UK Space Conference part 8
Part 1: http://cesy.livejournal.com/173972.html
The tenth talk I went to was the discussion on UK Space Policy. It started with all the panellists introducing themselves.
Ian Gibson, Director of Technology in BNSC, talked about collaboration. He wanted to highlight 5 important points: we are a leader in understanding climate change using satellites, we are a partner in global exploration, it's an important industry (25,000 jobs, £4.6 billion), it produces innovation, and it inspires STEM, which then has an impact on society.
Martin Barstow, Head of Physics and Astronomy at Leicester University, talked about the STFC funding cuts. The STFC budget is £600 million a year, and they've had £80 million cut over 3 years. He's keen on human space flight, but wants to emphasise that we need new money for it - don't cut more. Money matters!
Francis Brown, editor of Space Policy magazine, finds it difficult to get articles from the UK. She says we need more outreach and publicity (and collaboration).
Ian Gibson reminded us that the US space budget is $36 billion, which is 60 times the UK spend.
Pat Collins of the Royal Aeronautical Society mentioned the 4 new ESA astronauts, the importance of surveillance satellites, and the politics of anti-satellite weapons.
Alison Gibbings, vice-chair of UK-SEDS, said that human space flight is inspiring, but needs to be done alongside robotic stuff.
David Southwood, Director of Science at ESA, said that the UK aren't good at discussing space policy. ESA spend £3 billion a year. We need to plan top-down, not bottom-up.
The discussion was then opened to questions from the floor.
Someone said a GP had suggested osteoporosis research on the ISS. The NHS are interested in medicine in space. They have £4 billion a year for research.
Martin Barstow said we need a space agency with a budget.
David Southwood waffled in a management-speak bureaucrat kind of way.
Pat Collins said we don't need to spend anything because... and I didn't understand the reason because it was buried in waffle.
Anu Ojha asked what if a British astronaut wins the astronaut thing. Would ESA try to blackmail the UK into giving more money?
David Southwood: Yes.
He said the UK government don't have 1 space policy, we have 17. (He didn't elaborate, so I'm not sure how this works except as a witty soundbite.)
He told us that ESA are not racist because they have lots of UK employees.
Ian Gibson patronised Alison, and asked the little girl if she wanted to be an astronaut when she grew up.
Alison said yes, she would apply to be an astronaut.
Ian said it would be awesome if we won all 4 places.
Martin Barstow indulged in some mild waffle.
Jeremy someone said he understood that if we won, the French and Germans would be kind of peeved that we hadn't paid.
Ian and David waffled about the EU, carefully avoiding such controversial topics as the constitution/mega-state and monopolies.
David indulged in lots more waffle.
A girl in the audience said many kids don't know ESA exists. What do BNSC propose to do about it? We're working on outreach and they're not supporting it.
Ian said BNSC do stuff. 60% of the population have heard of ESA.
Martin said yeah, kids haven't heard. ESA aren't as good at PR as NASA, but they're trying to improve.
David said no-one's heard of USAF Samsung, we rely on GPS but we don't care what they're called. So it doesn't matter if kids haven't heard of Galileo. He very nearly accidentally said that ESA don't do anything worth publicising. He avoided talking about the fact that although we haven't heard of USAF Samsung, we have heard of satnav.
Some guy asked if missions should be selected purely on the basis of science.
Pat said science missions should be selected purely on the basis of science. Military or telecoms stuff should be selected on the basis of their usefulness to the military or telecoms. Inspiring happens automatically, apparently, so we don't need to consider that.
Martin said UKSC should be at another time of year (it's currently clashing with lots of stuff, like the National Astronomy Meeting, the Space Generation Advisory Council European Congress, and various other conferences). The conference also needs more academic stuff as well as education.
A girl asked the classic question of how we justify space stuff to Joe Public. Pat listed satellite TV, GPS, climate predictions and weather forecasts. Martin talked about skills - clever science graduates become bankers and entrepreneurs. They mostly started out wanting to be astronauts. Alison echoed Martin, but with a bit less skill in public speaking.
