tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88182008054974886782024-03-05T22:47:56.487+00:00So Said the Lighthouse KeeperContemporary news, comment and travel from the Lighthouse Keeper, mostly compiled and written by freelance journalist Clive Simpson, along with occasional other contributors. Blog name is taken from a track on the album 'Hope' by Klaatu.Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.comBlogger245125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-58239044727269044022024-01-10T12:00:00.024+00:002024-01-12T18:39:19.855+00:00Villagers seek urgent action over flooding threat<p><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2DYxY2TcmymxSkICDU9jZGqvxHB9Kh9N_xz50-Xxh_bY5fVlAqaa4rit2CPjZ8I1YYV6WELApbjJXVp6Ti43r4XcCbzibNPx6AC1ecopGm8OtMyC4zXZutYCvs-mxOs7hyhM2o78mNJ-fJE6zVX6w-JVazx9rj5d0E4aZVoDJao4_99cBYTOXKLFJBF4/s4436/DSC_7981%20CS%20%231A.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2194" data-original-width="4436" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2DYxY2TcmymxSkICDU9jZGqvxHB9Kh9N_xz50-Xxh_bY5fVlAqaa4rit2CPjZ8I1YYV6WELApbjJXVp6Ti43r4XcCbzibNPx6AC1ecopGm8OtMyC4zXZutYCvs-mxOs7hyhM2o78mNJ-fJE6zVX6w-JVazx9rj5d0E4aZVoDJao4_99cBYTOXKLFJBF4/w400-h198/DSC_7981%20CS%20%231A.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Flooding caused by storm Henk at Little Hale (Jan 2024). <i> Photo: Clive Simpson</i></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span>RESIDENTS</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><span lang="EN-US"> of a Lincolnshire village want to call time on a flooding problem that has seen
them marooned twice in three months.</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Homeowners
say they have been lucky so far that water hasn’t entered their properties - but
they fear the next big rainstorm may tell a different story.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">More
than 20 villagers attended the parish council’s bi-monthly meeting on Tuesday
(9 January) to air their views and concerns. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">They
want to see an end to the flooding threat which isolated the village after
storm Babet last October and then again after storm Henk at the start of this
month.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">On
both occasions the village was inaccessible to normal traffic as drainage dykes
overflowed to block the B1394 road, which connects nearby Heckington with
Helpringham and is used as a link between the A17 and A52 roads.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Cllr
Amy Lennox, parish council chair, said work carried out in 2023 to help
alleviate the flooding problem hadn’t proved effective.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Members
of the public also expressed concerns that drivers of large vehicles ignored
road closed signs and continued to drive through the water, creating bow waves
that raised levels further.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Others
suggested the flooding made emergency access difficult or impossible, with
people also having to cancel medical appointments and being unable to transport
children to school.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Cllr
Andrew Key, the village’s representative on Lincolnshire County Council, said: “We
don’t want to be doom mongers but with climate change you can’t help but think
this problem is going to get worse.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">“With
such a large number of people expressing concern tonight it is obviously a very
serious issue for this community and needs urgent attention.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Anglian
Water brought in a tanker to remove some of the excess water and repair a
control panel that had been damaged by storm Henk and led to drains overflowing
in another part of the village.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">A spokesperson
said: “Flooding is often an extremely complex issue with many different owners
for the drainage network, such as Highways, local councils, private owners as
well as ourselves. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">“We’re
already looking at future options for how we may be able to reconfigure our
pipes and pumps to help the issue, but we also need to work with the local
council, Environment Agency and Internal Drainage Board to keep drainage
ditches clear so that excess water can get away more easily in the future.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Several
residents suggested the flooding problem could be solved by the installation of
a large underground relief pipe linking a culvert alongside the main road with
a drainage dyke in the heart of the village. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">The Parish council is now preparing a new report setting out options to alleviate
the flooding and says it will be contacting relevant authorities to make the
case for urgent action.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">Cllr
Key said he had also been calling for repairs to the village’s Fen Road, the poor
condition of which was being made worse by the recent flooding episodes.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US">“For
a residential road it is by far the worst in my division and I am lobbying to get
something done about it.” </span></span></p>
Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-84643759749206325382023-12-10T12:00:00.010+00:002023-12-11T09:27:12.292+00:00Temperature extremes set to continue<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" height="225" src="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/gallery/metofficegovuk/images/about-us/press-office/charts-and-maps/graphic-for-2024-global-temperature-forecast.png" width="400" /></p></div><div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-7 col-lg-8">
<p class="article-tagline" data-swiftype-name="tagline" data-swiftype-type="text"><span style="font-family: arial;">THE UK
Met Office outlook for global temperature suggests 2024 will be a
further record-breaking year and expected to exceed 2023, which is itself
almost certain to be the warmest year on record.</span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="article-body" data-swiftype-name="body" data-swiftype-type="text">
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>The anticipated two-stage spike
in global temperature has received a temporary and partial boost by the
current El Niño event warming the tropical Pacific. But, says the Met
Office’s Prof Adam Scaife: “The main driver for record-breaking
temperatures is the ongoing human-induced warming since the start of the industrial revolution.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>Prof Scaife added: “With less than a
month to go, 2023 is almost certain to be the warmest year on record,
exceeding the current record set in 2016 which was also boosted by an El
Niño event.” </span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>Global average temperatures are
measured as the difference between 1850-1900: a proxy for the Industrial
Revolution. The global average temperature for 2023 is expected to be
below 1.5C, but next year’s forecast suggests for the first time that
values of 1.5C or above cannot be ruled out.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>The average global temperature
for 2024 is forecast to be between 1.34C and 1.58C (with a central
estimate of 1.46C) above the average for the pre-industrial period
(1850-1900): the 11th year in succession that temperatures will have
reached at least 1.0 C above pre-industrial levels.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>The Met Office’s Dr Nick
Dunstone, who led the forecast, said: “The forecast is in line with the
ongoing global warming trend of 0.2C per decade, and is boosted by a
significant El Niño event. Hence, we expect two new global temperature
record-breaking years in succession and, for the first time, we are
forecasting a reasonable chance of a year temporarily exceeding 1.5C.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>Dr Dunstone concluded: “It’s
important to recognise that a temporary exceedance of 1.5C won’t mean a
breach of the Paris Agreement. But the first year above 1.5C would
certainly be a milestone in climate history.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>The Paris Agreement is widely
accepted to refer to a long-term average of 1.5C, rather than an
individual year. A Met Office-led paper published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03775-z">Nature </a>earlier this month suggested a means of immediate recognition when the Paris Agreement guard rail has been reached.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>The current year has seen many
record-breaking months for global temperature. The latest 2023 observed
WMO estimate (covering January-October) is +1.40C and is exceeding the
Met Office’s forecast issued at the end of 2022 (1.08C to 1.32C
with a central estimate of 1.20C). </span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span><span><span>Commenting on the forecasts Prof
Adam Scaife concluded: “In addition to the El Niño event, we have
anomalous high temperatures in the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean and
together with climate change, these factors account for the new global
temperature extremes.” </span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span><span><span><span><span><i>Editor's note:</i> original article by </span></span></span></span></span></span>Grahame Madge and first published by the Met Office on 8 December 2023 under the heading '<a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2023/2024-first-chance-of-year-above-1.5-c-say-climate-scientists" target="_blank">2024: First chance of 1.5C year</a>'.</span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></p> </div>
</div><p> </p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-65653167612040307732023-11-22T13:55:00.012+00:002023-11-29T12:11:53.215+00:00Britain seeks to join European satellite project<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2-FrXr8bPmYUKKf92R-Fjl4fWTxD_83GYs3iw77C0-rmY_UGUSs3efXMeLvpPt1BF78_u1tzdF8qxAEMIfSrhXAJ6_YWqDz-Cm0a7iDhI7nm63lzxK2kG-d8rkzGQR1XCt_1-hwuMCSIU9EULSCpqeNk20ZTZl1dbctR7mgVmxLf-MoRyPIEj0hm4SWk/s1200/atlantic-constellation.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2-FrXr8bPmYUKKf92R-Fjl4fWTxD_83GYs3iw77C0-rmY_UGUSs3efXMeLvpPt1BF78_u1tzdF8qxAEMIfSrhXAJ6_YWqDz-Cm0a7iDhI7nm63lzxK2kG-d8rkzGQR1XCt_1-hwuMCSIU9EULSCpqeNk20ZTZl1dbctR7mgVmxLf-MoRyPIEj0hm4SWk/w400-h225/atlantic-constellation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>by Clive Simpson, Belfast <br /></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">THE UK is seeking to join Portugal and Spain as a member of the
Atlantic Constellation, a flagship global project of small satellites for
Earth, ocean and climate monitoring.</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Through an agreement procured by the UK Space Agency (UKSA), the
country will build a new £6 million pathfinder satellite, designed
and built by UK-based company Open Cosmos, that could become part of the constellation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Announced on the opening day of the UK Space Conference in
Belfast, the satellite is aimed at strengthening UK capabilities in Earth
observation technology.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">It will also compliment UK Earth observation (EO)
contributions to the EU Copernicus programme, ESA projects and bilateral missions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Clarifying the Belfast announcement a spokesman for UKSA said it had signed an agreement with Open Cosmos
to build and launch a mission that "matches the requirements" of the Atlantic
Constellation. "We are in talks with Portugal and Spain regarding a formal
joining of the Atlantic Constellation governance mechanism," he added. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rebecca Evernden, Director of Space with the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy,</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> told conference
delegates in the opening plenary that the UK had also increased its involvement
in Copernicus, which had previously been uncertain following Brexit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The new pathfinder satellite, of the same design and to be
launched in the same orbital plane as three others from Portugal, is being
co-funded by Open Cosmos, which is based on the Harwell Space Campus in
Oxfordshire.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rafael Jorda Siquier, Chief Executive of Open Cosmos, said: “The UK joining Portugal and Spain in the Atlantic Constellation is a
major step forward in our national EO strategy. Building a shared satellite
constellation is a very effective way of having high revisit diverse data over
each region of interest.“</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">New UK space minister Andrew Griffith, appointed as Minister
of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology after prime minister Rishi
Sunak’s government reshuffle the previous week, was not among the 1500 attendees at the
three-day Belfast conference.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chi Onwurah, the opposition Labour party’s Shadow Minister for Science,
Research & Innovation, was scheduled to visit the conference on its final
day.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">In a statement issued by the UKSA, Griffith said: “Earth
observation will play an absolutely vital role in tackling global challenges
like climate change and disaster relief, providing the data we need at speed,
while supporting key UK industries like agriculture and energy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">“By working with Open
Cosmos on a new satellite and supporting our Atlantic partnerswe can harness space tech for our shared goals, while creating new
skills opportunities and jobs for the future to grow the UK economy.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">If a deal is reached with Portugal and Spain the UK’s pathfinder satellite will help increase the
frequency of revisit time in the constellation’s first orbital plane by a
third, meaning more frequent observations can be made of the same point on Earth.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Key applications will include disaster relief action,
early detection of climate change indicators, increasing agricultural
productivity and improving energy use.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Spain
and Portugal announced their agreement to develop a
constellation of Earth observation satellites in November 2022. The baseline Atlantic
Constellation, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">costing EUR 60 million, w</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ill consist of 16 microsatellites and be able to provide data about any place on Earth every three hours. <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
UK is among four other countries (South Africa, Mexico, Brazil
and Norway) to have expressed an interest in joining the programme as a partner. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Having more
countries involved will allow an increase in the data rate up to the
point where satellite information is available every hour, improving
the performance of the system without incurring a higher cost for the
main participating states.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chief Executive of the UKSA, Dr Paul Bate, said: “There’s no
better way to open the UK Space Conference than by backing a new Earth
observation programme.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Space has been shaping our lives for decades but is set to
become increasingly critical as we take the necessary steps to protect our
planet, drive prosperity and push the boundaries of human knowledge.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">“We are focused on catalysing investment, delivering new
missions and capabilities in areas such as Earth observation and the low-Earth
orbit economy, and championing the opportunities that our growing space sector
brings to people and businesses up and down the country.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Atlantic Constellation is a concept for a cooperative constellation of Earth observation (EO) satellites, joining several private and public actors for a common effort to tackle a new EO data policy for territory monitoring and therefore the dynamics of climate changing. <br /><br />The approach for this initiative was originated by Portugal in 2020 through two parallel studies that ESA carried out upon request of the Portuguese Space Agency (PSA). The initiative aims at developing a business-driven constellation of satellites, carried out in international cooperation, that responds to the needs of many coastal regions. <br /><br />Since its inception, the goal is for the initiative to be a shared effort between different regions that face similar challenges, where each partner contributes with a reduced number of satellites while benefiting from the data of a broader constellation.<br /><br />Spain was the first country to join Portugal in the Atlantic Constellation initiative. In 2021, the two countries decided to use EU Recovery and Resilience funds to develop a series of Earth Observation satellites. In Portugal, eight high-resolution satellites are being developed as part of the New Space Portugal Agenda, led by Geosat. <br /><br />This initiative will provide valuable data for many end users, ranging from aquaculture, land use, or agriculture, but it will also allow the Portuguese industrial ecosystem to acquire know-how on developing and operating end-to-end space systems. On the other hand, Spain will develop eight additional satellites, a development that the European Space Agency will oversee.<br /><br />Joan Alabart, Industrial Relations and Projects Officer of PSA, said: “The Atlantic Constellation is open to other countries and the UK has manifested its interest to contribute. And the terms of participation are currently being prepared. Other countries have also expressed interest in joining the initiative, which will be announced in due course.”<br /><br />Portugal is also developing in parallel a series of complementary constellations for VDES, SAR and Very High-Resolution imagery that are expected to be operational by 2026, and these constellations will complement the national effort in the Atlantic Constellation to use all kind of data to foster the development of new satellite based EO data applications.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope return"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="line number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="page number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="macro"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
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Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-550827809228846022023-10-25T12:48:00.009+01:002023-11-06T17:42:46.735+00:00Empire of darkness<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI26Z_XK2Fia5_5p5ZYWFlhg1zc4tE7s47w1orhC5FCtP2wOlTPUBC2tgIxeAIX38IJd4IDr10UaB6mU-kz9hZQMAyproqqtFJbUhXIWH6Bk0-w92ImXVNIEk8pLHM4bErwVCq1t-CMsOfrYYpGnyief9z017B1Z3o_-1HXRZXPKY2bbVRbSLHy-gDF_Y/s3630/harari%20lr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1933" data-original-width="3630" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI26Z_XK2Fia5_5p5ZYWFlhg1zc4tE7s47w1orhC5FCtP2wOlTPUBC2tgIxeAIX38IJd4IDr10UaB6mU-kz9hZQMAyproqqtFJbUhXIWH6Bk0-w92ImXVNIEk8pLHM4bErwVCq1t-CMsOfrYYpGnyief9z017B1Z3o_-1HXRZXPKY2bbVRbSLHy-gDF_Y/w400-h213/harari%20lr.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: helvetica; line-height: 107%;">UK prime minister Rishi Sunak called
for honesty and openness ahead of this week’s AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park
for global</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> <span style="line-height: 107%;">politicians, tech executives and experts. But warm words and
loose promises may not be enough to stem the AI tsunami.</span></span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>by <a href="http://www.clivesimpson.co.uk" target="_blank">Clive Simpson</a></i></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Several days prior to the attack
on Israel by Hamas, the renown Israeli author, historian and philosopher Yuval
Noah Harari was in Azerbaijan, its own territorial dispute with Armenia having
flared up only a week earlier, to give a keynote address at the opening
ceremony of the 74th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Baku.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For this annual global gathering of
world-leading space scientists, rocket engineers and space graduates, all with
their futuristic eyes firmly set on the heavens above, his evocative and
challenging words brought them crashing down to Earth.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Soon the era of human domination
of this planet might come to an end,” he warned, laying out the stark reality of
AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the inherent dangers it presents to humanity.
