Area devastated by reservoir plan

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“This means not just minimising leaks but also ensuring users, and particularly large industrial users, reduce demand by becoming more efficient.

“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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

“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.

After meeting with residents, local MP for Sleaford & North Hykeham Dr Carolyn Johnson called for clear and honest communication by Anglian Water.

“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.

“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.”

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.

“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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

Editor’s note: Versions of this article have appeared in Heckington Living magazine and on Central Bylines.

A whiter shade of pale

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

Germany’s glow is whitening, and the country has a lot of fluorescent and mercury vapour lights still in use.

“By the end of this decade, all Europe could look white from space,” says Alejandro.

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.

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.

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.

“When we turn the streetlights on, we deprive our body of the hormone melatonin and disrupt our natural sleep pattern,” explains Alejandro.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Conceived in space

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

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).

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.

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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“This MOA will mark the beginning of human reproduction in Space and the next step for humanity to become a multi-planetary species.”

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.

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.

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.”

*         *          *

In the photo above: 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).

*         *          *

Editor's note: 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!

North Norfolk's rocket firm

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.

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.

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.

Here's my story from the day, which was published on several space and general news websites.

*          *          *

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

He also suggested that providing high quality microgravity environments for test, experimentation and science, at affordably competitive price points would stimulate the market.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

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.

Katherine Courtney, former CEO of the UK Space Agency (UKSA), described space sustainability as a key priority in the country’s national space strategy.

“The UK space sector is becoming known the world over for it's focus on sustainability and the responsible use of space,” she said.

“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.” 

Breaking the Brexit taboo

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.

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.

Writing in The Observer 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.

“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.

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”.

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. 

“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.”

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.

“But what cannot be mentioned is Brexit and the obvious depressive impact it is having on UK exports and inward investment flows,” he writes.

"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.

"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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

"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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 link
 

UK is no place for asylum seekers

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”.

"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.”

She said that such a shift in responsibility runs the risk of seriously undermining the global system of international protection.

“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.

“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”

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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

However, he admitted  it could take “weeks or months” to become operational.

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.

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.

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.

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".

“He’s multiplying human misery and degrading our country's values. It's just vile,” she said. 

Comment: Rwanda is well-known for its poor track record on human rights and the genocide of its own citizens in the 1990s. 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.

All the Prime Minister's Men

 

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Like everyone, over the years I have watched many movies, some more meaningful to my life at a particular the time than others.

One such film, back in the late 1970s, was the 'All The President’s Men' - the story of the Watergate cover up which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

The drama of inside story by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein proved the catalyst for my own journalistic career.

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.

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'.

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!”

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.

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!”

NASA's real-life "Don't Look Up"

ENTERTAINING and a bit worrying at the same time, the movie Don’t Look Up 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.

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.

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
with their knowledge, ignored and gas-lighted by society, and ridiculed by the media.

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.

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.

Don’t Look Up 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! 

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

Rocketing climate change

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This Editorial was first published in ROOM Space Journal (#29), Autumn 2021.

Cabinet shuffle

Gulf News

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It was also a way for Johnson to ensure he is surrounded by an increasingly sycophantic protection ring.

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.

Evening observation

 

Across the darkened waves - inspiration for a short piece of descriptive prose.

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.

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.

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 grey flecks of curling white foam from the breaking waves.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Corfu, September 2021

Sustainability lifeline

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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].

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.

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.

This could boost the amount of space debris as much as 50 times by the end of the century.
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.

So how do we make space and our activities in it sustainable? Up to now the rules and regulations governing this are relatively weak. 

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.

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.

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.

The same is true for space, even if the outcomes of our inactions today may only become apparent in the future.

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.

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.

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.

This Editorial by Clive Simpson was first published in ROOM Space Journal (#28), Summer 2021.

Flying to the edge

A FEW years ago while attending the annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs as part of the ROOM Space Journal team I had the opportunity to sit inside a full-scale pre-flight module of Blue Origin’s space capsule.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
       
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.

"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." 

 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?

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.

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”. .

In her forthcoming book Back to Earth (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.

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.

The benefits of tourists flights to the edge of space may yet prove great indeed if those onboard experience their own “Earthrise moment”.

