Effect of Brexit on UK Space Industry ?
Discussion
I can't help but think Brexit will have a bad effect on the UK space industry due to the fact that a lot of the European space industry is interlinked between countries resulting in our departure being messy.
I appreciate that ESA isn't the EU, and non EU states are members, but being separate from the EU will hinder a lot of work with the UK and some commercial customers may just go elsewhere as it is the simpler option. Geographic return will help with ESA work, but not some commercial work, of which we do a significant amount.
(For those not familiar with geographic return it is where you get a portion of ESA work proportional to what you pay into ESA.)
The space industry may seem a somewhat “unnecessary” industry to some but it’s not all abstract science projects. Even those bring hard cash into the British economy. Space is one of the areas in the UK where manufacturing is increasing and where we still lead in certain areas.
Anyway, off you go, am I worrying too much? discuss.
I appreciate that ESA isn't the EU, and non EU states are members, but being separate from the EU will hinder a lot of work with the UK and some commercial customers may just go elsewhere as it is the simpler option. Geographic return will help with ESA work, but not some commercial work, of which we do a significant amount.
(For those not familiar with geographic return it is where you get a portion of ESA work proportional to what you pay into ESA.)
The space industry may seem a somewhat “unnecessary” industry to some but it’s not all abstract science projects. Even those bring hard cash into the British economy. Space is one of the areas in the UK where manufacturing is increasing and where we still lead in certain areas.
Anyway, off you go, am I worrying too much? discuss.
If you want to worry about something, worry about how SpaceX is going to take the ESA's business.
I fail to see how Britain regaining independence would have any negative impact on this sector. We'll likely stay in ESA anyway, although I'd rather we were a bit more ambitious that that. Maybe do something with the Russians, Americans or Indians and actually do something useful.
It would be nice is we stopped pissing away taxpayer's money on the EU's "me too" satellite navigation vanity project, Galileo.
I fail to see how Britain regaining independence would have any negative impact on this sector. We'll likely stay in ESA anyway, although I'd rather we were a bit more ambitious that that. Maybe do something with the Russians, Americans or Indians and actually do something useful.
It would be nice is we stopped pissing away taxpayer's money on the EU's "me too" satellite navigation vanity project, Galileo.
I'm not so worried about ESA work, it's the commercial areas that concern me. Everyone thinks UK space is all about ESA work, it's not.
For Example, in Britain we produce the structures and payloads for the Eurostar geostationary communication satellites that currently make up a 1/4 to 1/3 the global market a year. That's 70 Eurostar E2000 or E3000 comm satellites built or in build since 1990. Final assembly & testing occur in France. Occasionally we assemble & test smaller comm satellites here as well. You never hear about this because it's not Buck Rogers enough and it would be un-British to brag about it. It's commercial and rarely sees any taxpayers money, though ESA do sometimes fund new technology. It's an area where we lead for now. I'm concerned we could lose that along with other commercial areas.
I do agree that Galileo is hideously over budget and it should never have got that way.
For Example, in Britain we produce the structures and payloads for the Eurostar geostationary communication satellites that currently make up a 1/4 to 1/3 the global market a year. That's 70 Eurostar E2000 or E3000 comm satellites built or in build since 1990. Final assembly & testing occur in France. Occasionally we assemble & test smaller comm satellites here as well. You never hear about this because it's not Buck Rogers enough and it would be un-British to brag about it. It's commercial and rarely sees any taxpayers money, though ESA do sometimes fund new technology. It's an area where we lead for now. I'm concerned we could lose that along with other commercial areas.
I do agree that Galileo is hideously over budget and it should never have got that way.
RobDickinson said:
ESA started in 1975 well before any EU.
I think you might find that the EU (in its original EEC format) is considerably older than 1975. The original European space programme was ELDO - the European Launcher Development Organisation - which was superseded by ESA, mainly because the British government proved an unreliable supporter of ELDO.Eric Mc said:
RobDickinson said:
ESA started in 1975 well before any EU.
I think you might find that the EU (in its original EEC format) is considerably older than 1975. The original European space programme was ELDO - the European Launcher Development Organisation - which was superseded by ESA, mainly because the British government proved an unreliable supporter of ELDO.We had, and will continue to have, other relationships with Europe regardless of brexit
RobDickinson said:
Yes but the EU ( the bit Brexit is about) was formed in 1993.
We had, and will continue to have, other relationships with Europe regardless of brexit
I'm sure we will. However, there is no doubt that not being a full EU member will throw up obstacles and hindrances that currently don't exist. These problems can be overcome in time - but at the moment they don't need to be.We had, and will continue to have, other relationships with Europe regardless of brexit
RobDickinson said:
It wouldnt surprise me if the franco/german alliance tries making things as hard as possible out of spite...
The word 'spite' came into my head even before I read that. I don't think we'll leave, even if we vote for it. And if we did, then yes no doubt the EU would punish its errant schoolboy by putting him in detention.Simpo Two said:
RobDickinson said:
It wouldnt surprise me if the franco/german alliance tries making things as hard as possible out of spite...
The word 'spite' came into my head even before I read that. I don't think we'll leave, even if we vote for it. And if we did, then yes no doubt the EU would punish its errant schoolboy by putting him in detention.But yes, if the UK does vote leave the voters and the country as a whole will be punished. George Osborne already has already set out our sentence should we dare to disobey him, at least the French and German leaders have been a little bit more polite and will wait until after the result before they announce our penalty.
Flooble said:
Not sure that is comparable, was there underlying hatred prior to them joining NATO?
I still think that it will be harder to sell services into countries which already look at us a tad askance, should we have told them we don't want to be in their party either.
I'm not saying there won't be a change of attitude. How it affects the scientific community - which is fairly international in outlook anyway - we just don't know.I still think that it will be harder to sell services into countries which already look at us a tad askance, should we have told them we don't want to be in their party either.
That is the big problem with the referendum - the consequences of either possible outcome are pretty much impossible to predict.
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