His talk drew rapturous applause from delegates crammed into the 3,000-capacity
auditorium.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Despite suggesting that AI has
the potential to help humanity, Harari, most famous for his international
best-selling book ‘Sapiens’, expressed serious concerns about its precipitant threat
to the very life that brought it into being.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Era of human domination</span></b></p>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“For tens of thousands of years
humans have dominated Earth but if we could go forward in time 700 years, or
even just 50 years, we are likely to find a planet dominated by an alien
intelligence.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We have already met this alien
intelligence here on Earth and, within a few decades, it might take over our
planet.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Harari said wasn’t referring to an
alien invasion from outer space but “an alien intelligence created by us” in
our own Earth-bound laboratories over just the last few decades.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“AI is an alien intelligence,” he
asserted. “It processes information, makes decisions and creates entirely new
ideas in a radically alien way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Today, it already surpasses us
in many tasks, from playing chess to diagnosing some kinds of cancer, and it
may soon surpass us in many more. The AI we are familiar with today is still at
a very, very early stage of its evolution.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">He described AI as being still at
its “amoeba stage” but unlike human evolution over billions of years it
wouldn’t evolve at such a slow pace.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Digital evolution is millions of
times faster than organic evolution. The AI amoebas of today may take just a
couple of decades to get to T-Rex stage.” If Chat GPT is an amoeba, what do you
think an AI T-Rex would look like, he asked?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Space exploration</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Harari believes that AI has great potential to help humanity, not only by exploring other planets free
of stringent life support constraints but also protecting the eco-system of Earth,
providing us with much better health care and raising standards of living “beyond
our wildest expectations”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But in parallel he issued a stark
warning that it would bring with it many new dangers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“AI is likely to de-stabilise the
global job market and the global economy. Algorithms might enshrine and worsen
existing biases like racism, misogyny and homophobia. Bots that spread outrage
and fake news threaten to destroy trust between people, and thereby destroy the
foundations of democracy,” he said.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Dictatorships too should be
afraid of AI, for they work by silencing and terrorising anyone who might speak
or act against them. It isn’t easy, however, to silence and terrorise AI. What
would a 21st century Stalin do to a dissenting Bot? Send it to Bot Gulag?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Existential threats</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As well as significant<b> </b>societal
challenges, Harari believes AI poses a series of <a name="_Hlk149215776">existential
threats </a>to the very survival of the human species.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Is it wise to create entities
more powerful than us, that might escape our control?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“The problem isn’t that AI might
be malevolent, the problem is that AI might be so much more competent than us
that it will increasingly dominate the economy, culture and politics, while we
humans lose the ability to understand what is happening in the world and to
make decisions about our future.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">AI might destroy humanity not through
hate and fear but because it doesn’t care, just as humans have driven numerous
other species to extinction by carelessly changing and destroying their
habitats.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Maybe AI will push humanity to
extinction and then spread itself through the Milky Way galaxy and beyond? Homo-sapiens
will then be remembered in the annals of the universe simply as the short-lived
connecting link that shifted the evolution of intelligence from the organic to
the inorganic realm.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Some people may view this as a
noble achievement, but I personally have a deep fear of this scenario. I
believe that what really matters in life is not intelligence, but
consciousness.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Intelligence versus consciousness</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Harari said intelligence should
not be confused with consciousness. “Intelligence is the ability to solve problems,
like winning at chess or curing cancer,” Harari explained.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Consciousness is the ability to
feel things like pain and pleasure, love and hate. In humans and also in other
mammals and birds intelligence goes hand-in-hand with consciousness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“We rely on our feelings to solve
problems but computers possess an alien intelligence that so far has no link to
consciousness.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Despite an immense advance in
computer intelligence over the past half century, he acknowledged there has
been exactly “zero advance” in computer consciousness with no indication that
computers are anywhere on the road to developing consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Just as spaceships, without ever
developing feathers, fly much further than birds, so computers may come to
solve problems, much, much better than human beings without ever developing
feelings,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“If human consciousness goes
extinct and our planet falls under the dominion of super intelligent but
entirely non-conscious entities that would be an extremely sad and dark end to
the story of life. It would be an empire of total darkness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">How can we avoid this dark fate
and deal with the numerous challenges posed by AI? The good news is that while
AI is nowhere near its full potential, the same is true of humans too. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></p>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Positive potential</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In terms of regulation, Harari
suggested that humanity first needed to focus its attention on this existential
threat of AI.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“We humans need to stop fighting
among ourselves and cooperate on our shared interests. Unfortunately, in too
many countries, like in my own country of Israel and elsewhere, people are not
focused on our shared human interests, but rather on fighting with the
neighbours about a few hills. What good would it do to win these hills if
humanity loses the whole planet?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Even if humans across the world cooperate
He described the task of regulating AI as a difficult and delicate one.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Given the pace at which AI is
developing it is impossible to anticipate and regulate in advance all the
potential hazards, therefore regulations should be based less on creating a
body of rigid rules and more on establishing living regulatory executions that
can quickly identify and respond to problems as they arise,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“To function well the
institutions should also be answerable to the public and should stay in close
contact with the human communities all over the world that are affected and
impacted by AI.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Mistakes happen</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Harari believes regulatory
institutions will need one more crucial asset - strong self-correcting
mechanisms - if we are to prevent an AI catastrophe.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“In this era of AI the greatest
danger to humanity comes from a false belief in infallibility. But even the
wisest people make mistakes and AI is not infallible either,” he said.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“If we put all our trust in some
allegedly infallible AI, in some allegedly infallible human being or in some
allegedly infallible institution, the result could be the extinction of our
species.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“In the past humans have made
some terrible mistakes, like building totalitarian regimes, creating
exploitative empires and waging world wars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Nevertheless, we survived
because previously we didn’t have to deal with the technology that can
annihilate us. Hitler and Stalin killed millions but they couldn’t destroy
humanity itself, so humanity got a second chance to learn from its catastrophic
mistakes and experiments.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But Harari warned that AI is very
different. “If we make a big mistake with AI we may never get a second chance
to learn from it. We should not allow any single person, corporation or country
to take a gamble on the fate of our entire species and perhaps on the fate of
all earthly life forms,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“As far as we know today,
terrestrial animals maybe the only conscious entities in the entire galaxy or
perhaps in the entire universe. There might be other conscious beings out there
somewhere, but at least to the best of my knowledge we haven’t met any of them,
so we cannot be sure.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“We have now created a
non-conscious but very powerful alien intelligence here on Earth. If we
mishandle this, AI might extinguish not just the human dominion over this
planet but the light of consciousness itself, turning the
universe into a realm of utter darkness. It is the responsibility of all of us
to prevent this.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">* * * <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The 74th International
Astronautical Congress (IAC), in Baku, Azerbaijan, held between 2 and 6 October 2023,
was organised by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) in
conjunction with Azercosmos (the Space Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan)
under the theme ‘Challenges and Opportunities: Give Space a Chance’. In 2024 the IAC will be held in Milan, Italy.</span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A shorter version of this article was published by <a href="https://centralbylines.co.uk/business/technology/empire-of-darkness-ais-existential-threat-to-humanity/" target="_blank">Central Bylines</a> on 5 November 2023. <br /></span></span></i></p>
Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0VP79+MQ Sleaford, UK52.8641982 -0.280535747.377128782624411 -9.0695982 58.351267617375584 8.5085268tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-86764278176009359672023-07-24T12:23:00.002+01:002023-08-01T07:50:05.437+01:00Politicians dither as climate crisis builds<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrdYft374mFNqvUpqhsIwTHjx3a09pxZrvQLUky3CHPaN7lsrk3HekNgyfPtgw1s8s_0MlMJRoxB4mzfx49TI2i1eVL9MYUkLWOT1LJV8Mr6LYkBX1dW_zG5L1lh2Cn0Ql2UxT0qC4jEZADyC8Vjk1wS23U1YpP4o0KKx_apkwy2K-8lg29M8E22kWSss/s1200/burning%20earth.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrdYft374mFNqvUpqhsIwTHjx3a09pxZrvQLUky3CHPaN7lsrk3HekNgyfPtgw1s8s_0MlMJRoxB4mzfx49TI2i1eVL9MYUkLWOT1LJV8Mr6LYkBX1dW_zG5L1lh2Cn0Ql2UxT0qC4jEZADyC8Vjk1wS23U1YpP4o0KKx_apkwy2K-8lg29M8E22kWSss/w400-h266/burning%20earth.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>GLOBAL heating appears to have entered a new and fast-moving trajectory. Amid record-breaking temperatures, melting ice and a sharp increase in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures during the month of July, veteran climate scientists are now becoming increasingly alarmed about the pace of change.<br /><br />“A few decades ago some people might have thought climate change was a relatively slow-moving phenomenon but we are now witnessing things happening at a terrifying rate,” said Prof Peter Stott, leader of the UK Met Office’s climate monitoring and attribution team.<br /><br />The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has also warned of record temperatures and extreme heat in the near future after confirming the latest climate-heating El Niño event had “arrived”. <br /><br />The last major El Niño was in 2016 – which to date remains the hottest year on record. But for 2023, it comes on top of increasing global heat driven by human-caused carbon emissions, an effect described by the WMO as a “double whammy”. Its officials say urgent preparations for extreme weather events are now vital to save lives and livelihoods.<br /><br />“As El Niño builds through the rest of this year, adding an extra oomph to the damaging effects of human-induced global heating, many millions of people across the planet and many diverse ecosystems are going to face extraordinary challenges – and unfortunately suffer great damage,” added Stott.<br /><br />The WMO estimates there is now a 90 percent probability of the latest El Niño continuing to the end of 2023 at a moderate strength or higher, with the added risk of it supercharging extreme weather.<br /><br />New records for high temperature have been broken almost daily on every continent in recent months whilst in the UK, the average temperature for June was beaten by nearly a full degree with an unprecedented heatwave also affecting the country’s coastal waters.<br /><br />Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, admits that he doesn’t fully understand what’s going on with this summer’s crazy climate data.<br /><br />“It feels to me like the climate may have shifted into some sort of new regime of global heating that scientists don’t yet understand. And yet the media and everyone keep acting like things are basically fine and leaders keep expanding fossil fuels,” he says.<br /><br />Cambridge University’s Prof Emily Shuckburgh, a leading climate scientist and director of Cambridge Zero, says that after the UK’s record-breaking month of high temperatures, it looks likely the rest of the summer will be warmer than normal too as global temperatures continue to rise.<br /><br />“We’ve been warning of these changes for 30 years and warning that the planet is overheating,” she told listeners on BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme (3 July 2023). <br /><br />“We’ve got record melting in Greenland occurring right at this moment, we’ve got record low levels of sea ice in Antarctica. From pole to pole we are seeing dramatic changes and it is nature as well as humans that is witnessing the impact.<br /><br />“Those extreme temperatures of 40 degrees that we saw in the UK last summer had a dramatic impact on our wildlife and a dramatic impact on us. Across Europe thousands of people died prematurely in that heatwave.<br /><br />“Sadly the UK used to be a global leader in terms of climate change and it was only two years ago that we hosted the big international climate conference COP-26. We’ve now relinquished that leadership.”<br /><br />Prof Shuckburgh says the recent progress report from the UK Government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) on how the UK is doing against its own decarbonisation plans was “covered with red” because goals and targets were not being met.<br /><br />“We should be responding to the cost of living and energy crisis by investing in insulation, in solar, in wind, offshore and onshore,” she suggested.<br /><br />Prof Shuckburgh urged people to accept the global scale of what is at risk. “We know that if we don’t respond to climate change as a country and as a world then the risks are enormous,” she said.<br /><br />“They are potentially catastrophic in terms of our food supplies, the global spread of disease, the risk from migration by communities that have been impacted by climate change, the risk of conflicts and, most importantly of all, the risk of passing catastrophic tipping points.<br /><br />“This is what’s at stake. The really frustrating thing from my perspective is that we know what the solutions are. We have them at our fingertips and what we need are stable policies in support of them.”<br /><br />Such stark warnings are echoed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, who also described addressing climate change as a “human rights” issue.<br /><br />Evoking a “dystopian future” if urgent action isn’t taken, he said: “Our environment is burning. It’s melting. It’s flooding. It’s depleting. It’s drying. It’s dying. We, the generation with the most powerful technological tools in history, have the capacity to change it.”<br /><br />He accused world leaders of performing “the choreography of promising to act” before getting stuck in a rut dominated by short-term political expediency. Turk called for an immediate end to “senseless subsidies” of the fossil fuel industry and said the Dubai COP28 (2023 UN Climate Change Conference) climate summit in November and December needs to be a “decisive game-changer”.<br /><br />At the end of June, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was accused by a resigning government minister and environment campaigner, Zac Goldsmith, of being “simply uninterested” in the environment and climate emergency.<br /><br />Lame political leadership – mirrored by many of those in power and supported by the fossil fuel industry and elements of the right-wing media – along with a cost-of-living crisis and war in Ukraine, have all contributed to a prevailing laissez faire attitude.<br /><br />At the start of 2023, when Sunak introduced his five key policy pledges, the climate and environment were noticeable by their absence, a clear indication that the country’s third prime minister in as many years does not view them as a priority.<br /><br />Nothing has changed and, despite mounting climate relasted emergencies around the world this summer, Sunak, who favours flying about the country on short-haul private jets and helicopters, also shunned a recent Paris summit on the climate, debt and poverty hosted by the French President Emmanuel Macron.<br /><br />If there can be a final thought and persepctive (for now) on this challenging issue then perhaps, somewhat surprisingly, it might go to the actor William Shatner.<br /><br />As Captain James T Kirk of Star Trek’s Enterprise spaceship he explored the universe, espousing a vision of the future where humanity had not only survived but overcome many of the Earthly problems we face today.<br /><br />Last year, 90-year-old Shatner had what he described as a “life-changing experience” when he physically travelled into space for the first time, expecting to experience “a deep connection with the immensity around us” and “a deep call” for endless exploration.<br /><br />“The strongest feeling I had, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief I have ever experienced. I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death,” he said.<br /><br />“I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.<br /><br />“This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realised that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside.<br /><br />“I did my share in popularising the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. It is the final and only frontier, and we have been ravaging it relentlessly, destroying it at an unprecedented rate and making it uninhabitable.” </p><p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p><p><i>This article by Clive Simpson was first published by Central Bylines under the title, '<a href="https://centralbylines.co.uk/politicians-drag-their-heels-as-the-climate-crisis-intensifies/" target="_blank">Politicians drag their heels as the climate crisis intensifies</a>'.</i><br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-19057874266982236062023-05-12T11:05:00.010+01:002023-05-31T11:11:37.966+01:00Space debris problem needs urgent action<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfbIlol4MoWg5AB6hASa8Wzkw9rRE78bSNvq3pMfppFC1i0TwzdZbVl96vb68FyXa9riar6L6uHrOq-4C4FwQw3PbNQnaFs3PNznrvN0v4V6FQkDO4tgULrJN__VZ9ZcBxLvm0dqCxQflGM7H7s82XyBaQ8mX0CYAJDX769S6TMB0KZz7rEEOkPk3v/s1008/Astroscale-debris-b%20lr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="1008" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfbIlol4MoWg5AB6hASa8Wzkw9rRE78bSNvq3pMfppFC1i0TwzdZbVl96vb68FyXa9riar6L6uHrOq-4C4FwQw3PbNQnaFs3PNznrvN0v4V6FQkDO4tgULrJN__VZ9ZcBxLvm0dqCxQflGM7H7s82XyBaQ8mX0CYAJDX769S6TMB0KZz7rEEOkPk3v/w400-h225/Astroscale-debris-b%20lr.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>THE chief of global satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat has
issued a stark warning to space leaders calling for immediate action to
stem the proliferation of space debris in Earth orbit.<br /><br />Counselling
against complacency, Raveej Suri, Inmarsat’s Chief Executive Officer,
said: “So far we have been lucky that we haven’t seen any major
collisions in space, but we would be foolish to rely on luck alone.”<br /><br />His
wake up call to governments and industry was delivered during a
no-holes-barred keynote speech to more than 100 delegates at the New
Space Atlantic Summit, organised by the Portugal Space Agency (PSA) in
Lisbon this week.<br /><br />“It would be irresponsible of me not to call
out that I believe we are at a crisis point regarding space
sustainability which requires immediate and decisive action,” he stated.
