5 ms·

If someone is inclined to critique this, have they considered the whole situation, and do they have better ideas? Remain in the EU has sailed, sadly. What do we

by eeh 6y ago

If someone is inclined to critique this, have they considered the whole situation, and do they have better ideas? Remain in the EU has sailed, sadly. What do we do now? Is it possible investing in an existing space company is the best path for the UK to have its own GPS-like satellites?

madaxe_again 6y ago
If they wanted a high resolution positioning system to cover the British isles, it could be accomplished with an entirely ground based triangulation network at a tiny fraction of the cost. Same principles, just cheaper, and a smaller area covered.
- eeh 6y ago
  Does that work with GPS chips in phones? Does that facilitate research into space? Does that provide continuity for existing space research/universities? Is space research considered to be geopolitically important? I don't know the answers to these, but I do know these decisions are beyond arm chair critique.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    Also less know: GPS can be used as an additional "highish" precision clock source for servers. It works based on the device having known GPS position and knowledge that the position didn't change at all. EDIT: This as far as I know also applies to other GPS like systems.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    >Does that work with GPS chips in phones? I'm not super familiar with how Differential GPS works in practice, but I believe that the common phone receivers are able to pick it up. At the very least they're able to handle satellite based augmentations like WAAS and QZSS
- dathinab 6y ago
  The problem is the British sea. If it's just the land mass it's really not a supper big problem. It's still kinda big as devices would need to specially manufactured for their system, which can drive costs up.
pjc50 6y ago
As asked up thread, why do we need our own duplicate GPS system anyway? Is this a sensible use of limited funds?
- eeh 6y ago
  I don't know what motivation is, but there's a few plausible options: * the UK may not want critical infrastructure provided elsewhere * the UK may have research/student folk who would have previously worked on Galileo, but now cannot * the UK may want to fund this as a vehicle for space research in general
  - spzb 6y ago
    Most plausible: * UK wants a big vanity project to show how much better they are out of the EU
    - eeh 6y ago
      I don't know which is most plausible. What makes you think that is most plausible?
      - spzb 6y ago
        The last four years of living in the UK
        eeh 6y ago
        Ah, the classic "the government cannot do a good thing, therefore this must be a bad thing".
growlist 6y ago
The UK has a world-leading satellite industry, and could just launch them on Falcon 9 or Starship when operational - likely at drastically lower cost than Ariane. In fact I suspect that due to technological advance and lower cost of launching on SpaceX, the UK could probably develop a superior system to Galileo at a fraction of the cost, which would be amusing.

by eeh 6y ago

madaxe_again 6y ago

If they wanted a high resolution positioning system to cover the British isles, it could be accomplished with an entirely ground based triangulation network at a tiny fraction of the cost. Same principles, just cheaper, and a smaller area covered.

eeh 6y ago
Does that work with GPS chips in phones? Does that facilitate research into space? Does that provide continuity for existing space research/universities? Is space research considered to be geopolitically important? I don't know the answers to these, but I do know these decisions are beyond arm chair critique.
- dathinab 6y ago
  Also less know: GPS can be used as an additional "highish" precision clock source for servers. It works based on the device having known GPS position and knowledge that the position didn't change at all. EDIT: This as far as I know also applies to other GPS like systems.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  >Does that work with GPS chips in phones? I'm not super familiar with how Differential GPS works in practice, but I believe that the common phone receivers are able to pick it up. At the very least they're able to handle satellite based augmentations like WAAS and QZSS
dathinab 6y ago
The problem is the British sea. If it's just the land mass it's really not a supper big problem. It's still kinda big as devices would need to specially manufactured for their system, which can drive costs up.

pjc50 6y ago

As asked up thread, why do we need our own duplicate GPS system anyway? Is this a sensible use of limited funds?

eeh 6y ago
I don't know what motivation is, but there's a few plausible options: * the UK may not want critical infrastructure provided elsewhere * the UK may have research/student folk who would have previously worked on Galileo, but now cannot * the UK may want to fund this as a vehicle for space research in general
- spzb 6y ago
  Most plausible: * UK wants a big vanity project to show how much better they are out of the EU
  - eeh 6y ago
    I don't know which is most plausible. What makes you think that is most plausible?
    - spzb 6y ago
      The last four years of living in the UK
      - eeh 6y ago
        Ah, the classic "the government cannot do a good thing, therefore this must be a bad thing".

growlist 6y ago

The UK has a world-leading satellite industry, and could just launch them on Falcon 9 or Starship when operational - likely at drastically lower cost than Ariane. In fact I suspect that due to technological advance and lower cost of launching on SpaceX, the UK could probably develop a superior system to Galileo at a fraction of the cost, which would be amusing.