 Note: the launch can be viewed live via Blue Origin

Carrying the Fire

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

In addition to Carrying the Fire, he authored Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places, Liftoff! The Story of America's Adventure in Space and Mission To Mars: An Astronaut's Vision Of Our Future.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hidden in plain sight

“I have been a political reporter for almost three decades,” writes Peter Oborne in his new book, “and I have never encountered a senior British politician who lies and fabricates so regularly, so shamelessly and so systematically as Boris Johnson.”

The Assault on Truth - more like a slim dossier with full supporting evidence - attempts to explain the current apparently shambolic state of UK politics, and how Johnson has turned it against itself as he seeks to divide and rule.

In the first part, Oborne uses a mass of irrefutable evidence to prove that Johnson (and most of his senior advisors and ministers) habitually lie, fabricate and misrepresent the facts.

Having built the case, seemingly rather easily it turns out, he examines Johnson’s methodology of deception by selecting some of the most powerful and shocking examples.

Oborne then attempts to answer the question, what led the Conservative party to install such a person as leader and the British people to put an already proven liar in Downing Street?

He suggests that morality in public life (an by inference perhaps society at large too) has changed in recent years, over-turning the protections against deceit and corruption instilled by our Victorian ancestors, many inspired by evangelical Christianity.

“It may be fashionable to mock them today, but the Victorians brought high ideals into government which changed the way that Britain was ruled,” he writes.

Oborne also claims - and he should know, having worked on both the Telegraph and Spectator (the latter under Johnson as editor) - that “a great deal of political journalism has become the putrid face of a corrupt government” flying in the face of the only valid reason to become a journalist, which is “to tell the truth”.

He writes: “Too much of the political class have merged. And this unnatural amalgamation has converted truth into falsehood, while lies have become truth.”

Much of the documented evidence in The Assault on Truth is both difficult to deny (although it has become the duty of Johnson’s ministers daily to defend the indefensible) and shocking at the same time.

With forensic dissection, Oborne notes the small and large steps along the twisting path of 21st century politics to the place we have sadly arrived at today, where lies and trite, three-word slogans rule over difficult or politically complex areas.

Johnson is presented as an ambitious, self-seeking politician whose campaigning exuberance and populist comic polemic character is gradually being undermined by “incompetence and dishonesty in high office”.

But while there is little doubt that Johnson is both deceitful and amoral, Oborne says the prime minister’s war on truth is also part of a wider, largely right-wing, attack on the pillars of democracy, which includes Parliament, the rule of law and the civil service.

Oborne is honest enough to admit that he has changed his own mind on Brexit since voting for it in the 2016 referendum. Given his calibre as a journalist and his lifelong pursuit of the truth the only surprise in this is that he did not see through the blatant lies of the Vote Leave campaign at the time.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing in this book is not that Johnson is a habitual liar (though that is bad enough) but that, as a society, the UK has been prepared to protect (via the media) and support (by the public) him and his government in it.

Ultimately, the consequences of allowing such political trickery and wickedness to go unchallenged and unchecked for so long are grave indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

The Assault on Truth - Peter Oborne (2021)

Best purchased from your local, independent bookshop.

Democratic betrayal

TO coin a phrase, the British government seems to be at “sixes and sevens”, an English idiom used to describe a condition of confusion or disarray. In one way this is probably a fair description but look deeper and many of the government’s actions under the leadership of Boris Johnson on both Covid and Brexit have distinctly worrying undertones.

Let’s clear up one thing first. To date the UK’s vaccine roll out, albeit so far mostly single doses, under the auspices of the NHS has been a very welcome success story.

And this is not, as Johnson and members of his cabinet have repeatedly and disingenuously claimed, been made possible because of Brexit, a narrative designed to polarise further division between the UK and EU.

If vaccines are a success story and offer a ray of hope in these troubled times, the same cannot be said for the government’s abject and, at times corrupt, handling of the Covid pandemic crisis over its first year.

Johnson’s “policies” and decisions have lead to one of the worst per capita death rates of any country in the world and the worst performing economy during the pandemic of any G7 country.

The Resolution Foundation think tank reported this week that delaying the winter lockdown caused up to 27,000 extra deaths in England, and it accused the government of a “huge mistake” which should be central to any public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic.

In its assessment of the past year, the Foundation says delaying the start of the latest lockdown until January - despite hard evidence of fast-rising cases before Christmas - led to around a fifth of all fatalities caused by the virus. It believes these could have been avoided if restrictions had been put in place in early December, as had been recommended

While it praised the vaccination programme and financial support for firms and workers, the Foundation said the same mistakes on lockdowns were repeated “three tragic times” - in March, September and December 2020 - precipitating longer and more onerous lockdowns.