“Every year that we fail to act increases the cost of future actions
and makes it more technically difficult to deliver an effective cleanup
strategy.”<br /><br />At Inmarsat we do not take the operating environment
for granted but I am concerned that the world is now entering a system
wide emergency, with low Earth orbits (LEO) particularly vulnerable, and
we no longer have the luxury of patient action.<br /><br />Suri, who
transferred from Nokia to head up the London-based satellite services
provider in 2021, welcomed moves in the past year which have seen more
countries signing up to the ASAT (anti-satellite testing) ban, ESA
proposing a zero space debris policy by 2030, a new five-year rule for
satellite disposal after reaching the end of their operational life, and
space sustainability policy initiatives from the UK.<br /><br />But he said
even these initiatives were “insufficient” compared to the gravity of
the problem, citing examples of increasing space debris proliferation
and the rising number of orbital near misses - including one by two
defunct satellites earlier this year that came within 10 m of each
other.<br /><br />Suri also highlighted the work of Prof Hugh Lewis at the
University of Southampton who recently released data that showed in
March alone SpaceX Starlink satellites performed more collision
avoidance manoeuvres in a single month than in the entire first 2.5
years of Starlink deployment.<br /><br />Based on statistical models
produced by the ESA space debris office, it is estimated that there are
36,500 objects larger than 10 cm, one million objects between one to 10
cm and an extraordinary 130 million objects between 1 mm and 1 cm. <br /><br />These
tiny objects could be anything from paint flecks from rockets to small
fragments created from in-orbit impact, but travelling faster than a
bullet they can still cause an incredible amount of damage to something
else in orbit. <br /><br />“These numbers and the risk to incumbent
services will only increase as tens of thousands of satellites are
launched into orbit over the coming years, many as part of so called
mega constellations in low Earth orbit,” he said. <br /><br />“So far we
have been lucky but we would be foolish to rely on luck to keep to space
commons - areas and resources that fall outside national jurisdiction -
open for sustainable use. We urgently need to align to a shared
understanding of the problem and agree on principals of action.” <br /><br />Suri
proposed a series of guiding tenets - understanding the constraints of
the operating environment, bringing scientific consensus to orbital
capacity, and providing equitable and fair solutions to benefit all - to
help address the problem. <br /><br />He also suggested that equity
considerations should reach beyond the boundaries of space into Earth’s
atmosphere where space environmentalism is already asking questions
about the effect of industrialising the de-orbiting of spacecraft and
what that does to the precipitous chemical balance of the upper
atmosphere. <br /><br />“We need to make gains in each area, we need to
acknowledge that space is finite and move to an urgent scientific
consensus on orbital capacity parameters,” he said. “We need to create
the means to deal with space debris and we need to keep equity
considerations front of mind.”<br /><br />Whilst acknowledging that UN and
ITU (International Telecommunication Union) processes are important, he
declared it was time for a “like-minded group of countries” to commit
collectively to shared principles, to share regulations and coordinating
mechanisms for safe space operations and orbital development. <br /><br />“This
could be achieved by countries such as the UK, US and those in the EU
coming together to agree a baseline understanding of the issues and set
out basic standards,” he argued. “The collective influence of such a
grouping would create a powerful precedent for new entrants to space and
those that wish to do business with us.” <br /><br />He said one of the
most effective measures would be to make market access reliant on
sustainable and responsible behaviour. “Of course, withholding rights
should not be done lightly and it is not a substitute for a global
regime which could give full meaning to equity considerations.<br /><br />“As
the CEO of a satellite communications company, space sustainability is
an existential issue for my industry. Taking immediate action is not
only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to protect
considerable global investment in R&D and infrastructure to ensure
that we will continue to operate and provide valuable services well into
the future. <br /><br />“Likewise the stakes for governments are extremely
high. The global economy is dependent on satellite-enabled
applications, now taken for granted as part of our daily lives whether
for safe transit, banking or complex logistics. <br /><br />“I submit to
you that 2023 is a make or break year for our future as a space faring
community. Governments and leaders need to take urgent action and demand
that operators maintain an open, predictable and sustainable space
commons. The stakes have never been higher and the time to act is now.” <br /><br />Keynotes
and panel discussions at the Summit, held at the premises of the
European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the sixth in series of events
focused on the theme of ‘A Global Effort for Space Sustainability’.<br /><br />Speakers
included Peter Martinez, Executive Director of the Secure World
Foundation, who drew parallels with the development of the environmental
movement and said space sustainability needed a similar multi-faceted
approach.<br /><br />International Institute of Space Law (ISSL) President
Kae-Uwe Schrogl referred to “out-dated and unenforceable laws” governing
outer space. “Sustainability can only be reached on a level playing
field and at present we don’t have an architecture for space law. Flags
of convenience cannot be allowed,” he stated.<br /><br />Daniel Smith, CEO
of Edinburgh-based AstroAgency, a strategic space marketing and media
firm, brought an industry perspective to delegates and urged them to
"grasp the opportunity" while there was still time.<br /><br />“The last
thing we really need are more strategies without action,” he said. “The
NewSpace economy can be shaped by new space players if we act in unity
now.”<br /><br />Portugal Space Agency president Ricardo Conde described
sustainability as “underpinning the country’s expanding efforts in
space” and said the agency was targeting “pragmatic solutions” that
would help the country tackle today’s most pressing problems, including
the impacts of climate change.<br /><br />“Today, two of the big long-term
motivations for space exploration are mining and the extension of
territory. Portugal is not interested in mining other worlds and we
don't have a vision for the geopolitical extension of territory. We
will use our tools and expertise to make space work in a sustainable
way."<em></em></p><p><em><br /><br /></em></p> <p></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-85790695290160994152023-02-15T11:46:00.037+00:002023-07-24T12:03:30.140+01:00Pumping up the weather<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPynfRT6XcEGAhZnMJOPqflHeR61bCLMwxiokrMco0dOo5uNuqQYmehw2H9qGaeKxzAsjLS5jhgF1Nix4MQZNSVvt9GSTm6g8Z0RHbyCCuUbM5YqDfw7yVc0v1v7d4qEYkrP8d57YYiXSYIzbu1KgNnCrxlx8ZZeOj1veCACdqzR2R4DnpWELpl3WATs/s1920/NASA%202022%20warming%20map%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPynfRT6XcEGAhZnMJOPqflHeR61bCLMwxiokrMco0dOo5uNuqQYmehw2H9qGaeKxzAsjLS5jhgF1Nix4MQZNSVvt9GSTm6g8Z0RHbyCCuUbM5YqDfw7yVc0v1v7d4qEYkrP8d57YYiXSYIzbu1KgNnCrxlx8ZZeOj1veCACdqzR2R4DnpWELpl3WATs/w400-h225/NASA%202022%20warming%20map%20copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />THE year 2022 effectively tied for Earth’s fifth warmest year since 1880 - and the last nine consecutive years have been the warmest nine on record, according to the latest analysis released by NASA.<br /><br />Scientists from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), NASA’s leading centre for climate modelling in New York have reported global temperatures in 2022 were 0.89 degrees Centigrade (C) above the average for NASA’s baseline period (1951-1980), continuing the planet’s long-term warming trend. Earth is now about 1.11 degrees C warmer than the late 19th century average.<br /><br />“This is alarming,” admits NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former Space Shuttle astronaut. “Our warming climate is already making a mark. Forest fires are intensifying, hurricanes are getting stronger, droughts are wreaking havoc and sea levels are rising.”<br /><br />He says NASA is deepening its commitment to addressing climate change and adds: “Our Earth System Observatory will provide state-of-the-art data to support our climate modelling, analysis and predictions to help humanity confront our planet’s changing climate.”<br /><br />“The reason for the warming trend is that human activities continue to pump enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the long-term planetary impacts will also continue,” explains Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS. <br /><br />NASA scientists, working with leading international climatologists, have determined carbon dioxide emissions were the highest on record in 2022, despite a short-lived dip in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Levels of these human-driven greenhouse gas emissions have rebounded since. <br /><br />Using the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation instrument that launched to the International Space Station last year, they have also identified some super-emitters of methane – another powerful greenhouse gas.<br /><br />Earth’s Arctic region continues to experience the strongest warming trends – close to four times the global average – according to GISS research presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, as well as in a separate study.<br /><br />Communities around the world are already experiencing the impacts that scientists see as connected to the warming atmosphere and ocean – intensified rainfall and tropical storms, severe droughts and increased storm surges. <br /><br />Among many other climate-driven weather events around the world – including the UK’s hottest ever daytime temperatures which peaked at 40.3 C in Coningsby, Lincolnshire – last year brought torrential monsoon rains that devastated Pakistan and a persistent megadrought in the US Southwest. In September, Hurricane Ian became one of the strongest and costliest hurricanes to strike the continental US.<br /><br />NASA’s global temperature analysis is drawn from data collected by weather stations and Antarctic research stations, as well as instruments mounted on ships and ocean buoys. <br /><br />Scientists analyse these measurements to account for uncertainties in the data and to maintain consistent methods for calculating global average surface temperature differences for every year. These ground-based measurements of surface temperature are consistent with satellite data collected since 2002 by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder on NASA’s Aqua satellite and with other estimates.<br /><br />NASA uses the period from 1951-1980 as a baseline to understand how global temperatures change over time. That baseline includes climate patterns such as La Niña and El Niño, as well as unusually hot or cold years due to other factors, ensuring it encompasses natural variations in Earth’s temperature.<br /><br />Many factors can affect the average temperature in any given year. For example, 2022 was one of the warmest on record despite a third consecutive year of La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean. <br /><br />NASA scientists estimate that La Niña’s cooling influence may have lowered global temperatures slightly (about 0.06 degrees C) from what the average would have been under more typical ocean conditions.<br /><br />A separate, independent analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that the global surface temperature for 2022 was the sixth highest since 1880. <br /><br />NOAA scientists use much of the same raw temperature data in their analysis and have a different baseline period (1901-2000) and methodology. Although rankings for specific years can differ slightly between the records, they are in broad agreement and both reflect ongoing long-term warming.<br /><br />NASA’s full dataset of global surface temperatures through 2022, as well as details with code of how NASA scientists conducted the analysis, are publicly available from <a href="https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/" target="_blank">GISS</a>. <p></p><p style="text-align: center;">* * * <br /></p><p><i>This article by <a href="http://www.clivesimpson.co.uk" target="_blank">Clive Simpson</a> was first published by Central Bylines under the title <a href="https://centralbylines.co.uk/heating-earth-drives-more-extreme-weather/" target="_blank">'Heating Earth drives more extreme weather'</a>.</i><br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-37248957730898434942023-01-31T20:34:00.053+00:002023-02-01T20:59:20.683+00:00UK voters suffer Brexit 'bregret'<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVSwFKGgHUAntU-AB1_lOG09ejXCT7pPRXJSchTyYuT_Q6-19Rl_ocLQxggsSl9Z4uSveQfSAdoXAoPHAjA_nhxz8hWSjzZzUMa2E4uDY_4VqlIOXQKii9r2QyXuWldexV5CSqpiE7kvcDSQ1B_iHfW4ALmffiBgO_-QhJ8xrFW__FgGO260r1vWso/s618/map.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="568" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVSwFKGgHUAntU-AB1_lOG09ejXCT7pPRXJSchTyYuT_Q6-19Rl_ocLQxggsSl9Z4uSveQfSAdoXAoPHAjA_nhxz8hWSjzZzUMa2E4uDY_4VqlIOXQKii9r2QyXuWldexV5CSqpiE7kvcDSQ1B_iHfW4ALmffiBgO_-QhJ8xrFW__FgGO260r1vWso/w368-h400/map.jpg" width="368" /></a></div><br />A NEW poll to mark the third anniversary at the end of January 2023 of the UK leaving the EU has suggested most voters think voting for Brexit in the 2016 referendum was now a mistake. The term coined by observers to describe the change of heart is 'Bregret'.<br /><p></p><p>The survey by <a href="https://britain.unherd.com/" rel="nofollow">Unherd and Focaldata</a>
asked voters across England, Scotland and Wales whether ‘Britain was
wrong to leave the EU’ and in all but three of 632 constituencies, more
people now agree than disagree.</p><p>As it happens, the three
constituencies that are still in favour of having left – Boston &
Skegness, South Holland & the Deepings, and Louth & Horncastle –
are all in Lincolnshire, England’s second largest county which sprawls
around the Wash.</p><p>In his recent book ‘Edge of England’ on this
enigmatic area, author Derek Turner dubbed Lincolnshire ‘England’s
forgotten county’. It was perhaps something of a prophetic insight and,
having reviewed it for <a href="https://centralbylines.co.uk/testament-to-lincolnshire/">Central Bylines</a>, it seems to me there are undoubtedly some answers lurking within its pages as to why this should be so.</p><p>Despite holding on to the number one anti-Europe spot though, the number of people in <a href="https://britain.unherd.com/constituencies/boston-and-skegness/%23tabs1-" rel="nofollow">Boston & Skegness</a>
follows the survey’s national trend. Those expressing faith in Brexit
have fallen from 75 percent at the time of the referendum in 2016 to 41 percent now,
just four percentage points above those agreeing Britain was wrong to
leave the EU.</p><h2 id="h-once-we-felt-properly-governed"><b></b></h2><p>In
the past, one could say that by and large the UK was properly governed
and MPs in the main were public servants. Indeed, leaving the EU was
hardly in the minds of the British general public until it was elevated
to the top of the political agenda by Prime Minister of the day, David
Cameron at the beginning of 2016, for party political reasons.</p><p>In
one way, it was a politically-naive way to silence a small but
increasingly vocal anti-Europe brigade on the fringes of the
Conservative party and in UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party).</p><p>But it was also a handy smokescreen for those with vested interests who felt threatened by a soon-to-be-introduced <a href="https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/anti-tax-avoidance-directive_en" rel="nofollow">EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive</a>
to control offshore tax havens, including questionable tax dealings by
either those holding power or those wealthy enough to influence it. </p><p>That would certainly would help explain a lot of things because at present many MPs,
though not all, particularly those serving in the current cabinet and government, look
like they are there to best their own personal influence and financial
self-reward.</p><h2 id="h-promise-much-deliver-nothing"><b></b></h2><p>As
the UK marks the third anniversary of having left the EU, it is not
Brexit per se that has done the real damage but the incompetence and
ignorance of politician after jingoistic politician who have proclaimed
much but delivered nothing.</p><p>Figures released today (31 January)
reveal the UK is the only leading economy likely to fall into recession
this year, and this even behind Russia! <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64452995" rel="nofollow">The IMF forecasts</a>
that the UK economy will shrink 0.6 percent in 2023 as it is weighed down by
the disadvantages of having left the European single market, combined
with a toxic mix of sky high energy prices, rising mortgages and higher
taxes.</p><p>It all adds up to a very bleak forecast for a vacuous
government without a long term plan that pinned its hopes on ‘recovery’
and it leaves Rishi Sunak, the country’s third Tory prime minister in a
year, mired in the sleaze and the false rhetoric of his predecessors,
particularly Boris Johnson.</p><h2 id="h-no-new-dawn-no-new-age"><b></b></h2><p>In
the real world away from the Palace of Westminster, one business person
after another describes Brexit and the form it has taken as an
unmitigated disaster for the country.</p><p>One of them, entrepreneur and business
leader Deborah Meaden, who regularly features on the TV programme
‘Dragon’s Den’, says: “Brexit is definitely a factor in 99 percent of
businesses that I talk to. They are suffering, they’re bewildered.”</p><p>In
the 2016 vote, Brexiteers got what they wanted. But despite the
extensive promises, it hasn’t heralded a new dawn or a new age of
prosperity for the country. Instead Brexit is costing the UK economy a <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/articles/ukeconomylatest/2021-01-25" rel="nofollow">million pounds per hour</a>; it means the UK has around £20 billion a year less available for public spending; and it has lost around <a href="https://www.cer.eu/insights/post-brexit-immigration-uk-labour-market" rel="nofollow">330,000 workers</a> from the UK economy.</p><p>After
more than a dozen years of Conservative-controlled majority government,
the country and its economy is in very poor shape. Promises are never
going to be delivered, and the lies about the benefits of Brexit told
during the referendum campaign and repeated ad nauseam since, only add
to the image of deceitfulness at the very heart of this hard Brexit
government.</p><p>Meanwhile, the government is preparing later this year to <a href="https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-retained-eu-law-revocation-and-reform-bill/" rel="nofollow">delete thousands of laws</a>
that largely benefit the ordinary people of this country, including the
right to compensation for delayed trains or flights, the right to paid
annual leave, equal pay and bank holidays, parental leave and pay and
pension protection when a company goes bust.</p><p>These things won’t
affect the super-wealthy but they will affect everyone else. Is it
really what people voted for back in 2016? Probably not, given the
results of the poll discussed at the beginning of this piece.</p><h2 id="h-time-to-turn-a-corner"><b></b></h2><p>As
the latest figures show, decline for the UK is now very real and
continued Brexit denial will no longer cut it. Perhaps a corner is being
turned at last as people finally realise what has been foisted on them?</p><p>Brexit
doesn’t necessarily need to be undone wholesale but the country does
need to rejoin the single market and customs union as soon as possible.</p><p>Such a
dramatic reset to the country’s political direction and agenda might
only be delivered in one of two ways – a General Strike that brings down
the current government, or an unscheduled General Election after a vote
of no confidence in which enough MPs decide to put the country and its
future first for once. </p><p>What is certain, however, is that the UK urgently,
urgently needs mature, proper politicians who will put the interests of the people they represent first and, in doing so, pave the way
