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Satellite Magnate Argues Post-Brexit Britain Will Be 'Lost In Space' (bbc.com)
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.
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. 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...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.