Next part: http://cesy.livejournal.com/176143.html
The tenth talk I went to was the discussion on UK Space Policy. It started with all the panellists introducing themselves.
Ian Gibson, Director of Technology in BNSC, talked about collaboration. He wanted to highlight 5 important points: we are a leader in understanding climate change using satellites, we are a partner in global exploration, it's an important industry (25,000 jobs, £4.6 billion), it produces innovation, and it inspires STEM, which then has an impact on society.
Martin Barstow, Head of Physics and Astronomy at Leicester University, talked about the STFC funding cuts. The STFC budget is £600 million a year, and they've had £80 million cut over 3 years. He's keen on human space flight, but wants to emphasise that we need new money for it - don't cut more. Money matters!
Francis Brown, editor of Space Policy magazine, finds it difficult to get articles from the UK. She says we need more outreach and publicity (and collaboration).
Ian Gibson reminded us that the US space budget is $36 billion, which is 60 times the UK spend.
Pat Collins of the Royal Aeronautical Society mentioned the 4 new ESA astronauts, the importance of surveillance satellites, and the politics of anti-satellite weapons.
Alison Gibbings, vice-chair of UK-SEDS, said that human space flight is inspiring, but needs to be done alongside robotic stuff.
David Southwood, Director of Science at ESA, said that the UK aren't good at discussing space policy. ESA spend £3 billion a year. We need to plan top-down, not bottom-up.
The discussion was then opened to questions from the floor.
Someone said a GP had suggested osteoporosis research on the ISS. The NHS are interested in medicine in space. They have £4 billion a year for research.
Martin Barstow said we need a space agency with a budget.
David Southwood waffled in a management-speak bureaucrat kind of way.
Pat Collins said we don't need to spend anything because... and I didn't understand the reason because it was buried in waffle.
Anu Ojha asked what if a British astronaut wins the astronaut thing. Would ESA try to blackmail the UK into giving more money?
David Southwood: Yes.
He said the UK government don't have 1 space policy, we have 17. (He didn't elaborate, so I'm not sure how this works except as a witty soundbite.)
He told us that ESA are not racist because they have lots of UK employees.
Ian Gibson patronised Alison, and asked the little girl if she wanted to be an astronaut when she grew up.
Alison said yes, she would apply to be an astronaut.
Ian said it would be awesome if we won all 4 places.
Martin Barstow indulged in some mild waffle.
Jeremy someone said he understood that if we won, the French and Germans would be kind of peeved that we hadn't paid.
Ian and David waffled about the EU, carefully avoiding such controversial topics as the constitution/mega-state and monopolies.
David indulged in lots more waffle.
A girl in the audience said many kids don't know ESA exists. What do BNSC propose to do about it? We're working on outreach and they're not supporting it.
Ian said BNSC do stuff. 60% of the population have heard of ESA.
Martin said yeah, kids haven't heard. ESA aren't as good at PR as NASA, but they're trying to improve.
David said no-one's heard of USAF Samsung, we rely on GPS but we don't care what they're called. So it doesn't matter if kids haven't heard of Galileo. He very nearly accidentally said that ESA don't do anything worth publicising. He avoided talking about the fact that although we haven't heard of USAF Samsung, we have heard of satnav.
Some guy asked if missions should be selected purely on the basis of science.
Pat said science missions should be selected purely on the basis of science. Military or telecoms stuff should be selected on the basis of their usefulness to the military or telecoms. Inspiring happens automatically, apparently, so we don't need to consider that.
Martin said UKSC should be at another time of year (it's currently clashing with lots of stuff, like the National Astronomy Meeting, the Space Generation Advisory Council European Congress, and various other conferences). The conference also needs more academic stuff as well as education.
A girl asked the classic question of how we justify space stuff to Joe Public. Pat listed satellite TV, GPS, climate predictions and weather forecasts. Martin talked about skills - clever science graduates become bankers and entrepreneurs. They mostly started out wanting to be astronauts. Alison echoed Martin, but with a bit less skill in public speaking.
Next part: http://cesy.livejournal.com/176143.html