for the country to rebuild and prosper.</p><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> * * *<br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Editor's note: this article is an amended version of an opinion piece written for and published by <a href="https://centralbylines.co.uk/uk-runs-aground-in-brexits-murky-fog/" target="_blank">Central Bylines</a>. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i></div><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i><br /></p><p> </p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-45830855796260593682023-01-26T11:40:00.002+00:002023-01-26T11:42:50.604+00:00England’s forgotten county<p style="text-align: left;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNSMORuLAlFAbh6KtfBgiO1qh_PkN4JaJc48WFlxig0ztWhkupaOlTDqH_UJ00ufp1YDbvIpHd4DqAfOikX1qTbpBdGkLXIwcxAUzWS3G0GdBPACC7aXBNYXGhl0qAkYKrnk0JRPAIcc8qf6jyDtrtf69y2Vk3xYEkatGPuWM5oNH8VmCv4kpkH-aI/s1023/River%20Slea%20-%2024jan23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="1023" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNSMORuLAlFAbh6KtfBgiO1qh_PkN4JaJc48WFlxig0ztWhkupaOlTDqH_UJ00ufp1YDbvIpHd4DqAfOikX1qTbpBdGkLXIwcxAUzWS3G0GdBPACC7aXBNYXGhl0qAkYKrnk0JRPAIcc8qf6jyDtrtf69y2Vk3xYEkatGPuWM5oNH8VmCv4kpkH-aI/w400-h226/River%20Slea%20-%2024jan23.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>England’s second-largest, yet least well-known, county comes under the literary spotlight in a new book full of evocative and often elegiac descriptions of landscape and wildlife, alongside fascinating reflections on its history, countryside and people, from prehistory right up to the present day.</i><br /><br /> * * *<br /></p><p>IN THE early 1960s my parents relocated from their birth town of Derby (it was only consigned city status in 1977 despite having always had its own cathedral) to start a new life in rural Lincolnshire, the second largest county in England.<br /><br />I was therefore destined not to grow up in the peaks and valleys of Derbyshire but in the flat Fenlands surrounding the small market town of Spalding, renown at the time for its tulips, sugar beet and potatoes. It is where I attended secondary school and subsequently began my journalistic career on the local newspaper.<br /><br />So, it is with residential impunity and a little insider knowledge, that I can assert with some authority that the county of Lincolnshire has always had something of a reputation as a political, economic and cultural backwater. By the same token, the propensity of its adult population - at least up to the present time - to vote conservatively in such large numbers was always a bit of a mystery to me.<br /><br />In the referendum of 2016 it was not hard to predict therefore that such entrenched voting behaviour would culminate with a huge tranche of the county - and most notably the towns of Grimsby, Boston and Spalding - voting to deliver one of the country’s highest collective ‘anti-Europe’ votes.<br /><br />But the sprawling county, with a surprisingly varied topography allied with an indistinct coastline that barely defines its boundary with the North Sea around The Wash, is so much more than the political summation of its largely ageing and traditional population.<br /><br />All this, along with Lincolnshire’s unexpected role in defining significant eras of the nation’s history, is brought into sharp focus in the excellent new book ‘Edge of England - Landfall in Lincolnshire’ by Dublin-born novelist and poet Derek Turner. It’s publication by Hurst in the summer of 2022 was as impeccably timed as the content is revealing.<br /><br />Unsurprisingly, the reader soon learns that after spending two decades exploring and reading about England’s “forgotten county” Turner is now a solid gold Lincolnshire “Yellowbelly” resident himself, keen to pay a long overdue homage to the land of big skies, mega agriculture and an ever-changing way of life.<br /><br />While much of the book’s prosaic beauty lies in acute observations of time and place, noted in detail on every page via Turner’s poetic turn of phrase and language, the historic importance and influence of the county also comes as a revelation in itself.<br /><br />Laying out his raison d’etre for his book in the introduction, Turner states that the “proverbial mentions” of Lincolnshire he found during his extensive research were all seemingly “disparaging”, showing the county as “decaying, boorishly rustic”, and even a target of “diabolical ire”.<br /><br />When asked about Lincolnshire not many, he says, responded with a good word, while others seemed “nonplussed” even to be asked. “The mere word could almost be a conversation killer,” he writes. “Lincolnshire started to look like a continent apart - a large, and largely blank, space, almost islanded by cold sea, great estuaries, soggy wastes, and a filigree of fenny waterways.”<br /><br />In the book’s opening, Turner defines the county as “an ill-defined, in-between transit zone lazily assumed to have no ‘must-see’ sights and little that was even interesting”. He goes on to say the county was “notable chiefly to agronomists and economists as a high-functioning English version of Ukraine, sometimes even called ‘the bread-basket of England’, where steppe-sized harvesters combed squared fields between equally angular chicken sheds. It was a county very hard to comprehend”.<br /><br />Turner readily describes his book as "amorphous" and his narrative duly wanders amiably through the different regions, building as it does so a fascinating - and no doubt to many readers unexpected - portrait of landscape and place.<br /><br />Indeed this county-wide tour covers pretty much every quarter, taking the reader from the "huge and muddy maw" of The Wash and the flat, reclaimed fenland of "South Holland" to Lincoln "the City on the Cliff" and the beautiful Wolds, before heading north-east to the Humber and the once great fishing town of Grimsby.<br /><br />Turner thinks the county is already less distinctive than when he moved there because every day it becomes “a tiny bit more like everywhere else”. There are “more roads, more traffic, more bland homes, and fewer small shops, fewer mouldering old buildings, fewer quiet places, fewer wild animals”.<br /><br />Lincolnshire, he also observes, has more than its fair share of bungalows with plastic windows, caravan parks, garden centres and chicken farms. “Is it so surprising that so many passing through shake their heads and tap the accelerator?” he asks.<br /><br />The book is punctuated too with poignant insights and anecdotes, such as: “Lincolnshire people, like people everywhere, have often misused their environment, would probably have exhausted it long ago had they had the means, and must often have resented their lot. But some at least must have loved where they lived, finding a locus for patriotism in the disregarded plain, just as other English see Jerusalem in Barking or Huddersfield.”<br /><br />As a true convert to an “unfashionable” county, Turner says he first alighted on the prairie-like plains and marshes of Lincolnshire in search of his own “understanding” and, in doing so, discovered a “huge new side to England”. <br /> <br />“For all its problems - past, present or projected - Lincolnshire is still a county like no other,” he concludes. “This is an England time half-forgot, where you can still find an unabashed past inside an unpretentious present - and freedom and space on a little offshore island.”<br /><br />For any potential visitor, armchair traveller or existing resident, whether born and bred in the county or a relative newcomer, this is so much more than a mere guidebook or informative travelogue. <br /><br />Lincolnshire’s understated chronicles, unfashionable towns and undervalued countryside conceal fascinating stories, as well as unique landscapes - its Wolds are lonely and beautiful, its towns characterful, and its marshlands and dynamic coast metaphors for constant change.<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">Turner has produced a hauntingly beautiful and honest lament to a rural existence threatened by encroaching modernity, materialism and standardisation as well as the accumulating effects of climate change. If ever a county deserved a book all of its own then it must be the oft overlooked one of Lincolnshire. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK6SIhFlR7BDElS0c1F6GGMmtTljQTWwYb2HDm8P3iFsS9SFb0RIyfXTl78O9sPKWqbrWjJtTT1_r-wVxCuGG10k2doUxcPhiW8A8xHGRcufA3DEdkY22QJm3-dYGNXtlJdf1F6zigDEf3V44Zs6m4jLoVzTqRDZviCVAc-rGzBV2E-bXhr0lsxjXp/s768/Edge%20of%20England_Cover1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="616" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK6SIhFlR7BDElS0c1F6GGMmtTljQTWwYb2HDm8P3iFsS9SFb0RIyfXTl78O9sPKWqbrWjJtTT1_r-wVxCuGG10k2doUxcPhiW8A8xHGRcufA3DEdkY22QJm3-dYGNXtlJdf1F6zigDEf3V44Zs6m4jLoVzTqRDZviCVAc-rGzBV2E-bXhr0lsxjXp/s320/Edge%20of%20England_Cover1.jpg" width="257" /></a></i></div><i><br /> </i><p></p><p><i> </i></p><p><i> </i></p><p><i> <br /></i></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Editor's note: This review was written by Clive Simpson for the Central Bylines website and published under the title '<a href="https://centralbylines.co.uk/testament-to-lincolnshire/" target="_blank">Tesatment to Lincolnshire</a>' in January 2023.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><i>'Edge of England - Landfall in Lincolnshire’ was published by <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/edge-of-england/" target="_blank">Hurst</a> in 2022, ISBN: 9781787386983. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Purchase from your local independent bookshop!</i></span><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-25280661511298991402023-01-15T16:18:00.003+00:002023-01-17T16:40:08.572+00:00Spotting leaky pipes from orbit<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiithEDcQiemcJK_oRVWKL7ArOyZLXVr0mCJlR5XgK34qHc5aHMZeefCuh8rZOZbP167MERnlkCaI_w2xG6mWocXL9UkvyfnvvU6fDRCCeNxwYSmhFQ1vl-kEpfN77veEXvMpDmmE2MXWgzBjq_uPbK4W2JxqN61XEigTHVcyWtDkxB3lQCiaMX5Pt6/s1078/Water-Leak-Detection.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="847" data-original-width="1078" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiithEDcQiemcJK_oRVWKL7ArOyZLXVr0mCJlR5XgK34qHc5aHMZeefCuh8rZOZbP167MERnlkCaI_w2xG6mWocXL9UkvyfnvvU6fDRCCeNxwYSmhFQ1vl-kEpfN77veEXvMpDmmE2MXWgzBjq_uPbK4W2JxqN61XEigTHVcyWtDkxB3lQCiaMX5Pt6/w400-h314/Water-Leak-Detection.jpg" title="Satellite image with blue lines showing water pipes and yellow dots “points of interest” where satellite data indicates a leak. Credit: JAXA" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>PRIVATE utility Anglian Water, which supplies water services to around seven million people across eastern England and is under pressure to cut back on excessive wastage from leaky pipes, is turning to out-of-this-world technology for help.<br /><br />The Huntingdon-based company is using space age technology, originally developed to detect water lying below the surface of Mars, the red planet, to locate hard to find underground leaks. Information gathered by the latest Earth-orbiting satellites is crunched by specialist computer algorithms and then turned into images as a way of helping engineers solve the costly environmental problem.<br /><br />The system was first created to detect water on Mars and pioneering space firm Asterra is now redeploying its space know-how to help utility companies like Anglian Water solve a long-standing problem.<br /><br />“It’s not just water that is wasted by leaking pipes – every drop also represents a substantial emission of carbon,” says founder and chief technology officer of the London and Tel Aviv-based company, Lauren Guy.<br /><br />Anglian Water admits it loses 182 million litres of water per day across its network, an equivalent leakage of approximately 16-18 percent when compared to the amount of water running through the network each day.<br /><br />“We recently used the Asterra technology to pinpoint some significant leaks that would never have been identified due to the relatively low percentage loss”, a company spokesperson said.<br /><br />“These non-visible, underground leaks were in remote areas and would never have been reported by a customer, or indeed found using traditional detection sweeps.<br /><br />“They often run through agricultural and rural farmland where traditional detection, or even smart distribution leakage technology, is difficult to use due to the lack of fittings and the sheer geographical size of an area.”<br /><br />The water firm says the Asterra expertise allows it to use satellite data to detect leaks from otherwise difficult-to-inspect transfer pipes and trunk mains right across its system.<br /><br />Before space technology stepped in, staff from water utility companies had to ‘walk the line’ in search of leaks, often manually inspecting mile upon mile of pipes each day in the hope of catching the sound of trickling water. <br /><br />More modern techniques, such as installing acoustic sensors to listen automatically for leaking pipes are effective but can only cover limited areas before becoming cost prohibitive. Planetary scientists searching for the holy grail of Martian water then realised that orbiting spacecraft with special radar sensors could be used to spy out water lying below the red planet’s surface.<br /><br />Asterra’s adaptation of this space-based solution for terrestrial use came after Guy realised that if satellite technology could locate water under the surface of Mars it could also be used to help track down water leakages closer to home. His discovery was made possible by sensors known in the space business as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which are used on many of the latest low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and can peer through cloud and below Earth’s surface.<br /><br />L-band SAR uses the motion of a radio antenna to build up images which typically cover areas of around 3,500 square km at a time. It works by transmitting radio frequency waves and recording what is reflected to the receiver, revealing details on the nature of the reflective material, including the moisture content of soil.<br /><br />Asterra’s breakthrough relies on sophisticated data processing using proprietary geophysical modelling and analysis. “It allows us to pick up the signature of leaking water in densely populated urban areas packed with interferences to SAR imaging”, explains Guy. “The observations are much more than high-quality images and, since perfecting the art of extracting a signal from the noise, we can provide game-changing insights to the water industry.”<br /><br />All this means city and county-wide systems for transporting drinking water and wastewater can be more easily analysed to identify subsurface leaks that otherwise go undetected. (See satellite image from JAXA at top of article with blue lines showing water pipes and yellow dots “points of interest” where satellite data indicates a leak). <br /><br />“It goes without saying that if leaks can be plugged, then the volume of water saved can amount to an entirely new water source and the requirement to drill new wells, raise dams or invest in expensive desalination plants is significantly reduced,” says Guy. <br /><br />“Cleaning, treating, pumping and distributing water is an energy-intensive process, and any water going to waste represents unnecessary greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere. Our mission is to help water infrastructure companies improve the distribution of clean water and cut back on waste.”</p><p></p><p> <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Editor's note: an original version of this article was published on <a href="https://centralbylines.co.uk/hi-tech-mars-system-helps-identify-leaky-underground-pipes-on-earth/" target="_blank">Central Bylines</a></span></i>. <br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-66297290438271463602023-01-11T10:37:00.025+00:002023-01-17T12:52:49.627+00:00Satellites lost in UK launch failure<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQz0m96JFqaGdiQgXOwTrPnPMgPbZymtvZYikhePxTl6ldm59WonPdnSDfIZQcwWw0PsOgvlz5Ew_EZJQ68VwkebP9614UlW4ufaQLKfEuhRWvuIDuNRge3GgtHgBzitnOayT4T-6sCTqAoXESfuF1orYoPwDv9TBDgjNz0oTd058Dqmq7MKT4eA7l/s1926/virgin%20orbit%20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="913" data-original-width="1926" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQz0m96JFqaGdiQgXOwTrPnPMgPbZymtvZYikhePxTl6ldm59WonPdnSDfIZQcwWw0PsOgvlz5Ew_EZJQ68VwkebP9614UlW4ufaQLKfEuhRWvuIDuNRge3GgtHgBzitnOayT4T-6sCTqAoXESfuF1orYoPwDv9TBDgjNz0oTd058Dqmq7MKT4eA7l/w459-h218/virgin%20orbit%20.jpg" width="459" /></a></div><p>AN INVESTIGATION has been launched after an attempt to make space
history by launching satellites from British soil for the first time has
ended in failure due to an anomaly in the second stage of Virgin
Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket.</p><p>After successfully taking off from
the runway at Spaceport Cornwall and travelling to the designated drop
zone, Cosmic Girl, the customized 747 Jumbo Jet that serves as the
LauncherOne system's carrier aircraft, successfully released the rocket.
<br /><br />The rocket ignited its first stage engines, quickly going
hypersonic and successfully reaching space. The flight then continued
through successful stage separation and ignition of the second stage but
at some point during the firing of the rocket's second stage engine,
and with the rocket travelling at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per
hour, the system experienced an anomaly which prematurely ended the
mission. <br /><br />The first stage burns for around three minutes before
reaching main engine cutoff (MECO) and stage separation occurs some
three seconds later. The second stage’s NewtonFour engine ignites four
seconds after separation to begin the first of two planned burns.<br /><br />The
payload fairing separates from the nose of LauncherOne about 20-30
seconds after second stage ignition. The first burn was to last about
five and a half minutes, ending with second stage engine cutoff 1
(SECO-1). With this complete, the second stage would enter a coast
phase, performing a barbecue roll to help manage thermal conditions.<br /><br />Around
the D+47 minute mark in the mission, the second stage was planned to
begin to reorient itself to make its second burn. This burn would have
commenced about six and a quarter minutes later, with the burn lasting a
few seconds to circularise the orbit. Payload deployments were expected
to begin about a minute after the end of the second burn.<br /><br />A
Virgin Orbit spokesperson said: “Though the mission did not achieve its
final orbit by reaching space and achieving numerous significant
first-time achievements, it represents an important step forward. <br /><br />“The
effort behind the flight brought together new partnerships and
integrated collaboration from a wide range of partners, including the UK
Space Agency, the Royal Air Force, the Civil Aviation Authority, the US
Federal Aviation Administration, the National Reconnaissance Office,
and more, and demonstrated that space launch is achievable from UK
soil.”<br /> <br />The company said that out of five LauncherOne missions
carrying payloads for private companies and governmental agencies, this
is the first to fall short of delivering its payloads to their precise
target orbit. <br /><br />Earlier in the evening the Start Me Up mission had
got off to a seemingly perfect start as Cosmic Girl - which had
previously only been launched from its Calfornia base the Mojave Air
& Space Port - took off from Newquay Airport in Cornwall on the
south west coast of England. <br /><br />On a cold and windy night, it was
cheered on by around 2000 spectators who had been lucky enough to
receive tickets to witness the start of the mission from special viewing
areas at the airport and on giant screens. The plane took off precisely
on time at 1701 EST (2201 GMT) Monday (January 9, 2023).<br /><br />Piloted
by Sqn Ldr Matthew Stannard, a Royal Air Force test pilot, it headed
out over the Atlantic to the south west of Ireland to reach a height of
35,000 ft (10,700 m) where it performed a ‘race track’ manoeuver before
releasing LauncherOne.<br /><br />The two-stage, expendable launch vehicle
is designed to place small satellites of up to 500 kg (1,100 lb) into a
wide range of low Earth orbits (LEO). Rather than launching from the
ground like a conventional rocket, it is carried to launch altitude by
the 747 aircraft which has its own mission control room in the plane's
former Premium & Economy cabin. <br /><br />Among the nine satellites
onboard were the UK's Ministry of Defence, the sultanate of Oman, the US
National Reconnaissance Office and British startups including the Welsh
company Space Forge, which is developing reusable satellites. All were
lost before reaching orbit and are likely to have burnt up in Earth’s
atmosphere.<br /><br />Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit CEO, said: "While we are very
proud of the many things that we successfully achieved as part of this
mission, we are mindful that we failed to provide our customers with the
launch service they deserve. <br /><br />“The first-time nature of this
mission added layers of complexity that our team professionally managed
through; however, in the end a technical failure appears to have
prevented us from delivering the final orbit. We will work tirelessly to
understand the nature of the failure, make corrective actions, and
return to orbit as soon as we have completed a full investigation and
mission assurance process." <br /><br />The UK-launched mission - titled
Start Me Up in honor of the Rolling Stones' 1981 hit - brought timely
publicity to the emergence of a competitive small-launch sector, just as
Europe grapples with reduced launch capability due to the Ukraine war,
which has cut access to Russian Soyuz vehicles, as well as Ariane 6
delays and the grounding of Vega rockets after a failed launch last
month.<br /><br />Matt Archer, director of commercial spaceflight at the UK
Space Agency (UKSA), said he was hugely disappointed that the mission
had not been successful but still pleased that the first launch of
satellites from Europe had taken place from British soil.<br /><br />“We
don’t know what caused the anomaly but we achieved a launch,” he added.
