back to article She's just a Cosmic Girl but UK.gov is dangling £20m to have Beardy Branson's 747 launch satellites from Cornwall

The UK government is flinging more cash at Blighty's embryonic launch capabilities, with another £20m up for grabs. Unlike recent rounds, the funds are aimed squarely at getting US-based Virgin Orbit and its Cosmic Girl carrier 747 flying from Cornwall Airport Newquay (Spaceport Cornwall). The cash will come from Cornwall …

  1. Gordon 10
    WTF?

    £12m from Cornwall Council for 150 jobs? I'll take that for 80k pa.

    One does wonder why it's not spent on say Cornwalls Homelessness problem or better School maintenance. When local council funding has been cut horribly in the last 6 years I cant see why a Govt vanity project should recevie such a diversion of funds

    1. Jim Mitchell

      £12m one time for 150 jobs that might last decades (and is that 150 total jobs, or just the direct ones?) doesn't sound that bad.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How do you know they're not going to solve Cornwalls homelessness problem by sending them all into space?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Flame

        Launching criminals into space?

        IIRC they did that in "Outcasts". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcasts_(TV_series)

        Which makes little sense. Why spend all that money on giving criminals a free get out of jail card? I'd expect it's the rich who want to live off their pension in privacy and (imagined) safety away from everything else.

        1. not.known@this.address
          Angel

          Re: Launching criminals into space?

          Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B! Tired TV Producers, Hairdressers and Telephone Sanitizers for the win!

        2. macjules

          Re: Launching criminals into space?

          Why spend all that money on giving criminals a free get out of jail card?

          Nobody said anything about giving them oxygen as well.

      2. NoneSuch Silver badge
        Childcatcher

        I believe SJ Parkinson's epic sci-fi novel, Twinkle, is coming true. Be afraid...

    3. Vulch

      Possibly being seen by the county as a way to help Newquay Airport to stay open. With Plymouth Airport currently shut the next nearest is Exeter.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        IT Angle

        Exeter? Call that an airport? Nearest that goes anywhere is Bristol, and that's nearly London!

        Still, at least we now have an amazing 24-hour coach service connecting Brisl airport not just to the city centre, but also to Taunton, Exeter, and Plymouth.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Alien

      @Gordon 10

      12 million Sterling from the Cornwall Council, plus another 8 million from Westminster and some local quango. That takes the price per job up to 133K Sterling. Seems like a lot to me, but I am not an expert on what other local job-creation grants cost.

      AND...

      SPACEPORT CORNWALL!!! You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villiany. We must be careful. (It's El Reg, so you knew that was coming.)

      1. Gordon 10

        Re: @Gordon 10

        On that note let’s hope they spunk some of the cash on a proper cantina. The airport coffee shop is a poor substitute.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMUOfFxuetw

      2. David 164

        Re: @Gordon 10

        That nothing,

        Wisconsin is giving Foxconn 1 million dollars per job.

        https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/aug/11/melissa-sargent/wisconsin-offering-pay-taiwan-tech-firm-foxconn-1-/

    5. werdsmith Silver badge

      Probably because if you don't invest in your local economy then you risk even more homeless.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Does anyone really believe that the project will succeed and actually create those jobs after spending an amount equal to Spacex's tea money?

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          That's for the domain experts to judge. But I reckon doing something has a chance. But doing sweet FA is less likely to work.

      2. Aitor 1

        Burning money

        Burning money will work then?

        Maybe, just maybe, lowering taxes would be better?

        Just remove taxes and red tape for the same amount of money, and hey, maybe that would work way better!

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      As a Cornishman I was thinking the very same! £12M feck me, but I suppose they are willing to spunk £6M on a new stadium for Cornwall and have spunked £5M on new offices for the Tamar bridge (whilst claiming they haven't got any money so have to put the price of crossing the bridge up)

      They also already subsidise the airport to the tune of quite a bit every year as well

    7. BOBSta

      Council funding

      Having recently returned from a week around Rock and Padstein, I can confirm that council funding is a joke and they should be more focused on providing litter collections, free toilets with baby changing facilities near beaches, and automated anti-seagull guns near all pasty shops.

  2. Stevie

    Bah!

    The danger here is the same as in days of yore. The locals will set up fake landing lights to lure the returning spaceships into crashing on the rocks so their cargoes of space-rum and space-gold can be looted.

    1. KarMann Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Bah!

      Don't worry, Ted Cruz has a plan to deal with them.

