Brazil as the next space power

Good article from i09:

While lacking a manned shuttle initiative, Brazil is poised as a hotbed for space exploration along with private and joint government launches in the coming decades. Additionally, Brazil's Science without Borders programs aims to spend two billion dollars to educate 75,000 students pursuing advanced degrees in engineering and physical sciences at home and abroad, with hope that some of those students will return to work in Brazil. Yes, Brazil, thanks to its location and initiative, could very well become the planet's spaceport of choice in the late 21st Century.

It's infrastructure plus education plus location (being the the equator helps).

Rio's control room and others

Today's NYT highlights Rio de Janiero's high tech control room. It's the first of its kind in the world to help manage issues from traffic to natural disasters within the giant city.

Obviously, IBM believes this is part of the future of cities and wants every city to have one at some point in the future. The article cites several examples where the system helped the city respond in a more effective manner including the recent building collapse. Given the major events coming up in Rio, it seems like a smart investment for the city.

But should every big city in the region get one of these control rooms? There are questions about how cost-effective these systems are and whether they are really necessary, especially when you consider other programs that could be purchased with the money. Centralizing crisis management at the megalopolis level may be less effective than building small systems at the neighborhood level. It's easy to be wowed by the screens and maps in a control room without really knowing how useful they are.

I think a lot of city managers will be traveling to Rio in the coming five years to see this system and determine whether they need one.

Can Brazil go supersonic?

When the Concorde was in style, it was used to make the US to Europe trip in less than half the time it takes normal planes. There were problems (economic, physical and other) with the plane, but the concept of it connecting the two continents and making trips fast and cheap was a good dream to have.

Given a rising Brazil with its own aviation industry, it's worth believing that they could want a supersonic plane to connect them to North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. It's a long flight to Rio from almost anywhere outside of South America and cutting down the time could help Brazil's general standing.

There are other companies in the world working on a new generation of supersonic passenger jets, and Brazil could always purchase them from elsewhere. Or, Brazil could try to do it on their own. It's a tough but possible technological push that would advance its industry and provide a boost to its reputation.

A South American competitor to GPS

The United States maintains the Global Positioning System (GPS) of 32 satellites for anyone to use. How nice of us.

Still, some countries either don't trust the US or want their own systems for a variety of national and technical reasons. Russia has a system (GLONASS) that provides and alternative. China and Europe are launching their own systems as well, though they remain several years away.

Is there a reason for South America to launch its own system as well? It could be useful to have another alternative and one under the region's control. It would be a huge boost for R&D spending as well as science and engineering expertise in the region. At the same time, it could be seen as a big waste of time and money when there are other freely available platforms.

Brazil and others are discussing a South American space agency run through UNASUR. Brazil is also planning to launch new earth monitoring satellites, a priority that ranks much higher for the region than an alternative GPS system. Several countries have partnered with China to launch satellites in recent years, mostly for telecommunications.

This isn't something for the near future, but there is no reason to think the region couldn't be running its own limited constellation of satellites for global positioning at some point inside of fifty years.

Or, alternatively and perhaps more realistically, Latin America could partner with the US, China or someone else to own and operate a piece of the system. They could share the costs and the benefits.