“A lot of positives have been achieved but space is hard and we knew
that this had a risk of failure because launches don’t always work. But
we’ve created the conditions for launch here. We’ve shown we can do it
and we’ll look to do it again.”<br /><br />Spaceport Cornwall received the
United Kingdom’s first-ever spaceport license from the UK Civil Aviation
Authority (CAA) in November and in late December Virgin Orbit was
issued launch and range control licenses, which ensured all regulatory,
safety and environmental requirements had been met.<br /><br />Expressing
her own disappointment, Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall,
said: “We put our hearts and soul into this and it is absolutely
devastating. But this isn’t the first time we’ve been knocked but this
is definitely the biggest definitely. We’re a resilient team and we’ll
get up and we’ll go again.”<br /><br />Virgin Orbit’s previous four
operational launches, which all lifted off from California, were all
successful and had deployed a total of 33 small satellites. Despite its
latest failure to orbit satellites on Monday night, the mission notched
up a number of space firsts including the first orbital launch from the
United Kingdom, the first international launch for Virgin Orbit, and the
first commercial launch from western Europe.<br /><br />The idea of
releasing a rocket from a converted jetliner was pioneered by Orbital
Sciences in the 1990s as a novel way of offering a flexible and low-cost
route to orbit as the demand for sending small satellites into low
Earth orbit grows exponentially.<br /><br />Chris Larmour, CEO of UK-based
rocket company Orbex, said: “Space is never easy, so we were sorry to
learn that Virgin Orbit's first horizontal orbital space launch from the
UK did not go as planned. We know how much time, effort and energy must
have been invested to deliver that launch attempt, and we wish them
well for their next mission. <br /><br />“The Orbex team is fully focused on
introducing the UK to vertical orbital launches with the debut of our
UK-built environmentally-friendly rocket, Prime. We will be launching
from our own pad at Sutherland Spaceport in Scotland in the near
future.” </p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Editor's note: Original versions of this article were published by <a href="https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/01/10/satellites-fail-to-reach-orbit-as-first-launch-from-uk-ends-in-disappointment/" target="_blank">Spaceflight Now</a> and <a href="https://room.eu.com/news/virgin-orbit-fails-to-deliver-on-first-launch-from-uk" target="_blank">ROOM Space Journal</a>.</span></i><br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-51511059074667658592022-12-20T10:17:00.001+00:002023-01-17T10:34:53.685+00:00Area devastated by reservoir plan<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Jhhb4n7v0lbz6Gm67P5VffhNvJrVggFDdffzDzwq-xJfFtRiP_da8-wUpUl1b-2egRo4Y9U-O8rKE3Y5H6YQqmLAO3G4r1BxI1tPavpIwog3cIVCqyJ4NFQQH1o7uGnQtky7xkXJwsubrEmTSMy6lCKjr--4JuOljUOMSRs9MEUj1dqUzfQMnD30/s3730/sheep%20farm%20lr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2286" data-original-width="3730" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Jhhb4n7v0lbz6Gm67P5VffhNvJrVggFDdffzDzwq-xJfFtRiP_da8-wUpUl1b-2egRo4Y9U-O8rKE3Y5H6YQqmLAO3G4r1BxI1tPavpIwog3cIVCqyJ4NFQQH1o7uGnQtky7xkXJwsubrEmTSMy6lCKjr--4JuOljUOMSRs9MEUj1dqUzfQMnD30/w400-h245/sheep%20farm%20lr.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />A MULIT-BILLION pound infrastructure project to build a reservoir on land near Sleaford in South Lincolnshire would transform the local landscape as well as devastating families and farmers who would lose their homes and businesses.<br /><br />Private utility Anglian Water has kicked off a 10-week public consultation which will run until 21 December. This is the first part of a multi-phased consultation process on the proposal before a Development Consent Order is requested. A final decision is expected to be made by the government in 2027.<br /><br />The application process will see test digging and excavations across the area and, if approved, full-scale construction could be underway within seven years. The reservoir would start supplying water to the Anglian Water region by the end of the 2030s.<br /><br />The five square km reservoir would be sandwiched between the villages of Scredington, Swaton and Helpringham, with the A52 road near Threekingham marking its southern boundary. It is expected to extend over 1,000 acres – similar in size to Anglian Water’s Grafham reservoir near Huntingdon – and cost an estimated £2bn.<br /><br />Alex Plant Director of Strategy & Regulation for Anglian Water, said: “The reality is stark for the East of England. Getting these projects underway now means the chances of our taps running dry in the future are significantly reduced.<br /><br />“We operate in the driest part of the country and receive a third less rainfall than anywhere else in the UK, but we’re also one of the fastest growing regions, with 175,000 new homes to be built in the next five years. Without action we will face a water deficit of millions of litres a day within the next five years – let alone 25 years.”<br /><br />Anglian Water anticipates that its ‘South Lincolnshire Reservoir’ would be able to supply around 100 million litres of water per day throughout the year. By comparison the utility company loses 183 million litres of water per day across its network, an equivalent leakage of approximately 16-18% when compared to the amount of water running through its pipes each day.<br /><br />Les Parker a member of Sleaford Climate Action Network (SCAN), said Anglian Water should first demonstrate it has done all it can to reduce demand and thereby the need for additional storage. <br /><br />“This means not just minimising leaks but also ensuring users, and particularly large industrial users, reduce demand by becoming more efficient.<br /><br />“We should also ask whether this is the best location from an operational point of view and be sure it causes the lowest ecological impact achievable for any of the workable locations. <br /><br />“This would mean not only considering existing ‘nature’ but also minimising the impact on land requirement for food production by avoiding high grade agricultural land.”<br /><br />Parker added that Anglian Water needed to ensure any new reservoir improves the ecology of an area used, including damage caused to local infrastructure during construction.<br /><br />Farmers Ian and Rebecca Chick have been at Highgate Farm, Scredington, since they bought it seven years ago. They now supply 4,000 pigs a year to Waitrose and Marks & Spencer as well as having 600 sheep, 40 goats and nine alpacas.<br /><br />“It’s not only about the farm’s value but also the investment we have made, which is twice what we paid for the farm and its land,” said Rebecca.<br /><br />“We’re fully established now and very productive. The farm is our future and, like everyone else affected, we are totally devastated. So far Anglian Water has not even bothered to turn up at any of the meetings to hear our side of the story.”<br /><br />Lyn Sills of Spanby, says that after news of the reservoir plan first came out in September the sale of her farmhouse had immediately fallen through.<br /><br />“I am now in a situation where I am unable to build, unable to sell and unable to remortgage, and Fisher German, the agent for Anglian Water, has requested an eight year option – it’s a joke!” she said.<br /><br />After meeting with residents, local MP for Sleaford & North Hykeham Dr Carolyn Johnson called for clear and honest communication by Anglian Water.<br /><br />“Many of my constituents living within the Scredington, Helpringham, Burton, Spanby and Swaton communities will be incredibly concerned. People are understandably distressed about what these proposals, should they go ahead, mean for their homes and livelihoods, with this area being home to many local farmers in particular,” she said.<br /><br />“Not only are there deep concerns about the location of the reservoir in the first instance, but also about the knock-on effects such as house prices, business plans for farmers and the mental health of those affected by the reservoir.”<br /><br />The MP says she plans to hold further meetings with Anglian Water to highlight the impact that the proposed location of this reservoir and the timescale for construction would have on her constituents.<br /><br />“I will keep local residents updated on these meetings and I would encourage those affected to engage fully in the public consultation processes,” she added.<br /><br />Another of the many farming families devastated by the project is Hannah Thorogood, who runs an organic farm known as The Inkpot which lies right at the heart of the area laid out in the plans.<br /><br />“Of course we are all heartbroken,” she said. “The whole area is now blighted for a very long time and though Anglian Water have repeatedly indicated just 12 residents would be affected our calculations are that at least 100 people, and probably a lot more, will lose their homes, or land or both. In addition, some 1700 residents in neighbouring villages will potentially be looking at steep, bunded banks.<br /><br />“There is so much more to this than meets the eye and the massive construction and land moving effort will give it a huge carbon footprint. Among other things, the uncertainty this has delivered is already affecting people’s mental health.”<br /><br />Over the past decade single-mum Hannah has transformed 18-acres of land into a diverse and vibrant organic farm, recognised nationally and producing award-winning food.<br /><br />The Inkpot is an example of regenerative agriculture and permaculture with a herd of rare breed Lincolnshire Red cows, sheep and turkeys. It has been home to Hannah’s family since September 2010, in which time they have also planted 3,000 trees and introduced the holistic grazing of cows and sheep.<br /><br />“We understand that affected residents will not receive the value of their homes or farms until 2029, so effectively none of us can move on with our lives until then. We will be forced to live under this shadow while in the meantime they can come and start intrusive advance surveying,” Hannah added.<br /><br />In response to questions, Anglian Water said the outer faces of the embankments would be designed to “reflect the character of the existing landscape” with embankment height around the reservoir up to 25m in places.<br /><br />As a comparison, one of the area’s most recognisable local landmarks – Heckington’s historic eight-sailed windmill – stands at about 20m high above the flat fen landscape.<br /><br />A spokesperson also stated that the majority of excavated materials will be re-used in construction so they will not need to be transported off site, reducing the number of HGV movements.<br /><br />“Whilst there will be some associated construction traffic, it is too early to say which routes will be affected and we will work closely with relevant highways authorities, local authorities and the surrounding communities to mitigate impacts as much as possible.”<br /><br />The spokesperson added that the existing Helpringham to Scredington Road – falling within the reservoir’s planned footprint – would be diverted on a new route around the embankments.<br /><br />Deputy President of the National Farmer’s Union (NFU) Tom Bradshaw, stressed that the development process must protect the needs of farmers, landowners and tenants, and ensure they are actively involved in decision-making at all stages.<br /><br />He said the NFU recognised the critical importance of water to build resilience in domestic food production systems, but would be seeking assurances that farming businesses would benefit from the additional water resources of a new reservoir.<br /><br />“Such major schemes can have significant adverse impacts on farm businesses and the people involved. It’s vital that the design and implementation during construction must be carried out in a way that minimises the impact on land ownership and farming operations.<br /><br />“We will be working to support any members affected by these schemes and to ensure that agricultural water needs are recognised as an explicit part of future resource use plans.”<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Editor’s note: Versions of this article have appeared in Heckington Living magazine and on <a href="https://centralbylines.co.uk/reservoir-plan-will-devastate-livelihoods-property-and-impact-local-landscape/" target="_blank">Central Bylines</a>.</i></span><p></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-12165640803020402142022-10-27T12:00:00.009+01:002022-10-27T12:28:50.207+01:00A whiter shade of pale<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMNydtcT1Kbhk3zPIulHvTjC9ikTyy58hBHfz6CiFMeJf1bxfQ183Mxjl2HzDfRALm7xcCDZXq16Ja9qpidlQC7Mtxyx9ok641dXsSiJgaG2Lem5rEaYSzCiKWSobKZSxTu1lopdtG3Z5a31zfRvhiNW91yTN1H5KWEWmE8dU_b0YYfGhBXkTO4si4/s3456/London_at_night.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="3456" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMNydtcT1Kbhk3zPIulHvTjC9ikTyy58hBHfz6CiFMeJf1bxfQ183Mxjl2HzDfRALm7xcCDZXq16Ja9qpidlQC7Mtxyx9ok641dXsSiJgaG2Lem5rEaYSzCiKWSobKZSxTu1lopdtG3Z5a31zfRvhiNW91yTN1H5KWEWmE8dU_b0YYfGhBXkTO4si4/w507-h154/London_at_night.jpg" width="507" /></a></div><p></p><p>MOST Europeans live under light-polluted skies and the first colour map of Europe at night, created with images from the International Space Station (ISS), shows a sharp increase in light pollution. The resulting picture is not a pretty one for the environment.<br /><br />Over the last two decades, astronauts on the Space Station have witnessed how cities shine whiter at night as new street lighting technologies were introduced.<br /><br />When ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti gazed at Earth from orbit during her recent Minerva mission, cities glowed brighter than the stars. Since 2003, Samantha and other European astronauts have taken over a million pictures of Earth at night with digital cameras to demonstrate the true extent of light pollution.<br /><br />A team of European researchers processed the pictures and compared them over time, showing a clear increase of lighting pollution in urban areas, and a shift towards whiter and bluer emissions. This is due to the widespread introduction of light-emitting diode lamps, or LED technology.<br /><br />“As seen from space, the resulting image looks like a cancer scan or a fluorescent spider’s web that keeps growing,” says Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel, research fellow at the UK’s University of Exeter. Their recent paper highlights how invasive night lights are and their negative effects for the environment.<br /><br />As Europe turns lights down in an urge to save energy, scientists warn that it should not only be about reducing bills – brighter nights are disrupting the night cycle for humans, animals and plants.<br /><br />Colour pictures taken from the Space Station are the best source for scientists to map artificial light at night. Current satellite images are not fit for purpose because their colour sensitivity does not show low wavelength emissions with enough quality.<br /><br />“Without the images taken by the astronauts, we would be driving blind into the environmental impact of the LED transition,” says Alejandro. “Astronaut photos have always been – and will always be – the baseline for night time Earth observations.” <br /><br />The composite nighttime colour maps created before and after the spread of LED streetlight technology show a pronounced whitening of artificial light. See view of London from ISS at top of page - the images were taken 400 km above Earth by André Kuipers in 2012 (left) and by Samantha Cristoforetti in 2022.<br /><br />The changes vary per country, and reflect different systems and policies when it comes to light the streets. Whereas there has been a marked increase in light pollution in Italy and the United Kingdom, countries like Germany and Austria show a less dramatic change in spectral emissions.<br /><br />Milan was the first city in Europe to do a total conversion of its street lighting to white LEDs, and more than half of all the public street lighting in the UK was converted by early 2019.<br /><br />Germany’s glow is whitening, and the country has a lot of fluorescent and mercury vapour lights still in use.<br /><br />“By the end of this decade, all Europe could look white from space,” says Alejandro.<br /><br />On the warmer side of the spectrum, Belgium shines in deep orange due to the widespread use of low-pressure sodium lights. High-pressure sodium lights make the Netherlands emit a golden glow.<br /><br />According to the scientists, the transition towards white and blue-rich light radiation is eroding the natural nighttime cycles across the continent. It disturbs the circadian day-and-night rhythm of living organisms, including humans, with negative health effects on species and whole ecosystems.<br /><br />The study focuses on three major negative impacts: the suppression of melatonin, the phototaxic response of insects and bats, and the visibility of stars in the night sky.<br /><br />“When we turn the streetlights on, we deprive our body of the hormone melatonin and disrupt our natural sleep pattern,” explains Alejandro.<br /><br />Most insects and nocturnal animals are extremely sensitive to light. Not only moths, but almost all the bat species that bread in Europe live in regions where the spectral composition of nighttime lighting has become whiter. Scientists claim that this has a direct impact in their ability to move and react to a light source, also called phototaxic response.<br /><br />Along with other animals, humans have long used the stars for navigation. In modern times, a worsening in the visibility of stars goes beyond geolocation and astronomical observations. Scientists are concerned that not seeing the night sky may have negative impacts on people’s sense of ‘nature’ and their place in the universe.<br /><br />While the LED lighting revolution promised to reduce energy consumption and improve human vision at night – and with it, a sense of safety –, the study shows that overall emissions have increased. Paradoxically, the cheaper and better the lighting, the higher is society’s addiction to light.<br /><br />The paper speculates with the existence of a ‘rebound effect’ in outdoor lighting, where power efficiency and associated cost reduction increases the demand for lighting and diminishes any efficiency gains. <br /><br />Urban nights in Europe are growing a little darker though. Pushed by a looming energy crisis, wasted light is financially more painful. Several European cities are switching off the lights – from Madrid to Paris and via Berlin, hundreds of monuments and public buildings are no longer illuminated at night.<br /><br />These initiatives are all part of efforts to reduce energy consumption by 15 percent, following plans laid out by the European Commission last month. The objective is two-fold: to foster a resilient and more autonomous economy ahead of the winter, and to responsibly reduce carbon emissions.<br /><br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-51717852803756811432022-09-30T14:26:00.016+01:002022-10-25T07:19:56.886+01:00Conceived in space<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypZRSZigmhMtWWSA9tGbKiBscwusHHWzz8U2xozg2_BiEntGmllTzzKEeZSQEuCDmdi0DO48xzI6vXbJWhtzZ9XhHi8SJWWw41lTEzQR35eVMg9xCJO0tDEJTd8MkndKGEBbxHQKRfOPKTYjEtRtNdB2MunCdjVFqEnxy3veBMnVV3YdNhv_lpC-j/s5610/signing-ceremony.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3210" data-original-width="5610" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypZRSZigmhMtWWSA9tGbKiBscwusHHWzz8U2xozg2_BiEntGmllTzzKEeZSQEuCDmdi0DO48xzI6vXbJWhtzZ9XhHi8SJWWw41lTEzQR35eVMg9xCJO0tDEJTd8MkndKGEBbxHQKRfOPKTYjEtRtNdB2MunCdjVFqEnxy3veBMnVV3YdNhv_lpC-j/w400-h229/signing-ceremony.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />DUTCH-based space research firm SpaceBorn United is targeting a
ground-breaking space mission in the first half of 2023 that will see the
fertilisation of rodent embryos in artificial gravity followed by a
pregnancy and birth in a laboratory back on Earth.
<p></p>
<p>Using SpaceBorn’s new ‘Space-Embryo-Incubator’ flying in low Earth
orbit (LEO), several mice will become the first animals in history to be
conceived and born in this way.
</p>
<p>A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was signed by SpaceBorn United CEO
Egbert Edelbroek and Izmir Yamin, CEO of Malaysian re-entry capsule
manufacturer Independence-X Aerospace (IDXA), at the International
Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris, France.
</p>
<p>The agreement paves the way for an initial flight next year of the
ARTIS (Assisted Reproduction Technology in Space) mission which will use
Independence-X’s low-cost launch service and re-entry capsule.
</p>
<p>“Our ARTIS prototype is in full development to prepare for the first
test flight. Our goal to enable safe embryo development in space starts
with testing the prototype in space with mouse sperm and oocytes,” said
Dr Edelbroek.
</p>
<p>“A series of ARTIS missions in the coming years will enable research
on partial gravity effects on embryo development and help us move
towards the ultimate goal of human reproduction and childbirth in
space.”
</p>
<p>The payload contains male and female reproduction cells and, once
deployed in LEO, the embryos are automatically impregnated and start
developing in an artificial, Earth-like level of gravity. After five
days the incubator is returned to Earth via the Independence-X re-entry
vehicle, known as MERCAP (Microgravity Experiment Re-entry Capsule).
</p>
<p>In laboratory conditions back on Earth, the embryos will be placed in
healthy mouse pups for gestation and birth to occur, their development
monitored and compared to control samples.
</p>
<p>Independence-X is a Malaysian space company that has developed a
small launch vehicle called DNLV (Dedicated Nano Launch Vehicle) with a
maximum payload of 200 kg and capable of putting satellites into LEO.
</p>
<p>“The signing of the MoA between Independence-X Aerospace and
SpaceBorn United marks a historic moment in the space industry,” says
Mohd Izmir bin Yamin, Founder, CEO & CTO.
</p>
<p>“For the first time an unmanned orbital laboratory with re-entry
capabilities is being flown for bio tech research and we see this as a
key to unlock potential for the human expansion into the deep space.
</p>
<p>“Independence-X will provide the re-entry vehicle and the on board
support system, SpaceBorn United will provide the precious microfluidic
payload to carry out the experiment in space,” he added.
</p>
<p>“This MOA will mark the beginning of human reproduction in Space and
the next step for humanity to become a multi-planetary species.”
