"..located in the area around Newquay airport and Goonhilly..."
That's one big spaceport, given they're 30 miles apart!!
Cornwall has thrown its hat in the ring to become the prime location for Human Centred Space businesses by 2030. The UK Space Agency is deciding where to splash £50m to build British spaceports. Spaceports are intended to help Blighty access a global market for launching small satellites worth £10bn over 10 years, and offer …
"Not so. This scheme is air-launched rockets only, from well off-shore to the south, I presume. Thus Devon will be spared, but not, alas, France."
Nah you can easily miss France.. Just aim over the length of the Mediterranean.
will drop the bits on Devon, so the Cornwallians still see no problem
T'missus is from Devon but all her known[1] ancestry is Cornish. She prefers to self-identify as Cornish, despite having a blood group that mostly comes from the Iberian peninsula..
[1] Apart from the Scottish side. But that was many, many generations ago.
Me - I'm 100% pure mongrel with a paternal family origin in the Forest of Dean area. It's a miracle I can't count up to 7 on the fingers of one hand..
Yup - a spaceport located in the British Isles doesn't make much sense. Ascension Island would be a much better site - you've got 3000km before you have to worry about bit hitting Africa (although less if you want to avoid shipping routes).
So, not Scotland or Wales, then?
Damn foreigners, comin' over 'ere, taking all our space launches.
What's that you say? They are descended from Celts who were here before the Romans?
Damn natives, refusing to let us steal all their space launches!
52° North makes access to geostationary orbits difficult, but as we are leaving Europe, the UK can be moved somewhere more equatorial. The government will expect clever people to work out how to actually move the UK with no budget perhaps based on sending the UK over the internet without encryption.
"52° North makes access to geostationary orbits difficult, but as we are leaving Europe, the UK can be moved somewhere more equatorial. The government will expect clever people to work out how to actually move the UK with no budget perhaps based on sending the UK over the internet without encryption."
Nah nothing so complicated, they'll just redefine the equator.
'Ascension Island would be a much better site - you've got 3000km before you have to worry about bit hitting Africa (although less if you want to avoid shipping routes).
For reasons that are too stupid to go into I once had to find out the population density of the area within a few hundred kilometres of Ascension Island. Suffice to say the number I came back with was very low, although apparently 'the cube root of fuck all' isn't an appropriate response, because the cube root bit might confuse people. And the swearing.
I believe they;re looking at horizontal take-off access to space via Skylon, rather than Space X type access. In which case, whilst yes, a location nearer the equator is nice, but certainly not essential. The Russians walloped the Americans during the space race up until Apollo, and their launch sites were all further north than Florida.
But in any case - if thur bain't be pasties and cream teas in space, Oi bain't goin'!
if thur bain't be pasties and cream teas in space, Oi bain't goin'!
Don't be caring about cream teas and suchlike. It be the scrumpy I'd be missing. Unless it be there directly[1] I ain't goin'.
[1] Cornish usage of which equates to something like "manana" but without the sense of urgency..
Jam spreads nicely on cream, provided that the cream is clotted cream and the jam is proper jam - slightly viscous, not that solid gelatinous stuff.
Trying to spread clotted cream on jam (of either kind) is actually much harder than it is to dump jam onto clotted cream as it lubricates the surface onto which you're trying to spread cream and leaves you without a nice surface (spaceship or scone) for the clotted cream to adhere.
My Cornish grandfather (a physicist from Fowey), perhaps to his countrymen's disgust, taught me this way, and I remain convinced that it is the only way to construct a cream tea.
"Jam first. Cream on top."
Lets solve this one once for all. Slice scone (whichever way you pronounce it) in half, spread clotted cream on one half, spread jam on the other half. Eat how you want, one half then the other, or put the halves together and turn so either the jam or cram is at the "top".
Personally, I'd rather use bread, In the form of a bun. Place bacon in bun first, then add the sauce. place top on bun. Nom nom nom.
Jam first. Cream on top.
This.
Although I will categorically deny this post if my wife reads it and does the jam/cream[1] thing the other way round. It must have been those eeevil Russian[2] hackers wot did it
[1] Cream of course == proper clotted cream[3]. Which should be almost as thick as butter and spread just as well. Anyone who uses squirty cream in a cream tea would be persona non grata in our household - or indeed in every household of taste and discernment.
