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).
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Brazil as the next space power
Good article from i09:
Thursday, February 23, 2012
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.
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.
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