I would suggest that the Isle of Unst, as a small island with a rich and comparatively rare number of species on and around it, is at greater risk from a space port being constructed there.

Were anything ecologically threatening to occur there, such a small ecology could be devastated overnight with little hope of it ever recovering.

Care about the environment like charity begins at home.

From what I know of the Shetland Space Centre, they're using the old infrastructure of Saxa Vord, so it's not really construction, more "weeding and power washing the concrete", and the damage has already been done ecologically in that regard.

As for big rockets going boom and spilling fuel et.al all over the place, the land around there has been getting regular spills since the 60s on and off. I remember a small weather monitoring thing being launched into low-Earth orbit there in the early 90s, and it managed the sum total of 10 feet off the ground, taking out a seagull when it fell back down with a rather loud bang.

Interestingly, if you search on 'unst holiday camp', you get saxavord.com. The summary talks about renting houses.

Click the link and all that saxavord.com does now is talk about being a space port.

Sounds like the holiday business didn't do so well so they went for space travel instead.

Who'd have though that ex-military housing at a difficult to reach location isn't appealing?

A Spaceport in Shetlands? Is this a good idea to send a rocket to space from such a northern latitude? :~

Mostly yes.

Main problem is weather and feeding the workers

and feeding the workers

I mean with Shetlands, they practically sealed the deal on that one...

>and feeding the workers

I'm sure the wilder regions of Scotland are now a prime destination for international gourmets - but my experience was more like the pub in American Werewolf in London

It's a fantasic idea for Polar Orbit. I rather think rocket scientists know their onions,... I mean, they are _rocket scientists_ after all.

It's a fantasic idea for Polar Orbit.

Are you sure? : Whatever the orbit the northern you go the less additional velocity you get from Earth rotation.

If it is an advantage to go north to reach a polar orbit, I wonder why the US launch their rockets from [1]Vandenberg Space Force Base rather than from Alaska?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_orbit

The further north the better, if you want a polar orbit. Not as much angular velocity to scrub off.

Not so good for geostationary satellites, of course, where the closer you are to the equator, the better.

Depends on what orbit you want to lob your sat to be in I guess. I hear polar orbits are all the rage now.

Edit: Well I'm late to that party

It depends on the sort of orbit that you want.

Most usable orbits (eg geostationary etc) benefit from being launched as close to the equator as possible to obtain an instant speed of ~1kps from the earths rotation. Such satellites tend to orbit around the earth basically horizontally around the equator.

You can however go for a polar orbit where the satellite orbits vertically around the poles of the planet, which is about the only thing I can imagine launching from Scotland would be useful for.

All orbits are horizontal, in the sense that they're heading towards (and over!) the horizon. The only way a polar orbit is "vertical" is from the point of view of someone looking at an Earth map with a north-up convention (although south-up would also work, but you don't see many of them).

I'm a little confused as to what you're getting at unless it's a semantic game. The Earth has a rotation, axis, shape and relative position. You could give North, East, South, West any labels you like, but there's a fundamental difference between an equatorial and axis aligned orbit. Maybe "vertical" is a klunky term that you object to.

Surely Earth has a top surface an edge and a bottom surface (where we keep Australia)

You're holding it upside-down....

Top surface and bottom surface, compared to what?

No, it's turtles all the way down...

If you see a name of a billionaire, try to add "child labour" next to it to Google search.

So Povlsen invested in a spaceport on the island of Unst in the Shetlands, and is suing to prevent the construction of a rival spaceport in northern Scotland? Who is building that Scottish spaceport anyway?

Also, what is both their business plans, besides subsidies, crofters, and sheep? I understand both want to hop on that bandwagon, any bandwagon, but what makes anybody think this won't end as a complete waste of money? (Genuine question, a simple downvote won't do)

Funny thing, I fired up Openstreetsmap to get an idea of where everything was, and lo and behold, the "Space Hub Sutherland" is already proudly displayed. The Unst one isn't though.