In the spring of 2021, as we look back on a year of turmoil and sadness, one could be forgiven for thinking that memories are short and we have not only forgotten that we have been in this before but forgotten too how we got here. This is the UK’s third national lockdown and both of its forerunners were promised to be the last.

One also can’t help thinking that the Government is somewhat over-reliant on vaccines solving the crisis, with Johnson offering no insight, for example, into how he plans to make vitally needed improvements to his national Test & Trace system, which we learnt last week is now costing a staggering £37 billion.

This is Monopoly money on a mega scale and is a sum that seems almost impossible to justify whichever way you look at it, particularly when other countries have developed efficient and successful Test & Trace systems for a fraction of the cost.

And despite the government insisting on calling it “NHS Track & Trace” - another less than casual piece of deliberate mis-speak - the system is not led by healthcare staff but is run by Dido Harding, friend of health secretary Matt Hancock and wife of Tory MP John Penrose, through the private firm Serco which, according to its recent financial results, is doing very nicely thank you.

If Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown for this spring feels a little too premature and date-driven then perhaps it is. Based on 2020 we should remain wary. After all, he has already proved to be the popularist master of raising expectations unrealistically and over-promising.

Of course, in such tumultuous times, people do need something to look forward to. But it should not be at the mercy of a government which never learns from its mistakes, either deliberately or through serial incompetence.

Ultimately, the un-vaccinated should not be going to nightclubs in June, only for us all to return to national lockdown at the end of carefree summer. In the end, the only thing worse than hope is raising false hope.
       
Against this backdrop are on-going and increasingly transparent and dishonest attempts to bury the corpse of a failing Brexit in the cemetery of Covid.               

During his tenure the prime minister has repeatedly lied to Parliament, to the Queen and her citizens, bent the rules, broken international law and broken the ministerial code on multiple occasions. The British government is overtly corrupt and it goes back on its word. Can it be trusted on anything it says, does or signs?

So far it has seemed that when Johnson and his government break the law at home they largely get away with it. But when international law is broken (especially when it reneges on an agreement like the Northern Ireland Protocol which was only recently negotiated, signed and hailed as a great triumph), we should not be surprised when the EU and countries like the US react adversely.

And all this after a month in which the government was keen to cover its dirty Brexit tricks by almost any means possible, not the least of which was buying editorial space in mainstream newspapers to run a number of disingenuous pro-Brexit news stories.

These actions do mean, however, that the government is becoming sensitive to the growing realisation that in reality Brexit is proving as damaging to the economy, if not more so, that the much derided “Project Fear” tried to warn back in 2016.

Such developments may only elicit a resigned shrug from the general population, especially given the more immediate impacts of Covid, but it is suggestive that Brexiters are aware their propaganda battle is being quickly eroded.

It is perhaps in this context that the government’s astonishingly dishonest Brexit ‘advertising’ campaign of recent weeks can be better understood.

On many levels it was designed to hoodwink the unsuspecting public because the campaign primarily consisted of placing paid-for stories in newspapers, including the Independent, the Daily Mail, The Sun, the Evening Standard and the Metro, along with hundreds of local newspapers.

To all intents and purposes they appeared to be legitimate news stories and it was necessary to look very carefully to see that these were billed as written ‘in association with the UK government’ or as ‘sponsored articles’.

At one level it is almost laughable but on another it does suggest a certain amount of desperation on the part of the government to create and promote dubious ‘good news’ narratives about Brexit.

The ground is clearly being prepared for a trade war with the EU, which shows that many in governance are ideologically determined to permanently toxify UK-EU relations, however badly that affects the country and its international reputation.

In some ways, the entire Brexit and Covid stories both come down to a gluttonous insatiability - a type of privileged greed, gestated by the right-wing and aligned with the inability of the British political class to impose any dietary restrictions on itself, and thus making way for an increasingly regime-like governance.

Caption: The Downing Street "briefing room" commissioned by Boris Johnson at a price tag to the taxpayer of £2.6 million. It looks like a standard hotel conference room along with cheap chairs, so one wonders why it cost so much? Note the 'Henry' vacuum cleaner on the right-hand side.

