EU? I mean, that must be impossible, right? In fact, I have it on good authority that there are over 160 countries in the world that aren't part of the EU either. And yet somehow most of them have also found a way to get food, medicine, etc. and survive just fine without the EU telling them what to do.
So apparently, it is possible to survive, and even thrive, without non-democratic EU overlords running your governme
Re:Wow, the authoritarians must REALLY be scared (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but remind me again how the U.S. is doing just fine without being a member of the EU?
The US is not doing just fine. Unemployment is vastly higher than claimed, and most American citizens don't have $400 in the bank in case an emergency comes up. Homelessness is skyrocketing.
With that said, the US is not Britain. We have orders of magnitude more natural resources to exploit. Try really hard not to ask such stupid questions.
The prosperity of the USA is based in part on our natural resources, and in part based on our behavior during WWII. We knowingly permitted war profiteering in the form of American companies selling war supplies like fuel and metals to the Axis powers, then selectively seized some of those companies and their profits after the conflict. We sat back while other nations bombed one another, then stepped in to bomb Japan since nobody else had done it, and we wanted a place to test our nukes. Nuclear dominance, a proliferation of American military bases, and the fact that everyone but us had been bombed to shit created America's dominant economic position that produced the wealth that the baby boomers enjoyed.
I have it on good authority that there are over 160 countries in the world that aren't part of the EU either. And yet somehow most of them have also found a way to get food, medicine, etc. and survive just fine without the EU telling them what to do.
Many of those other nations are highly dependent on foreign aid. Lots of them are not doing very well at all.
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You're painting too black a picture. Still, cutting off foreign trade is a recipe for disaster for any small country, and wars stopped being profitable in the 1800's. They're too expensive, and the valuable stuff is so fragile that it gets destroyed during the conquest. It's been estimated that the US spent more wealth during the invasion of Iraq than all the remaining oil underground in the Middle East is worth. (Of course, that might have been hyperbole, and in any case the estimate is quite uncertain
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wars stopped being profitable in the 1800's.
They're no longer profitable for nations, but they are quite profitable for certain people/groups within nations, which is why they continue today. The rising cost of conventional warfare is also why drone strikes have become so popular; In the USA they began under Bush the second, expanded under Obama, and have expanded still more under Trump.
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So apparently, it is possible to survive, and even thrive, without non-democratic EU overlords running your government. Hard to believe, I know.
GDP US US$ 20.5T
GDU EU US$ 18.7T
GDP UK US$ 2.8T
Source :
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
The UK's economy is smaller than California's (2.9T):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_sovereign_states_by_GDP
It's not that it can't be done, but being part of a large(r) economic block certainly has advantages.
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If you are comparing GDP, you really ought to use PPP (purchasing power parity), which makes the UK economy larger than California.
Secondly, the US is richer than the UK and just about every other large country.
I also think the value of being part of an economic bloc is overstated.
Lastly, the EU and the Euro in particular, has been extremely damaging for smaller members like Greece. Some of the things they did to Greece are borderline unconscionable.
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Things like giving credit at far below the market rate to help avoiding a default? While the UK stood aside and watched in amusement, having made clear that this is not their problem? The evil, evil EU.
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Why prevent a default at all. Lending them money to avoid default was not charity. A default would have been bad for Greece but it would give them a clean slate and a much healthier "national balance sheet". They wouldn't be the first country to ever default.
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Not even the Greek themselves were crazy enough to go for a default.
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Don't be silly, most people don't bat an eyelash at that kind of thing these days.
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Yes they do. Those trade deals are designed to ensure Germany and German companies benefit. An independent Britain can make trade deals designed to ensure Britain and the British people benefit.
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Yeah, those new trade deals with the Faroe islands and the Palestinian autonomy are truly bespoke.
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And if you were one of the ones that hasn't (yet), would your priority be to get one with 60M people or 420M?
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Why would it be an either/or situation?
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I never said it was. Work on your vocabulary, perhaps?
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Why then, my answer to your question becomes, "Both. Why are you asking such a superfluous question?"
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Again, you would think Britain hadn't existed just fine on its own for hundreds of years before 1973
Those where the days, weren't they? When every European nation stood as a force of its own, to be reckoned with, and each one ruled over it's own swath of the world?
Well, wake up fuckhead, because those days are over. Now we are dealing with an increasingly irrational US (330 million people), an autocratic China (1.4 billion), an upstart India (1.3 billion), an increasingly hostile and aggressive Russia (144 million), a mostly theocratic and authoritarian Arab League (420 million)...
The EU (510 million) is
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The EU (510 million) is a bastion of democracy
Thanks, I needed the laugh.
Btw, you forgot Brazil.
You also forgot that the UK hasn't left NATO and so doesn't suffer militarily by leaving the EU and if we drop our living standards to those enjoyed by far smaller countries like Switzerland and Norway then on the whole it'll be an improvement on the current state.
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You're welcome. But the unfortunate reality is, that compared to most of the rest of the world, it really is.
Silicon Valley company hates competition? (Score:1)
The head of GE said something similar (Score:2, Funny)
Satellite Magnate Argues
I heard the same thing from the head of GE about Britain's production of appliances.
He is, of course, a Refrigerator Magnate.
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If I had points I'd rate you funny. Since I don't I'll just comment that they could both be correct. Cutting foreign trade is not a good recipe for a healthy economy. *Some* people and a few companies may do rather well off it, though. That's the way it's worked in the past. Strangely enough, the ones who promote the decision, and often the ones that make it, have strong economic ties to those particular companies. Just like arms-makers are usually in favor of a strong military program.
You can call it
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You can call it corruption, or you can call it "putting your money where your mouth is", and the difference is essentially how openly you do things, and sometimes the timing.