[2] s/Russian/[Norks/US/Chinese]/g *
[3] Strangely enough, she has some shared ancestry with the Rodda family. But then, considering how small the population of Cornwall was 200 years ago, it's probably not *that* surprising.
Actually a Cornish pasty should only be a third meat with the rest potato, onion and other cheap filler.
You might be promised a meat filled pasty, but thats not at all what you'll get. A bit like what the good people of Cornwall will discover when they find what their Brexit vote really means.
Wait until we get 'Cornish' pasties that were made in the USA, as the yanks are now demanding. You'll long for the days when you got actual natural food like potato in them. You'll get whatever is cheapest and doesn't actually poison you until after you've walked out of the shop.
So, we USAians have this thing called a 'hot pocket', which is vaguely similar to a pastie.
I am blessed in that in one of the cities I live around, there's a small chain of restaurants called the Cornish Pasty Company, which makes (from what I'm lead to believe) the closest thing to the real deal as can be found in the US. I've been there a few times, they are rather good. (unlike hot pockets, which are what Taco Bell is to actual mexican food- it's ok, but it's lowest common denominator food and there's much better to be found.)
Icon, because there's no IT angle in this post, unless you count that I put it in whilst waiting for a server to finish bootstraping an update installer for SQL.
Pasties? Being American, I expected a ... titillating image to go with this article. Especially having just read the article on Rhode Island's proposed Porn Tax.
"Wait until we get 'Cornish' pasties that were made in the USA, as the yanks are now demanding. "
A yankee heathen just managed to win a major prize at the world pasty championships. Bloody rich yanks, coming over here and buying all the best prizes!
Putting a Ginsters pasty into orbit is probably the best place for it.
"Actually a Cornish pasty should only be a third meat with the rest potato, onion and other cheap filler."
Actually that should only be the first half of the pasty, as the savoury filling would be cooked at one end of the crescent and the sweet course at the other end.
Just getting me pasty out of me coat - I'd kill for a Ivor Dewdney pasty right now.
Oh my god, Ivor Dewdney's... that brings back memories. Not the best pastie in the world, perhaps, but a Plymouth institution nonetheless.
Whoever said that beef skirt was the best meat to use was spot on. That's what my Gran uses (and hers probably *are* the best pasties in the world).
Meat in a pasty?
There was an interesting lady on Radio Cymru yesterday talking about Cornish pasties (celebrating Gool Piran) and she said that originally (c.14th century) they were just root veg, onions etc. Potatoes and then meat came later.
For modern usage, she recommended skirt as the meat.
She may be wrong, but so are peas and carrots!
they were just root veg, onions etc. Potatoes and then meat came later.
Well - considering that potatoes didn't come to Britain until Francis Drake bought some back that's probably quite true.
Also, the peasantry wouldn't have had much access to meat. But lots of turnips, carrots and beets.
Cornish pasty should only be a third meat with the rest potato, onion and other cheap filler
Turnip is also usually considered part of the canonical pasty. Or at least, that's the way t'missis' granny used to make them. She also did a version that had an internal pastry wall that sectioned off some stewed fruit or jam so that you had something sweet to finish off the meal.
That rumbling noise you hear is her spinning in her grave at the thought of vegetarian pasties.
"considerable investment from the European Union in the form of projects such as high-speed internet connectivity."
Cornwall should have rather a lot of internet. Porthcurno is still the landing point for trans-Atlantic and other cables,
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/15/geeks_guide_to_britain_porthcurno/
The transatlantic cables bring no benefit locally. It's not like, say, a Nigerian oil pipeline we can tap in to and help ourselves. It's just disruption when they dig up the roads.
Special funding for rural broadband is an altogether different question.
I'm sure your tongue was in your cheek there, but it brought back memories of the time when both my on-road routes to work (about six miles at the time) were dug up.
For you right pondians, the youngest's current bedtime reading and discussion book is Ask An Astronaut, by your own Tim Peake. There are numerous questions about food of course, and apparently Tim used his 10% Personal Choice list to bring up some British treats. Cornish Pasties sadly was not amongst the list of edibles they could take to the ISS.
Beer, since I'm pretty sure that it was one of the banned foods.....
The University of Exeter has a presence in Cornwall at Penryn where it shares a Campus with Falmouth University so I think that is what was meant. The University transports some of its staff around in large cars with UOE number plates; very nouveau riche. If you follow the link you included in your piece . . . .