Space Oddity

 

 

THE fact that the European Union (EU) is consolidating its space programmes under a new agency that is being given an expanded mandate is not particularly good news for the UK space industry - at least as long as the current Johnson government remains in power.

As has already been proven with the Brexit end-of-transition negotiations, anything with EU in the title has been like a red rag to the Tory right, which has used its disproportionate influence to persuade the prime minister cut off as many ties with Europe as possible, beneficial or not.

There are many examples, including the ERASMUS student scheme and perhaps even Galileo itself, the European satellite navigation system in which the UK has played such a significant role.

The politically skewered view that the UK could just go ahead and build its own multi-billion pound replacement to Galileo was, in reality, just more jingoistic hot air to serve the “sovereignty above all else” headlines.

Like so many post-Brexit negotiating decisions, the loss of high-level access to the navigation satellite  system was a politically driven position - a government, huffing and puffing to leave and failing to consider rationally what was the country’s best interest.

The UK's final big industrial contribution to the EU's Galileo sat-nav system was delivered before Christmas after Guildford-based Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) shipped the last of the navigation payloads, which are described as  the "brains" of the spacecraft generating the signals the Galileo network sends down to Earth.

Britain’s "third country" status now means UK companies can no longer be involved in the hi-tech end as they once were because Galileo is regarded by the EU as a security programme and only firms in its 27 member states or those with separate agreements can take on sensitive work.

Of course, like many things with Brexit, it didn’t have to be like this. Norway, for example, which is not an EU member, negotiated itself an agreement giving access to Galileo’s high-level signals and the ability to supply sensitive hi-tech instruments.

A savvy UK government, not driven by political ideologies, could easily have achieved the same had it wanted to rather than erect another trade barrier, this time in “space”, of its own choosing.

So, given the UK’s somewhat intransigent and often seemingly ill-thought out positions of late, the EU’s consolidation of its space programmes may not be to Britain’s long term advantage.
                        
The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA), which  acts as the technical and procurement agent for the EU's space projects, will be renamed the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUASP).

As such, it will also take on managing the use of the Copernicus Earth observation satellite system and oversee new initiatives in satellite communications named GOVSATCOM and space situational awareness (SSA).

The Prague-based agency will continue to manage use of the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Systems (EGNOS) and Galileo satellite navigation programmes.

According to a European Commission (EC) press release last week, EUASP “will increasingly support the exploitation and market uptake of EU space activities, and play a bigger role in ensuring the security of all the components of the programme.”

EU Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, praised the reorganisation of the union’s space programmes. “Europe is the second space power in the world. But the global race is on,” he said. 

“With this agreement, we now have the means to develop our leadership in space by consolidating our flagships – Galileo and Copernicus – and exploring new initiatives that will enhance Europe’s resilience, notably in secure connectivity.”

The EU has a seven-year space budget of €13.2 billion ($16 billion) up to 2027 and most of these funds will be focused on operating and expanding the Copernicus and Galileo satellite systems. The European Space Agency (ESA), of which the UK remains a part, oversees technical aspects and development of the spacecraft.

EUASP will also oversee the new European GOVSATCOM that is designed to provide reliable, secure and cost-effective satellite communications for the EU and its member state governments.

In addition, the agency will be instructed to manage a new Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme designed to help prevent collisions of objects in Earth orbit and uncontrolled reentries from this increasingly over-crowded environment. The programme will also focus on monitoring space weather and near Earth objects.

So, despite remaining part of ESA, which at least for the time being will give the UK an on-going role in the Copernicus programme, it remains to be seen what effect the EU’s increasing involvement in the organisation of European space programmes will have.

Allied with the UK’s irrational desire to cut off as many ties with the EU as possible, will it ultimately be to the detriment of UK involvement and leadership of this hi-tech and lucrative industry?

Over the coming months, and years, such matters will go much deeper than the “temporary” disruptions and difficulties that are now becoming more and more evident by the day for firms and traders at UK borders.

The term 'Long Covid' has become increasingly familiar as the Covid-19 pandemic has progressed. Sadly, if previously vibrant and successful UK industries suffer the very practical fallout of misplaced political ideology and British exceptionalism, it may not be long before 'Long Brexit' becomes a thing too. 

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Editor's note: thanks to Prof Chris Grey for the acknowledgement and mention in his Brexit & Beyond blog on 22 January 2021, and the suggestion that the term Long Brexit has better parity with Long Covid by dropping the hyphen.