Who is building that Scottish spaceport anyway?

That is a good question and far from clear.

Form what I have heard on the grapevine all of the UK spaceports have problems and are going nowhere without some gov support, either directly in terms of grants or indirectly via MOD promised contracts, etc. Sure they all tell you there is a lot of business to be had but as usual the UK is falling far behind other nations (e.g. Norway, China, etc, etc) due to problematic regional rivalry, and more fundamentally a lack of gov commitment to do something.

Shetland = good north location, abysmal weather and limited access from mainland. Planning turned down as they want to remove WW2 stuff, company behind it has "interesting" history/structures.

Sutherland = reasonable location, getting there involves single track roads so pretty poor access for lorries of fuel, etc. Actually has planning permission, but sod-all done on the ground.

Macrihanish = real infrastructure and tolerable road access, risk of Cambletown being hit by vertical launch (jury out on that being good or bad...)

Prestwick = good roads, ridiculously close to major population

Snowdonia = much like Macrihanish

Cornwall = a bit like Prestwick (but gets the UK space agency love).

Here in Scotland the gov talks bullishly about a space future, but actually does very little to help. Yes, they have poured a lot of money in to some companies like ClydeSpace (now owned by the Swedish, AAC) and Spire (basically USA) but not much in to actual Scottish work. Much of the money spent so far on the spaceports has been consultancy by Lockheed Martin (yup, USA again).

> Form what I have heard on the grapevine

Thank you, that confirms my first impression that it is all just a means to siphon off taxpayers' money. At worst they will bulldozer a little around, then, after a suitable time to let people forget (year or so), it will be definitely canned.

How can people believe this nonsense? It's not like we're desperately lacking independent spaceports. The vast majority of rocket builders have their own launching facilities, not to mention shipping a big, ready to launch rocket to northern Scotland or the Shetlands will definitely cost a fortune and require a large, well-equipped harbor and large, non-sloping roads between it and the launching facility. Unless they also build a rocket factory and a fuel depot besides them, those spaceports will be just a useless waste of concrete.

Do they think it's like an airport, but for "spaceships"?...

I find it unbelievable that there is so much focus on space when there is so much to fix down here where the plebs live.

Has been like that pretty much since we discovered fire.

Otherwise we would still pretty much be in caves sharing out the fire.

We can't waste time on these boffins with their promises of fire when we have all this tough mammoth meat to chew.

do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?

Space exploration can provide you with a right set of keywords for a campaign and there is a lot of things that can go wrong, which means there is a lot of creative opportunities to siphon tax payer money out.

It's a jobs program: Promise to hire locals, get government funding, forget [1]promises .

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport_America#Delays_in_operation_of_the_anchor_tenant

Do you mean focus of money, time, publicity, column inches?

"We're especially pleased for the crofters of the Melness Crofters Estate, who will be able to protect and develop their community with modern jobs . Sutherland is still the only UK spaceport with planning permission and now, with this ruling, the countdown to space launch from the UK can begin."

That's pretty condescending: these crofters might well prefer crofting rather than be forced to take up jobs at the site as security guards, cleaners or B&B operators because Orbex has also imported a bunch of technicians who will price the locals out their homes.

I don't know, baking space cookies can be fun.

No, no, it is well known that spaceports require a huge amount of unqualified workers. To load/unload the hay bales from the spaceships and all that.

Seriously, as you said most workers (if there are ever workers required) will be imported. It's cheaper than to train the locals, but most of all, you'd have to hire the locals, while else you just outsource to service companies (security, cleaning, catering, and so on).

They must build the Mos Eisley Cantina first.

Where in Scotland would you find such a hive of scum and villainy ?

Not since 18th century Edinburgh --- New Town as well as Old.

Where in Scotland would you find such a hive of scum and villainy ?

Try Holyrood. Or any Glasgow pub.

With the construction of a Scottish spaceport, we will at last get to know the speed of a sheep in a vacuum.