</p>
<p>IDXA is a company of industry professionals and academics based at
Sendayan Metropark in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. As well as serving the
global space industry, it aims to create a Malaysian space hub and
contribute to socio-economic development of the region through
space-related technologies.
</p>
<p>SpaceBorn United, based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, describes
itself as the first bio-tech and mission development company working to
make human conception and embryo development in space feasible,
eventually enabling human pregnancy and birth in space.
</p>
<p>Dr Edelbroek, who is also an MP of the space nation Asgardia which
was formed in 2016 and has the stated goal of facilitating the first
human birth in space, added: “If humanity wants to become a
multi-planetary species we also need to learn how to reproduce in space.
This is what we are working towards.”</p><p style="text-align: center;">* * * <br /></p><p><i>In the photo above:</i> MOA signing ceremony in Paris. Pictured are (standing from left): Nor Azila Wirda binti Mohd Din (Deputy Director, MIDA Paris), Abdullah Ma'amor bin Ibrahim, Minister Counsellor (Malaysian Embassy, France), Mohd Fadeli bin Md Halid (Product Engineer, Independence-X Aerospace), Afiq bin Mohd Rashdi (Control Systems Engineer, Independence-X Aerospace), Dr Aqeel Shamsul (CEO, Frontier Space Technologies Ltd) and Mat Zalasiewicz (CTO, Frontier Space Technologies Ltd). Sitting: Mohd Izmir bin Yamin (Founder, CEO & CTO, Independence-X Aerospace) and Dr Egbert Edelbroek (Founder & CEO, SpaceBorn United).</p><p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Editor's note:</i> given the somewhat controversial nature of engineering conceptions in space and its long-term implications, I am suprised this story, from the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris, did not get more traction and/or star billing in some of the tabloid press. A plan to conceive mice in Earth orbit and then have them born in a laboratory back on Earth would write its own headlines!<br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-34347137211259771212022-09-01T13:47:00.002+01:002022-10-24T14:08:35.996+01:00North Norfolk's rocket firm<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih8Gq5Z6nK3hmvRQ2yOkJELH5gACXQNMoBRAOeJfRXnapyS4J729QwQgICDxvf4e_DL7erkcpNns4-1IfXA-Uf5tWDoAHFlmvEoLYsmIRgW_F1JLQg4k6VpWBYCKeUTOBKPMiM4illQJtmMQiZYF2eOYRPzZwE8BMQVSPkepSPyiMihzp9-RkrJ85k/s3630/Gravitilab%20%20lr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2229" data-original-width="3630" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih8Gq5Z6nK3hmvRQ2yOkJELH5gACXQNMoBRAOeJfRXnapyS4J729QwQgICDxvf4e_DL7erkcpNns4-1IfXA-Uf5tWDoAHFlmvEoLYsmIRgW_F1JLQg4k6VpWBYCKeUTOBKPMiM4illQJtmMQiZYF2eOYRPzZwE8BMQVSPkepSPyiMihzp9-RkrJ85k/w400-h245/Gravitilab%20%20lr.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />From Beijing and Hyderabad to Adelaide, from Kazakstan to Mexico, from French Guiana to Florida - over the years I've had the privilege to travel pretty much all over the world to report on space stories, launches and space conferences.<p></p><p>So over the summer it was rather nice to receive an invite to cover a space-related event somewhere much closer to home - infact barely a stone's throw from my home in Lincolnshire, a relatively short drive away in the county of Norfolk.</p><p></p><p>Colleague Daniel Smith, the founder of AstroAgency, came down from Edinburgh too for the event and so we were able to car-share the journey across the flatplans of the Lincolnshire Fens into the kinder and gently rolling Norfolk countryside.</p><p>Here's my story from the day, which was published on several space and general news websites.</p><p style="text-align: center;">* * *<br /></p><p>AMBITIOUS space-start-up Gravitilab is leading the race to establish the
first vertical launch site in England close to the nerve centre of the
UK space industry. <br /><br />Operating from a former RAF base in the
wilds of North Norfolk, the firm also plans to corner a slice of the
international space market with its world-leading zero-gravity drone and
eco-friendly sounding rockets.<br /> <br />Gravitilab claims it is the
first UK-based company to provide end-to-end microgravity for research
and testing, as well as the first in the world to offer it from a
drone-launched pod system. <br /><br />The firm’s fleet of rockets, designed
exclusively for microgravity testing, includes ADA which became the
first ever commercial rocket launched from UK soil in August 2021. <br /><br />ADA
is a smaller version of its principal commercial rocket, ISAAC, will
fly to an altitude of 250 km and provide around 300 seconds of
microgravity before returning to Earth for recovery and re-use. Its
inaugural mission is slated for the first half of 2023.<br /> <br />Rockets
will initially launch from UK Spaceport 1 at Benbecula Airport in the
Outer Hebrides but by the middle of the decade Gravitilab plans to be
operating an offshore launch pad in the North Sea off the Norfolk coast.<br /><br />“A
key reason for doing this is because all UK spaceports are a long way
away from the heart of where the primary areas of UK space interest
lie,” said Mark Roberts, the company’s recently appointed managing
director. “We are much closer geographically so it makes great sense to
bring clients here.”<br /><br />He also suggested that providing high
quality microgravity environments for test, experimentation and science,
at affordably competitive price points would stimulate the market. <br /><br />Gravitilab’s
drop pod system, LOUIS, recently delivered a world first for
microgravity from a drone. It provides the opportunity to run more local
and affordable testing campaigns albeit from lower altitudes.<br /><br />Speaking
to space industry professionals, academia and government
representatives at the firm’s headquarters near Norwich on Friday (8
July), CEO Rob Adlard, says the company’s ambition is to reduce the high
failure rate of nanosatellites in low Earth orbit. <br /><br />“We are
developing technologies and services to provide accessible and
affordable research and testing services that will enable innovation
while also helping to reduce the build up of space debris,” he stated.<br /><br />Adlard
says Gravitilab’s services support the space qualification of equipment
which could help reduce the current up to 50 percent failure rate of
newly deployed nanosatellites, with 75 percent of those failures
immediate.<br /><br />“We have developed a fleet of sub-orbital, hybrid
powered rockets and a revolutionary Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) which
releases a drop pod from a high altitude drone,” he said.<br /><br />“Our
range of vehicles enable customers to expose research & testing
payloads to real space environments to understand how they behave with
variations in temperature, thrust, radiation, vibration and, most
importantly, microgravity.”<br /><br />Space technology readiness for
satellite hardware is assessed using an industry standard known as the
Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale, which ranks technology
preparedness between 0 and 9.<br /><br />Gravitilab believes it can address a
gap between TRL levels 5 and 8 where it isn’t possible to test in a
laboratory on Earth before an actual orbital mission. It says testing
and certifying components in sub-orbital microgravity at relatively
low-cost will make a major contribution to future space sustainability.<br /> <br />Katherine
Courtney, former CEO of the UK Space Agency (UKSA), described space
sustainability as a key priority in the country’s national space
strategy.<br /><br />“The UK space sector is becoming known the world over
for it's focus on sustainability and the responsible use of space,” she
said. <br /><br />“But there is still a critical gap in the UK space value
chain and that's the ability to safely and sustainably conduct
experiments and test new technologies in microgravity from the UK. I'm
delighted that Gravitilab is plugging that gap.” <br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-12204549105392516432022-07-05T16:18:00.012+01:002022-07-05T16:41:04.176+01:00Breaking the Brexit taboo<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXNif6K7pTi18DUz1U2hkqENbhmLJZK3vRJb9dlxKN_UOWfqX8rvcW6TPnhue6UsKe12M8JzjIt5qww_CQKbI5zr9Ogv5Qj2eWBkX3Ziq5Vf5GtcYg_dKEWt9LFPxjOfXNKcyu_SkKFqWUNn3Ow6GLJbS9cU1ebxiblpgnw2K9GndNY-s5hzZANfT/s275/economy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="173" data-original-width="275" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXNif6K7pTi18DUz1U2hkqENbhmLJZK3vRJb9dlxKN_UOWfqX8rvcW6TPnhue6UsKe12M8JzjIt5qww_CQKbI5zr9Ogv5Qj2eWBkX3Ziq5Vf5GtcYg_dKEWt9LFPxjOfXNKcyu_SkKFqWUNn3Ow6GLJbS9cU1ebxiblpgnw2K9GndNY-s5hzZANfT/w400-h252/economy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />FAR from blazing a path to new heights the British economy is well and truly in the doldrums with little sign of a fair wind whipping up to fan things back into life. Like Earth's climate it is on the edge of an avoidable catastrophe.<br /><br />According to Will Hutton, economic journalist and commentator, the current British economic debate is therefore all the more bewildering, marooned as it is in a discourse in which one of the pivotal economic facts of 2022 is largely ignored.<br /><br />Writing in <i>The Observer</i> newspaper (3 July 2022), he says the Chancellor and Governor of the Bank of England talk about the dangers of inflation, of the risk of a wage price spiral and the need for pay restraint – but never about the escalating sterling crisis and what lies behind it. <br /><br />“But Brexit is not going away and it cannot be avoided,” he asserts, while reminding us that last week we learned that in the first three months of 2022 Britain’s current account deficit was the worst since records began in 1955. <br /><br />It stood at a stunning 8.3 percent of GDP – the kind of deficit recorded by “banana republics before they collapse into slump, banking crises and hyperinflation”.<br /><br />Hutton says the figures are so “terrifyingly bad” that even a shaken Office for National Statistics cautions that it is uncertain about the quality of its own data. <p></p><p>“But the core reality cannot be dodged and revisions will impact only at the margins rather than reverse the story: real export volumes over the period are down 4.4 percent and import volumes up a gigantic 10.4 percent.”<br /><br />Apologists point to exploding energy costs, statistical vagaries, the ongoing distortions of Covid, weak world markets and supply chain effects - all of which are playing their part. <br /><br />“But what cannot be mentioned is Brexit and the obvious depressive impact it is having on UK exports and inward investment flows,” he writes.<br /><br />"Britain is entering dangerous territory – the economy is falling into recession, investment is flat, while inflation, high across the industrialised world because of the fallout from the war in Ukraine, is highest in the UK largely because of the weak pound, which has no support from any quarter.<br /><br />"The refusal of the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, even to acknowledge what is happening and why is beginning to be a source of lack of market confidence in itself.<br /><br />“Without full access to the EU single market and customs union – the UK’s largest market – there is no possibility of an export recovery, nor a recovery in inward investment, nor a lifting of economic confidence,” says Hutton. <br /><br />“As the Bank of America warns, Britain faces an existential sterling crisis, made worse because of the refusal of the government and many economic commentators to look the truth in the eye.”<br /><br />Hutton cites the 1976 sterling crisis, triggered by the conviction of the foreign exchange markets that already very high inflation was certain to get out of hand, as an eerie parallel.</p><p>"There was nothing to prop up a falling pound, given the current account deficit was running at what seemed an unimaginable four precent of GDP – half today’s deficit," he says.<br /><br />But one of the big differences between now and the 1970s is that back then the UK was embedded in a network of strong trading relationships. Having recently joined the Common Market, it could trade its way back to international creditworthiness with North Sea oil about to reinforce the impetus.<br /><br />Hutton believes that Britain needs to be in the single market and customs union to have any prospect of price stability and growth. “It needs to be within the political architecture of Europe for its own security, given the dark menace of Russia,” he says.<br /><br />“The British economic and political ship is foundering, damaged by the rock of Brexit; its captains need to be called out for their errant seamanship. A fundamental change of course is an imperative. The future political stars in both the Labour and Conservative parties are those with the courage to say so.”<br /><br />Hutton also derided the Labour opposition for its “vows of silence”, a situation which Sir Keir Starmer began to remedy this week in the first of several speeches outlining future Labour policies.<br /><br />Starmer’s Brexit 'policy' - essentially to “Make Brexit Work” by being more cooperative and less antagonistic towards Europe - is hardly brave or inspiring but it reflects a harsh political reality. <br /><br />With a lawyer’s forensic mind, he knows the remotest hint about rejoining the single market or customs union would be a huge gift to the Tories and their right-wing media clients, who’d love nothing more than to fight the next election on Brexit once again. <br /><br />The hard Brexit tide maybe turning in the minds of the public but, much to the chagrin of many ‘remainers’, Starmer has to play it cool for now at least.<br /></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Editor’s note: Will Hutton is a British journalist and was formerly editor-in-chief for The Observer, for which he now writes a regular column. He co-chairs the Purposeful Company, and is the president-designate of the Academy of Social Sciences. The full article, on which this commentary is based, is on this <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/03/arguments-over-brexit-done-dusted-for-a-generation-really-tony-blair" target="_blank">link</a> </i></span><br /> </p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-6126078021832484012022-04-14T17:01:00.007+01:002022-04-15T07:44:06.827+01:00UK is no place for asylum seekers<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc6xOtSVxUkr9lJzxrkgK2ZhXYUToKZ3YzY20rkv3XMgDD4Smb9h_qVamAwT7KEB1zy2KB6lCwpW9f7RZqi4Q0PW7LboUq_anWUVTrGNvyim8d3wiDtaaecFRM5d4RwU9oxK_9EyZbXP7NDm-39vfzFw_wOwl0UGGO_COqq9WOqzcYodwDKEbrXjYo/s976/migrants.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc6xOtSVxUkr9lJzxrkgK2ZhXYUToKZ3YzY20rkv3XMgDD4Smb9h_qVamAwT7KEB1zy2KB6lCwpW9f7RZqi4Q0PW7LboUq_anWUVTrGNvyim8d3wiDtaaecFRM5d4RwU9oxK_9EyZbXP7NDm-39vfzFw_wOwl0UGGO_COqq9WOqzcYodwDKEbrXjYo/w400-h225/migrants.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>THE Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovi, has described today's announcement by the UK government of its intention to offshore asylum processing to Rwanda as sending a “worrying signal”. </p><p>"Not only does such externalisation raise questions about the protection of the human rights of the people involved it also indicates that the UK intends to shift the responsibility for what is in fact a very small proportion of people seeking protection worldwide from its territory to that of another country.”<br /><br />She said that such a shift in responsibility runs the risk of seriously undermining the global system of international protection.<br /><br />“While the government emphasises the importance of safe and legal routes in general, the announced plans do not address the lack of such possibilities for people currently in France, even those who have legitimate claims to move to the UK, for instance on the basis of family links,” Mijatovi added. <br /><br />“Expanding such safe and legal routes and putting human rights at the heart of the approach is crucial to addressing the problem of dangerous sea crossings of the Channel and to removing the conditions in which the smuggling of people can flourish”<br /><br />Mijatovi called on UK parliamentarians - in the context of their further examination of the Nationality and Borders Bill - to ensure that no downgrading of the human rights safeguards and protections in the UK's asylum system takes place. <br /><br />“They should in particular reject proposals that enable ‘offshoring’ and that make distinctions in the level of protection or the procedures applied on the basis of the manner in which people arrive in the UK,” she said.<br /><br />“More than ever, all Council of Europe member states should stand firm in their commitment to upholding the human rights of people seeking protection. From this perspective, I will continue my engagement with the UK government on this important matter.”<br /><br />Andrew Griffith, the Conservative MP who runs the Prime Minister’s policy unit, told a BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news programme that the government did not need to wait for the nationality and borders bill to become law before it could start sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. “My understanding is this policy can come in immediately,” he stated.<br /><br />However, he admitted it could take “weeks or months” to become operational.<br /><br />One of Rwanda’s leading opposition politicians, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, criticised her country’s deal with the UK government, urging officials to focus on solving its political and social internal issues that make its citizens seek to be refugees in other countries before it offers to host refugees or migrants from other countries.<br /><br />The UK deal to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which is reported to be costing the in region of £1.4 billion, was signed today by Home Secretary Priti Patel and announced in a speech by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.<br /><br />His speech was broadcast live on BBC news channels, a move which opened the national broadcaster to further criticism for doing this during an election period. It seems even the BBC is tearing up the rule book these days.<br /><br />Green MP Caroline Lucas accused the Prime Minister of making a “disgusting speech” trying to cover up cruel one-way ticket to Rwanda refugee plan as "quid pro-quo for generosity" and an "innovative approach... made possible by Brexit freedoms".<br /><br />“He’s multiplying human misery and degrading our country's values. It's just vile,” she said. </p><p><i>Comment: </i><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Rwanda is well-known for its poor track record on human rights and the genocide of its own citizens in the 1990s. </span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">It is clear that what is intended is that people sent to Rwanda will not be "processed" for UK entry but will be expected to settle there permanently. This is deportation, not off-shore processing.</span></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-65160036068517745152022-02-11T17:22:00.008+00:002022-06-09T12:54:42.278+01:00All the Prime Minister's Men<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhjAGsF2IIpHNhb_qOyOy9MUdZB_IBZGktmYqHKMqNCB930HCpIwVwqleeNaXr4kPKfGDW_EexgntV4DL8-dfrxDipALYUBeEeM4ZIzOuvnD9k23JBRngy74H-kLtPoNeNmFO2H4QTuxO54LvjM9nWXUEmFBBu3Vsa5wXwM5Ft7obEMBbknNJuCMEeu=s680" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="680" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhjAGsF2IIpHNhb_qOyOy9MUdZB_IBZGktmYqHKMqNCB930HCpIwVwqleeNaXr4kPKfGDW_EexgntV4DL8-dfrxDipALYUBeEeM4ZIzOuvnD9k23JBRngy74H-kLtPoNeNmFO2H4QTuxO54LvjM9nWXUEmFBBu3Vsa5wXwM5Ft7obEMBbknNJuCMEeu=w400-h169" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>AS the UK’s political turmoil of December overflowed into January and continued unabated in February the contrast between UK prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and leader of the opposition Sir Kier Starmer could not have been more stark.