The primary difference is what your job is. If you're the head of a corporation which will benefit from Brexit, and your constituency is made up of shareholders, then cheerleading Brexit is both legal and consistent with your responsibilities. That's an indictment against certain aspects of capitalism, but let's not stop and focus on that right now, because it will obscure the real point of this comment. To wit, if you are an elected official and your constituency is not restricted to shareholders but is ac
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"Best interests of your constituency" or "What you promised to do to get elected"? And "best interests" in a larger context is always questionable, and never measurable in advance. So I prefer to leave that aspect out of my calculations. If you say you're going to do something, and try your best to do it, I can't call you corrupt, even if I think what you're doing is socially destructive. Other adjectives, however, might come to mind.
Brexit is Ancient Sumerian for Apocalypse! (Score:2, Insightful)
FUD FUD and more FUD.
If we leave the EU! Everyone is gonna die!
If we leave the EU! It'll be like Venezuela! Overnight! Plus cannibals! Do you want cannibals?
If we leave the EU! The terrorists win!
If we leave the EU! It'll be like the rape scene from Pulp Fiction! FOR EVERYONE!
If we leave the EU! Your momma won't love you no more!
Ain't NOBODY ever got fired for staying in the EU!
And on, and on, and on...
It's a bunch of stupid, petty excuses from people who just want their way.
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Nice collection of straw men you got there, dipshit.
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Ok, try these:
- If the UK votes to leave the EU the Chancellor will have to pass a budget that "would have to be increases in tax and cuts in public spending"
- "Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilization in its entirety,"
- "A vote to leave would tip our economy into year-long recession with at least 500,000 UK jobs lostâ
- Leaving the EU would put peace at risk.
I haven't even touched the onslaught of stories from the BBC blaming any negati
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Strawmen?
While I've joked some of them up, ALL OF THESE are anti-Brexit arguments that have ACTUALLY BEEN MADE!
So who's the dipshit here dipshit?
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That has to be the dumbest thing I've read on the internet. Literally no one has said that other than your hyperbole just now. Open your mouth, inhale, exhale, repeat. Take a yoga lesson or something before your brain fries.
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Guess again. I've joked up the points a bit.
But all of them are actual anti-Brexit arguments that've been made.
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Brexiteers like to chant "Project Fear!" and claim that serious predictions of instant disaster were made. Of course some politicians did say some shit and the Pound did take a pretty big hit right after the vote, but in reality we haven't even left yet.
Still, we are already suffering the effects. Businesses and jobs leaving, the economy stalling, and Project Reality starting to set in.
No Deal is the biggest threat, but undeniably we would be better off with the deal we already have, inside the EU.
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Basically the UK has had OVER TWO YEARS for the people in power to map out a plan for everything INCLUDING No Deal.
But they've essentially sat upon their thumbs and complaining about how that made their colon feel.
Now, having basically whistled through the graveyard and done NOTHING (but hope that someone nullifies the will of the people)...
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No deal was always political suicide. No Tory leader could ever get anything through because their party was so divided, as May demonstrated. There was never any chance of it going well.
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I shouldn't hold their idiocy against them...
Wait...yes I should!
Sorta but not really (Score:3)
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Which is not going to be the UK - most UK engineers are moving out because they can see that learning a foreign language is less painful than going without food and, most likely, work - even for English speakers. (see poll in Soylent). Plus there is Ireland - where they speak English and brew Guinness.
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Aerospace has some unique issues, mainly around things like type approval and other permissions that are needed. Even if you get engineering work done in the UK, it has to be to EU standards and approved by EU regulators and testing bodies.
That's a pretty big disadvantage for companies based in the UK.
I'm 93 you know (Score:2)
Imagine if we'd had bureaucratic nonsense like that in 1940 when we were building Spitfires out of old saucepans & school railings and you couldn't get oranges. The beastly Germans would have ended up running the whole bloody continent!
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That's one of the most batshit things you have ever posted, and you have some form on the matter.
Brussels has nothing to do with it. (Score:2)
Back in the day it was the UK who insisted that no third country would have access to the internal. What goes around, comes around, I guess.
EU flag (Score:2)
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That vote was advertised as advisory, and the campaign in favor of it was totally filled with lies. Proclaiming that as the "will of the people" says more about you than about the "will of the people". It may be the case that most people would have voted for it if they had understood what they voted for, but the proponents of the measure clearly didn't believe that. And the evidence, such as I know it, is that they still don't believe it.
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I win - Hurray democracy!
I lose - People have been brainwashed, booooh.
To tell the truth, lies were on both camps.
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There were, as always, lies on both sides. There was, however, as far as my information says, a grossly unbalanced tilt with most of the lies, and most of the more outrageous lies, being on the side of "leave". OTOH, if the real reason that people voted "leave" was xenophobia, then the truth might have served equally well. And it could be. In times of economic stress there's a strong tendency to "blame the foreigner". AFAIKT it's a universal human tendency. (The alternative, which also happens, is "bl
Re: More anti-British nonsense (Score:2)
You believe that the side which you personally don't like had more lies?
I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you!
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You happen to be wrong. I have no (known) skin in that game. My source does, admittedly, but he's someone I trust a lot more than I trust any politician. Charles Stross. http://www.antipope.org/charli... [antipope.org] You'll need to search back a ways to find the pages where he discusses his analysis, and the what and the why of it.
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the backwards soon to be third world shithole that was the UK
So where did your family go that's so much fucking better?
Brexit will be an economic disaster no matter how many strawmen you build to support your delusions.
Brexit was never about the economy. The only people that voted based on the economy were remainers scared to stand up and take responsibility for their own country.