<br /><br />On a rare trip into central London last week, it was amplified as I loitered outside the Houses of Parliament sipping a coffee from Neros just as the beleaguered prime minister was attempting to phrase his latest non-apology for “Party Gate”.<br /><br />This time it was his response to the publication of an advance, short-form version of the infamous Sue Gray report into Downing Street parties during lockdown, and his response included the seemingly pre-meditated 'Jimmy Savile slur' against Starmer. <br /><br />In any setting other than the UK Parliament, where historic gentlemanly privileges are still supposed to prevail, it would likely have amounted to a serious and legally actionable slander.<br /><br />By all accounts, and from wall-to-wall TV coverage later, Johnson's was yet another painful performance for the head of any country, let alone one that also purports to be a "global leader".<br /><br />Standing outside at the time I could almost hear the baying, the shouting, the laughing, and the utter disdain for MP’s in the House and for the public at large.<br /><br />Less than a week later, events proved that this British Prime Minister does not routinely accept that he has ever done anything wrong and has no intention of ever really sorry at all.<br /><br />His Savile comment was also a prime example of the so-called ‘dead cat’ tactic - in this case throwing out an outrageous smear in order to get everyone talking about that, and probably also knowing that some of it would ultimately stick.<br /><br />And all this drama came hard on the heels of the second anniversary of Brexit when the government released its “Benefits of Brexit” document (which, unsurprisingly, struggled to string together any kind of list of advantages).<br /><br />Shortly before heading back to the hotel, I was accosted on College Green which is just across from the Houses of Parliament. Thankfully not by a baying mob but by a “GB News” crew asking if I would do a piece to camera.<br /><br />Am I a fan of GB News? Definutely not! It's mega-wealthy backers give it an unhealthy right wing editorial bias. But I agree and thought they might as well have it with both barrels. <br /><br />So I stared into the camera and told them in no uncertain terms that Johnson was incapable of changing and, as a result, was probably toxic as both leader of the Tory party and the UK. <br /><br />I described his vacuous “apology” as pathetic and rounded off the short interview with a resolute call for Johnson to resign. Not sure that it got broadcast but at least I said it.<br /><br />Like everyone, over the years I have watched many movies, some more meaningful to my life at a particular the time than others.<br /><br />One such film, back in the late 1970s, was the 'All The President’s Men' - the story of the Watergate coverup which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. <br /><br />The drama of inside story by <i>Washington Post</i> reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein proved the catalyst for my own journalistic career.<br /><br />As reflected in the title of this blogpost, one can only hope that ultimately the lies and coverups of Johnson will be not only bring about his downfall but also those of his hand-picked cabinet and government ministers.<br /><br />But, in terms of film endings, another that I still revere from back in the day is the scene at the end of the original 'Planet of the Apes'.<br /><br />As the camera panned out on a washed up beach, the last human survivor (played by Charlton Heston) and his partner glance up to see the ruined Statue of Liberty before him and utters the film's closing, poignant words: “You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”<br /><br />Now, as the picture heading this post illustrates, some clever graphics person has re-purposed a still from the film that neatly transfers this to the immense damage Johnson and his Brexit cabal are doing to the UK, both in plain sight and behind closed doors.<br /><br />And I thank my journalist colleague Rob Coppinger for the paraphrase for this version of the film's ending: “We finally did it! Brexit, you maniacs! You went hard Brexit! God damn you! God damn you all to hell!” <br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-80844541583741564452022-01-31T14:04:00.002+00:002022-02-04T14:22:53.566+00:00NASA's real-life "Don't Look Up"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgf14LfouuPikJq_a_t7Fp4wqTzGsd-dorcEOu-jMiNcL3MaXzRX92SKxXnNsEnQXIg5HkmAseOR1dUniyZANKHFZpRoBwijHGO_fpPZ2RV8xiOZmG5vHOa8KREjSwlQ6-4CZXdkC6m5SjRFn5n0567SzKO1aDQ4K2W3dJpz9cf_1jB-ncmg-F0lwXM=s1169" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="1169" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgf14LfouuPikJq_a_t7Fp4wqTzGsd-dorcEOu-jMiNcL3MaXzRX92SKxXnNsEnQXIg5HkmAseOR1dUniyZANKHFZpRoBwijHGO_fpPZ2RV8xiOZmG5vHOa8KREjSwlQ6-4CZXdkC6m5SjRFn5n0567SzKO1aDQ4K2W3dJpz9cf_1jB-ncmg-F0lwXM=w400-h245" width="400" /></a></div><br />ENTERTAINING and a bit worrying at the same time, the movie <i>Don’t Look Up </i>defied critics and broke Netflix’s record for the most hours viewed in a single week on the global TV platform at the start of the year.<br /><br />It tells the story of astronomy graduate Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her PhD adviser, Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), who discover a “planet killer” comet that will impact Earth in just over six months.<br /><br />The movie’s rogue comet could be anything – climate change, new viruses, global war, attempts to overthrow a legitimate democracy – and the scientists are essentially alone<br />with their knowledge, ignored and gas-lighted by society, and ridiculed by the media.<br /><br />The film is both amusing and terrifying in equal measure, conveying uncomfortable cold truths and demonstrating how hard it is to break through prevailing norms.<br /><br />Above all, it perfectly captures humanity’s apparent capacity for denying the blindingly obvious, the absurdity of an economic system which puts profit above survival of life on earth, a crass political class, and a superficial mainstream media more concerned with show biz stars and ratings.<br /><br /><i>Don’t Look Up</i> is most definitely a movie for our time. And do hang around to watch all the credits as there are some interesting bits right at the very end! <p></p><p>In real life, the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) - a
state-of-the-art asteroid detection system operated by the University
of Hawaiʻi (UH) Institute for Astronomy (IfA) for the agency’s Planetary
Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) - reached a new milestone in February by
becoming the first survey capable of searching the entire dark sky every
24 hours for near-Earth objects (NEOs) that could pose a future impact
hazard to Earth. <br /><br />Now involving four telescopes, ATLAS has
expanded its reach to the southern hemisphere from the two existing
northern-hemisphere telescopes on Haleakalā and Maunaloa in Hawai’i to
include two additional observatories in South Africa and Chile. <br /><br />“An
important part of planetary defence is finding asteroids before they
find us, so if necessary, we can get them before they get us” said Kelly
Fast, NEO Observations Program Manager for NASA’s
Planetary Defense Coordination Office. <br /><br />“With the addition of
these two telescopes, ATLAS is now capable of searching the entire dark
sky every 24 hours, making it an important asset for NASA’s continuous
effort to find, track, and monitor NEOs.” <br /><br />Each
of the four ATLAS telescopes can image a swath of sky 100 times larger
than the full Moon in a single exposure. The completion of the two final
telescopes, which are located at Sutherland Observing Station in South
Africa and El Sauce Observatory in Chile, enable ATLAS to observe the
night sky when it is daytime in Hawai‘i. <br /><br />To date, the ATLAS
system has discovered more than 700 near-Earth asteroids and 66 comets,
along with detection of 2019 MO and 2018 LA, two very small asteroids
that actually impacted Earth. <br /><br />The system is specially designed
to detect objects that approach very close to Earth - closer than the
distance to the Moon, about 240,000 miles away. On 22 January,
ATLAS-Sutherland in South Africa discovered its first NEO, 2022 BK, a
100 m asteroid that poses no threat to Earth. <br /><br />The addition of
the new observatories to the ATLAS system comes at a time when the
agency’s Planetary Defense efforts are on the rise. </p><p>NASA’s Double
Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) - the world’s first full-scale mission
to test a technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid
impacts - launched last November will deflect a known asteroid, which is
not a threat to Earth, to slightly change the asteroid’s motion in a
way that can be accurately measured using ground-based telescopes. <br /><br />Additionally,
work on the agency’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope (NEO
Surveyor) is underway after receiving authorisation to move forward into
Preliminary Design. </p><p>Once complete, the
infrared space telescope will expedite the agency’s ability to discover
and characterise most of the potentially hazardous NEOs, including those
that may approach Earth from the daytime sky.
</p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-63007343082648060382021-11-19T10:16:00.000+00:002021-11-19T10:16:03.936+00:00Rocketing climate change<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVGVRvk9ZD32A2P0PGW-TURYX83KEfRXVyMyQMzasQ9jzyIrTEwL5AJlVO7ORqsGX-PReEYR7Uwf6Z0mdLkiJej-r8QJSQqd17yxHZawlGWyoJ8asp-pMwJOhU3yo30Giwb2zEG2KHun0/s1184/1200x675_cmsv2_d5c83269-ff59-5723-9b5f-75a6f94b565a-5859188.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="1184" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVGVRvk9ZD32A2P0PGW-TURYX83KEfRXVyMyQMzasQ9jzyIrTEwL5AJlVO7ORqsGX-PReEYR7Uwf6Z0mdLkiJej-r8QJSQqd17yxHZawlGWyoJ8asp-pMwJOhU3yo30Giwb2zEG2KHun0/w440-h229/1200x675_cmsv2_d5c83269-ff59-5723-9b5f-75a6f94b565a-5859188.jpg" width="440" /></a></div> <p></p><p>THE prospect of large-scale space tourism has mostly been the stuff of science fiction until this summer when, after years of effort and millions of dollars in investment, the exploits of businessmen Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos bore fruit.<br /><br />The billionaire blast-offs in July delivered a high-octane start to 21st century tourism and Virgin Galactic, founded in 2004, is reporting a waiting list of 8,000 for its space jaunts.<br /><br />While the carefully choreographed and publicity-rich suborbital hops of Branson and Bezos caught the public imagination, the flights also drew attention to a potential downside of space tourism.<br /><br />Taking place shortly before publication of the Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the flights were a perfect juxtaposition for social media commentators - a couple of billionaires joy-riding in space on the back of climate change delivering unprecedented levels of extreme weather.<br /><br />The IPCC report summarises a worrying scientific consensus: climate change is happening, humans are causing it, even our best efforts cannot prevent negative effects, and reducing emissions now is essential to preventing catastrophic consequences.<br /><br />And so the environmental impact of space tourism flights, whether in the fuels themselves or the carbon footprint of support services and travel to launch sites, rightly came under the spotlight.<br /><br />Space technologies and activities are foundational to climate science. Satellite-based data monitoring plays a significant part in tracking and building up the big picture around anthropogenic climate change. In addition, technology transfer from space-led developments can support a faster transition to cleaner energy, as was the case for photovoltaic panels which laid foundations for the solar industry.<br /><br />The challenge facing space entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers is to continue to provide answers while not contributing to the problem. Though carbon emissions from rockets are relatively small compared with the aircraft industry they are increasing at nearly six percent a year.<br /><br />Emissions from rockets affect the upper atmosphere most, which means they can remain in situ for two to three years. And even water injected into the upper atmosphere - where it can form clouds - has the potential to add to global warming.<br /><br />Bezos boasts his Blue Origin rockets are greener than Branson’s VSS Unity. The Blue Engine 3 (BE-3) uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. VSS Unity uses a hybrid propellant comprised of a solid carbon-based fuel, hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB), and a liquid oxidiser, nitrous oxide (laughing gas). In contrast, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon F9 rockets use the more traditional liquid kerosene and liquid oxygen.<br /><br />Large quantities of water vapour are produced by burning the BE-3 propellant, while combustion of both the VSS Unity and Falcon fuels produces carbon dioxide, soot and some water vapour. The nitrogen-based oxidiser used by VSS Unity also generates nitrogen oxides, compounds that contribute to air pollution.<br /><br />Virgin Galactic anticipates it will offer 400 spaceflights each year. Blue Origin has yet to confirm numbers and SpaceX, though mainly flying commercial customers, has announced plans to send Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a private trip around the Moon and back.<br /><br />Globally, rocket launches wouldn’t need to increase by much from the 100 or so performed each year at present to induce harmful effects that are ‘competitive’ with other sources.<br /><br />There are currently no regulations around rocket emissions and, given the challenges facing every other human activity, this must change. While millionaires are queuing to buy their tickets to ride, the time for the space industry and regulatory bodies to act is now.</p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">This Editorial was first published in <a href="http://www.room.eu.com" target="_blank">ROOM Space Journal</a> (#29), Autumn 2021. </span></i></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-6757237064030865502021-09-17T15:51:00.004+01:002022-02-05T16:07:02.602+00:00Cabinet shuffle<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisMC397BRYwzRea7THw0whLyes0IxcVfyDqzVwn5Yf1VedwXBqMK6Cw1EQYFYNdTEhS-LMKGLAw6I6jHK4poDxPmkIWZNPG1H5O8l_gewIttrh4wL4ChCfr2e2z2BW-0on2c1qpCCkO_0/s750/bj.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="750" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisMC397BRYwzRea7THw0whLyes0IxcVfyDqzVwn5Yf1VedwXBqMK6Cw1EQYFYNdTEhS-LMKGLAw6I6jHK4poDxPmkIWZNPG1H5O8l_gewIttrh4wL4ChCfr2e2z2BW-0on2c1qpCCkO_0/w400-h300/bj.jpg" title="Gulf News" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr align="right"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Gulf News</i></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p>THE international stock of UK prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is becoming diminished by the week and taking with it the last shreds of moral and political authority that Britain once had.<br /><br />In all the political conflicts of pandemic mis-management and Brexit elitism, it seems that, in the mind of the British PM, what matters most is the pursuit of power. He has always been single-minded to this end and does all he can to resist constraints on that power.<br /><br />Johnson, who is widely regarded by those who know or have worked with him, to have the attention span of a nat, is not interested in policy, let alone policy detail. He waivers constantly, in tune with nothing more than the shifting wind of opinion, and has no convictions about things that really matter such as Brexit, climate change, levelling up, culture wars or tackling poverty.<br /><br />Apart from himself, all he cares about is how policy plays with the Tory Party, its supporters and the voters, many of whom he has hoodwinked into thinking he is something much more than he is.<br /><br />All this helps to explain some of the sackings in this week’s cabinet reshuffle, because ministers whose stock has fallen with the venerable Party become vulnerable, regardless of their abilities.<br /><br />The prime duty of Johnson’s replacements this week is hardly to deliver a particular agenda, but to keep themselves, and the Party, popular in readiness for the next election.<br /><br />At the risk of re-stating what is now becoming patently obvious, the key things driving the Johnson government are riches for the already super wealthy, Party and Tory donor management, all aligned with increasing control of Parliament, the courts and the media.<br /><br />From Johnson’s myopic perspective the cabinet reshuffle was intended to portray energy (working tirelessly, getting on with the job) and renewal. But, in the real world, all that happened was the removal of the least popular members of his team, which was also a non-damaging way to shift people who should have been sacked for incompetence and breaking rules long ago. <br /><br />It was also a way for Johnson to ensure he is surrounded by an increasingly sycophantic protection ring. <br /><br />This then folks is the guy that is leading the UK to a populist, ideological disaster, a nightmare world that will make a few dangerous people very wealthy and all too powerful.<br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-50782382814763017342021-09-04T10:33:00.007+01:002022-06-08T21:02:13.817+01:00Evening observation<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgheLbmeV-gac2WiIg35Byu_2Rq-t7FFPzfhki0EiemcMcnM_D-zEqpiRUEZHS-iMS-moqfN_1XLNI7PvmCrL5Tn_AkJQZB_9Ca7j6Y4ySgK-V1ALTzCrkHGInAPLmAHBUDBOX3PZd2phk/s2456/across+the+water.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1052" data-original-width="2456" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgheLbmeV-gac2WiIg35Byu_2Rq-t7FFPzfhki0EiemcMcnM_D-zEqpiRUEZHS-iMS-moqfN_1XLNI7PvmCrL5Tn_AkJQZB_9Ca7j6Y4ySgK-V1ALTzCrkHGInAPLmAHBUDBOX3PZd2phk/w448-h191/across+the+water.jpg" width="448" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p>THE sea is talking loudly this evening as a strong northerly wind whips in, mysteriously summoned by the rising dusk to herald an end to the tranquillity and heat of the day. <br /><br />Wind and sea together - like a rogue orchestra’s out-of-control percussionists, one drumming relentlessly and the other crashing wave upon wave on the outlying rocks of the sandy cove. <br /><br />Gone was the gentle nature of a bright and warm sunny day. The quickly fading light had drained the sea of its shimmering daytime blue and turned it to the colour of darkest ink, aside from regular flecks of curling white foam from constantly breaking waves.<br /><br />A few miles across the ocean on the near horizon the mountains of Albania formed a grey silhouette, all definition of daylight gone save for the outline of peaks and valleys, neatly framing the edge of sea and sky, and leading the eye to a fading red-orange glow in the west.<br /><br />On the roadside path above Saint Spiridon cove in the north of Corfu, there seemed no respite from the relentless, discomforting disturbance these twin forces of nature had connived to deliver on this first September evening of the year.<br /><br />There was no relaxed promenading tonight by lovers hand-in-hand, young or old, and the neatly organised chairs and tables overlooking the beach area and normally packed by day, were devoid of occupation.<br /><br />Above, the wind whipped the finger-like leaves of palm trees into a frenzy of straight lines, seemingly all intent on pursuing a single direction of pointless travel. </p><p>And the blowsy sun umbrellas of the day were now tightly belted at the waist, rocking and billowing in windy gusts, like solo dancers performing on the edge of night.</p><p></p><p><i>Corfu, September 2021</i><br /><br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-26677915034065470442021-07-26T16:13:00.006+01:002022-06-16T10:01:15.647+01:00Sustainability lifeline<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh47vLV5t-9YUYYJWsK8YQ2JNnoamWrHeZgjO5NDhgPR8x_4nZ1ctaymE1WyuHrqdbZ9cWyckf9cAQn3aP4AVxGV0q2ff6jpcTt7EgLwWLct2sdr88y5U6k_n4piALmREIoyrqs0B_Pmxs/s2048/DSC_1704+lr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1277" data-original-width="2048" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh47vLV5t-9YUYYJWsK8YQ2JNnoamWrHeZgjO5NDhgPR8x_4nZ1ctaymE1WyuHrqdbZ9cWyckf9cAQn3aP4AVxGV0q2ff6jpcTt7EgLwWLct2sdr88y5U6k_n4piALmREIoyrqs0B_Pmxs/w400-h250/DSC_1704+lr.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">SPACE is a resource to be exploited for the benefit of all and undoubtedly holds many of the keys to humanity’s future. But though it might appear boundless and infinite it will not ultimately be to our advantage if we do not manage it in a sustainable way.<br /></div><p>One of the most significant issues is the accumulation of space debris and, in this context, the first months of 2021 witnessed an unprecedented number of rocket launches. SpaceX alone notched up some 20 Falcon 9 launches between January and the end of May, a notable achievement in itself.<br /><br />What is less clear, given the majority of these launches carried payloads of multiple smallsats to feed the company’s planned 12,000-strong Starlink constellation, is how much they are exacerbating the growing and still largely unaddressed debris problem.<br /><br />There are still many unknowns relating to the proliferation of objects in Earth orbit, a fact that was highlighted by presentations at the annual European Space Debris Conference held virtually at the end of April [2021].<br /><br />One paper identified a potential link between space junk and climate change - increasing levels of carbon dioxide could be lowering the density of the upper atmosphere, which may diminish the natural process whereby low Earth orbiting debris is naturally pulled downwards before it incinerates in the thicker, lower atmosphere.<br /><br />Scientists studying this unexpected link between climate change and space debris propagation speculate that, in a worst case scenario, it could lead to increased orbital lifetimes of up to 40 years.<br /><br />This could boost the amount of space debris as much as 50 times by the end of the century.<br />Such findings may heap further difficulties on the already complex problems faced by regulators wrestling with satellite operators amidst the headlong rush to deploy megaconstellations by the likes of SpaceX, Amazon and OneWeb in the west, as well as the Russian Sfera and Chinese Hongyan systems.<br /><br />So how do we make space and our activities in it sustainable? Up to now the rules and regulations governing this are relatively weak. </p><p>To be effective, space law regulations - backed by monitoring and a means of enforcement - must prevent as many potentially dangerous situations as possible from occurring. Legislation also needs to lay out a framework for responsibility and liability for when things go wrong.<br /><br />Space law has largely worked so far because any issues have been few and far between and, on the whole, have been dealt with diplomatically.<br /><br />As global populations grapple with the daily effects of climate change and pollution, the lessons of how we have mismanaged the environment and its resources are plain to see.<br /><br />The same is true for space, even if the outcomes of our inactions today may only become apparent in the future.<br /><br />While space sustainability has been a topic of discussion among academics and technologists for decades, the importance of protecting Earth’s orbital environment and the expanding sphere of our new domain has never been more relevant.<br /><br />In the absence of robust, internationally agreed and long-term sustainability laws and guidelines, it is doubtful that commercial space companies, and some state players, can be relied on to police themselves in the space realm.<br /><br />The questions surrounding space debris and the threat it poses become more urgent with every launch and, at present, the solutions on any level are far from certain. Now is the time to make sustainability a priority.</p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">This Editorial by Clive Simpson was first published in <a href="http://www.room.eu.com" target="_blank">ROOM Space Journal</a> (#28), Summer 2021. </span></i><br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-38826103071932560802021-07-19T17:20:00.006+01:002021-07-30T11:57:20.702+01:00Flying to the edge<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj2Wh5rvcSolduXvygdHm9KhC1YjVk1CnX3JckmMdJPXyS2WMRGWhzISJ5WvJS2yFlTeNrKKKqmvitNTGsm_qjNOC4BhnXoZ_Y4gctJ5iJA8ph41Z7MYqCmVHA3vHYKUk1xnLUX6FuCTQ/s630/181217-blue-630x470.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="630" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj2Wh5rvcSolduXvygdHm9KhC1YjVk1CnX3JckmMdJPXyS2WMRGWhzISJ5WvJS2yFlTeNrKKKqmvitNTGsm_qjNOC4BhnXoZ_Y4gctJ5iJA8ph41Z7MYqCmVHA3vHYKUk1xnLUX6FuCTQ/w400-h251/181217-blue-630x470.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />A FEW years ago while attending the annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs as part of the <i>ROOM Space Journal</i> team I had the opportunity to sit inside a full-scale pre-flight module of Blue Origin’s space capsule.<br /><br />It was on display outside the venue alongside a flown Blue Origin New Shepard booster, charred and scared from an earlier brief foray into low Earth orbit and so giving the whole display of touch of authenticity and realism.<br /><br />Having clambered awkwardly through the access hatch and then across to my capsule seat I lay back and dared to think for a moment that this might be real. As my imagination fired the booster rockets I pushed back into my contoured couch before taking a quick look around.<br /><br />There were five other passengers also likely lost in their own imaginary thoughts in what seemed a surprisingly simple but spacious space capsule. Big windows were aside each seat but the capsule was devoid of controls, buttons or levers that one might have imagined.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbFGq7eHiag2FFQax957vrsVsq8hbRvPmysd0pDAPyIGlZopxnESJ7XPsDI_1VhGr92c986oc7cXMwVwHRVtYcKs3FXTNGchuPQsbM7i81PfCW_kwxS0qfrqeQLAJQWlDdbE_3PuP5w4/s2048/capsule+%25232.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbFGq7eHiag2FFQax957vrsVsq8hbRvPmysd0pDAPyIGlZopxnESJ7XPsDI_1VhGr92c986oc7cXMwVwHRVtYcKs3FXTNGchuPQsbM7i81PfCW_kwxS0qfrqeQLAJQWlDdbE_3PuP5w4/w360-h203/capsule+%25232.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br />That’s because a Blue Origin flight differs from the Virgin Galactic mission in a few ways. Richard Branson uses a spaceplane with a pair of pilots onboard, whereas the Blue Origin capsule has no pilots (more space for paying passengers) and is be completely controlled by mission control on the ground.<br /><br />Prior to today’s (Tuesday, 20 July) launch with passengers, Blue Origin has conducted 15 test flights - all spectacular in a very “Thunderbirds Are Go” kind of way but so far without any people on board, just a few experiments and plenty of data gathering instrumentation.<br /><br />Just like the Virgin Galactic flight, the Blue Origin rocket will not launch its occupants into Earth orbit, but will give the crew a quick trip just above the line separating the atmosphere from space before returning back to the desert in western Texas. The Blue Origin mission will, however, fly at little higher to 62 miles high, compared to Virgin Galactic’s 55 miles.<br /><br />Bezos’ landmark 10 minute flight is set to fly at 9:00 am EDT (14:00 BST), a date that that coincides with the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. He is being accompanied by his brother Mark and two other passengers - 82-year-old trailblazing aviator Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen - who will each break longstanding astronaut age records on the flight.<p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpj8iE2aH3YsHffG9fGP2TjDTDZHDpWPkpPh0tGMbXPN6z90pkzIgUyoAanj0BpzET5h_-drHiJ9zOfCsIOTW1-R2zWJ08yXXLCjMTRlb17fHRTt8mwiNbnOkR6ghyphenhyphenLzepV_r2oh61NBk/s749/ns16crew.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="749" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpj8iE2aH3YsHffG9fGP2TjDTDZHDpWPkpPh0tGMbXPN6z90pkzIgUyoAanj0BpzET5h_-drHiJ9zOfCsIOTW1-R2zWJ08yXXLCjMTRlb17fHRTt8mwiNbnOkR6ghyphenhyphenLzepV_r2oh61NBk/w356-h250/ns16crew.jpeg" width="356" /></a></div><p>Oliver’s father, Joes Daeman - the chief executive and founder of Somerset Capital Partners - was one of the bidders for a seat on the first crewed Blue Origin flight but lost out to an anonymous bidder who paid a reported $28 million at the widely publicised auction.<br /></p><p>After a “scheduling conflict” prevented the unidentified winner from joining the first flight, Daeman, who had secured a seat on the second New Shepard flight, was bumped up to take pole position.<br /> <br />Be under no delusion this is very much a commercial venture. Daeman’s flight will mark the start of paid space-tourism flights for Blue Origin and there are plans to loft the second round of paying passengers this autumn.<br /><br />"We intend to have two more flights this year, in 2021, for a total of three [crewed] flights, and many more to come in the future," said Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin's director of astronaut sales, during a press conference in advance of the first flight. "We have already built a robust pipeline of customers that are interested." </p><p> For both Branson and Bezos one question remains. Will these brief and expensive trips to the edge of space they offer be consigned to the category of joyrides and a series of ‘selfies’ for the family album, or will they prove more meaningful?<br /><br />The question is legitimate because, since the days of Apollo when astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman became the first to witness a full Earth against the backdrop of space, astronauts are unanimous that viewing our planet from space is life-changing.<br /><br />Earthrise, the iconic image snapped by Anders, is often credited as spawning the environmental movement and Space Shuttle and Space Station astronaut Nicole Stott agrees, ascribing the impact of viewing Earth from space as an astronaut’s “Earthrise moment”. .<br /></p><p>In her forthcoming book <i>Back to Earth</i> (to be published on 11
November 2021) Stott inspires readers of all backgrounds and beliefs to
come together to tackle our planet's most pressing problems - from water
insecurity and pollution to the existential threat of climate change.</p><p>Seeing Earth from space for the first time, Stott was overcome by a realisation that moved her deeply. “This brilliant blue marble, shielded from the cold emptiness of space by only its razor-thin atmosphere, is a naturally existing system perfectly designed to support human life,” she writes.<br /><br />The benefits of tourists flights to the edge of space may yet prove great indeed if those onboard experience their own “Earthrise moment”.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLoFd3MotXMzZMUIBcVza4fkG3ckLLyDzsmNkSDMC8TQSmLdVYGXKHQziAcZR72_yF_AUDZn4lEU2f6pRUZmsszTTJnaKDiuQC51NmrtwvlXH1REVVZUkv29x3THqKCpltVfpwjbVI18k/s2048/capsule.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1181" data-original-width="2048" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLoFd3MotXMzZMUIBcVza4fkG3ckLLyDzsmNkSDMC8TQSmLdVYGXKHQziAcZR72_yF_AUDZn4lEU2f6pRUZmsszTTJnaKDiuQC51NmrtwvlXH1REVVZUkv29x3THqKCpltVfpwjbVI18k/w378-h219/capsule.jpg" width="378" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> Note: the launch can be viewed live via <a href="https://www.blueorigin.com/" target="_blank">Blue Origin</a></i></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818200805497488678.post-29292654622135563202021-04-29T19:59:00.006+01:002021-04-30T11:30:32.096+01:00Carrying the Fire<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLv6Nw7NtkXikf4tAsCHzBoCp9l56o84i8svVO5fXRj8ZFxzLcWzYweIc8JvxR1I2eG-ZEaE177GiaZ07I4afpBRIp72yyXZXsO_NKqp1q8wlmzFiTmJHBQ0cAIK_MYekOB532erk84Us/s2048/michael+collins+lr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLv6Nw7NtkXikf4tAsCHzBoCp9l56o84i8svVO5fXRj8ZFxzLcWzYweIc8JvxR1I2eG-ZEaE177GiaZ07I4afpBRIp72yyXZXsO_NKqp1q8wlmzFiTmJHBQ0cAIK_MYekOB532erk84Us/w408-h229/michael+collins+lr.jpg" width="408" /></a></div><p>GEMINI and Apollo astronaut Michael Collins died on 28 April 2021 at the age of 90 after a valiant battle with cancer. This day also marked the 64th wedding anniversary between Mike and his late wife, Patricia Finnegan Collins.<br /><br />Mike Collins possessed a sharp wit, a quiet sense of purpose and a wise perspective, gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage of space and gazing across calm waters from the deck of his fishing boat.<br /><br />As the command module pilot on NASA's Apollo 11 mission, he circled the Moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down at Tranquility Base on 20 July 1969. When his two crew mates returned from the surface, he was in the unique position to capture a photo of all of humanity - his fellow astronauts on board the lunar module and everyone else on Earth off in the distance.<br /><br />“Today the nation lost a true pioneer and lifelong advocate for exploration in astronaut Michael Collins,” acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a statement. “As pilot of the Apollo 11 command module – some called him ‘the loneliest man in history’ – while his colleagues walked on the Moon for the first time, he helped our nation achieve a defining milestone.”<br /><br />A member of NASA's third group of astronauts selected in 1963, Mike’s path to joining the first Moon landing began with a three-day flight in Earth orbit. Assigned as the pilot aboard Gemini 10, he launched with John Young in July 1966 on a mission that demonstrated rendezvous and docking with two rocket stages.<br /><br />Mike performed two spacewalks on Gemini 10, becoming only the fourth person to exit a spacecraft to work in the vacuum of space and the first to conduct two on the same mission. On his second extravehicular activity (EVA), he became the first astronaut to transfer to another vehicle, retrieving a cosmic dust collector from the exterior of an earlier launched Agena target stage.<br /><br />After Gemini 10, Mike was assigned to what was slated to be a test of the complete Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit (that flight, Apollo 8, later was changed to be the first mission to send humans into orbit around the Moon). In the course of his training, though, he developed problems with his legs and ultimately required surgery to correct for a cervical disc herniation.<br /><br />Given the time needed for his recovery, he was removed from the crew and reassigned to Apollo 11. He was very happy to be part of the Apollo 11 crew - even if he was not one of the moonwalkers.<br /><br />"It's one of the questions I get asked a million times, 'God, you got so close to the Moon and you didn't land. Doesn't that really bug you?' It really does not," he said.<br /><br />"I honestly felt really privileged to be on Apollo 11, to have one of those three seats. I mean, there were guys in the astronaut office who would have cut my throat ear to ear to have one of those three seats. I was very pleased to have one," he said. "Did I have the best of the three? No. But was I pleased with the one I had? Yes! And I have no feelings of frustration or rancor or whatever. I'm very, very happy about the whole thing."<br /><br />Having decided before Apollo 11 lifted off that it would be his last mission, Mike splashed down from the Moon having accumulated a total of 11 days, two hours and four minutes in space over the course of his two flights.<br /><br />Mike Collins was born on 30 October 1930, in Rome, Italy, where his father, a career US Army officer,was stationed. After moves from Oklahoma to New York to Maryland to Ohio to Puerto Rico to Texas to Virginia, he attended St Albans preparatory school in Washington, DC. He then received an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, where Mike earned his Bachelor of Science in 1952.<br /><br />Enlisting in the Air Force, Mike was trained on and flew F-86 fighter jets out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and George Air Force Base in California, before being assigned overseas to the Chambley-Bussières Air Base in France and to West Germany during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He returned to the U.S. the following year, where he attended an aircraft maintenance officer course and then commanded a mobile training detachment, traveling to air bases around the world.<br /><br />In 1960, Mike reported to the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School (later Aerospace Research Pilot School) at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He applied for NASA's second class of astronauts but was not selected.<br /><br />Instead, in 1962, he took a postgraduate course on the basics of spaceflight, which included flying F-104 supersonic jets to 90,000 feet (27,000 m) and training in weightlessness on parabolic flights. He graduated and returned to fighter operations at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas when he was accepted with the third group of NASA astronauts.<br /><br />Prior to flying on Gemini 10, Mike's first assignment was to specialise in the development of the programme's spacesuits. He then served as backup pilot for the Gemini 7 mission. Prior to the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, which claimed three astronauts' lives, he was training for the then-planned second crewed flight of the Apollo program. In the wake of the tragedy, the mission was cancelled.<br /><br />Although he did not fly on Apollo 8 due to needing surgery, Mike still played an important role on the 1968 mission, serving as CapCom, or capsule communicator, from inside Mission Control in Houston. It was Mike who informed the crew that they were good to break the bonds of Earth’s gravity and set course for the moon with the words “Apollo 8, you are go for TLI!” (TLI stood for trans-lunar injection).<br /><br />After Apollo 11 and spending 21 days in quarantine to protect against any possible "Moon germs," riding in ticker tape parades in New York and Chicago, attending a state dinner, addressing a joint meeting of Congress and touring 22 countries in 38 days, Mike resigned from NASA in January 1970.<br /><br />Recruited by the Nixon Administration, Mike accepted a position as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, but found he did not enjoy the job and left after a year to become thefirst director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.<br /><br />Mike advocated for its funding and oversaw the museum being built once its budget was approved by Congress. He presided over the museum's opening on July 1, 1976, when his Apollo 11 command module, Columbia, and many of his own personal effects flown on the mission went on public display.<br /><br />In addition to <i>Carrying the Fire</i>, he authored <i>Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places</i>, <i>Liftoff! The Story of America's Adventure in Space</i> and <i>Mission To Mars: An Astronaut's Vision Of Our Future.<br /></i><br />Of all the honours he received, Mike was most proud to be named a Fellow in the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the prestigious international society founded in 1955 that represents the men and women who advance aerospace vehicles through flight test programme.<br /><br />Outside of his professional career, Mike enjoyed physical challenges, including running in marathons and competing in triathlons. On his 50th birthday, he ran 50 miles as a personal celebration. In his retirement, he took up watercolour painting and attended art classes to improve his skill. His chosen subjects were the aircraft that he flew and natural surroundings of the Florida Everglades.<br /><br />Above all else, he relished the time he spent with his family. It was for that reason that chose to leave NASA when he did, possibly missing a chance to walk on the Mon in favour of spending more time with his children and grandchildren.<br /><br />He was predeceased by his wife, Patricia Finnegan Collins. He is survived by his sister, Virginia (Nuchi) Collins Weart and by his two beloved daughters, Kate Collins (and husband Charlie Newell) and Ann Collins Starr (and husband Chris Starr) and he had seven grandchildren.<br /><br /></p>Clive Simpsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00322596523198636872noreply@blogger.com0