    2. Charlie van Becelaere
      Pirate

      Re: Bah!

      Them as be already landed be the lucky ones … aaarrrggghh. (or however one spells that).

      1. Scott Broukell

        Re: Bah!

        @ Charlie van Becelaere

        Reminds me of: Q. - Why are pirates so brilliant ? A. - Because they aaarrrgggh.

  3. Nick Kew

    Is this going to be our big connection to the outside world?

    From an area where road connections are ghastly and the railway is a sick joke even when it isn't getting washed out to sea. Millions for this, but they won't pay a few quid re-open our inland railway line west of Exeter.

    Reminds me of the beginning of the century, when they dug up our roads to lay transatlantic cable, yet we couldn't get ADSL ourselves.

    1. Gordon 10

      TBF the run down the A30 to Newquay and surroundings is a vast improvement over 20 years ago.

      It's only when you get to South Cornwall when the A30 turns back to single carriageway it's like the old days.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        BUT the A30 isn't the only trunk road in to Cornwall, there's the A38 which is utter, utter, utter dog shit and has suffered a very high amount of fatal accidents over the last few years. But of course as this road doesn't go down West (where Cornwall Council are based) it doesn't get any money spent on it as all the cash goes to the A30. And then HMG are going to spend £Bn'ssssss on HS2 when the line to Plymouth and Cornwall s a total shit storm and STILL hasn't been sorted since the fecking thing washed away several years back. Still its only somewhere to go for your hols so the government don't give a feck

        1. Korev Silver badge

          The A39 is also pretty awful. They even semi admitted it as they route traffic to Falmouth further to the west of Truro.

          They also seem determined to eliminate any traffic movement going west of Truro on the A390 with a billion traffic lights and roundabouts...

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          "Still its only somewhere to go for your hols so the government don't give a feck"

          We've been to Cornwall on holiday 3 or 4 times over the last 10 years. Never had any traffic problems. But since we don't have kids we get to choose when we go and avoid the holiday "rush". The worst we've seen was coming out of Cornwall at the start of a BH weekend. We coasted past many, many miles of traffic all going into Cornwall as were leaving :-)

      2. Nick Kew

        Hmmm. Maybe it's nearly 20 years since I suffered the A30, at least west of Okehampton. Both it and the A38, fast roads with lots of hidden/blind junctions: ugh.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        The good ole days

        I can remember doing 120mph over Bodmin early one morning, not long after the new dual carriageway opened.

        As it is Cornwall, will people getting space sick be described as pasty faced??

        As for the money v jobs question, it will be a few managers on £2 million each, with the rest on minimum wage.

    2. Korev Silver badge

      Not to mention electrifying the railway in the south west.

  4. Rudolph Hucker the Third
    Pirate

    From Newquay Spaceport, I'd cycle down to Boscarne Junction and get the Bodmin and Wenford Railway steam train. Chuffing marvellous! Change at Bodmin Parkway to get one of the 40-year old IC125s that hasn't been sold to ScotRail yet. GWR still needs a few 'cause the lovely new Hitachi trains don't like wet weather along the Dawlish Sea Wall.

    1. SimonM

      Not entirely accurate, the IETs are fine along the sea wall, sea spray or not. The XC voyagers, not so!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        the new hitachi ones are really struggling, of course as there's no electrification in the SW we have the shite hybrid versions. Plymouth to London over 3h which is shite and Plymouth to Penzance 2h!!!!!!! Its 80 fecking miles! All the HST's have now gone apart from some refurb ones which are being run as 4 car sets and are actually miles better than the chicken chaser 2 car DMU's that they have replaced

        1. SimonM

          Totally agree on the Castle Set, refurbished short HSTs, far better than the IETs, but my comment still stands, not aware they are in anyway affected by sea spray, this was part of the design, I'll double check with my dad, he drives them to London and back, but of all the complaints, I don't think sea spray intake was one of them!

        2. Nick Kew

          London-Exeter: fast train. 200 miles in two hours.

          Other intercity destinations from Exeter (Brisl, Brum, etc), decent enough.

          But Exeter - Plymouth, another full hour for 40 miles. 'Cos as soon as you go west of Exeter it's "outer England", usually associated with "it's grim up north". London's attitude: let them eat cake. And they're not going to invest the cost of a mile or so of HS2 in re-opening the line Exeter-Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock. That line was slow too, but at least it would give us an inland line that could stay open even in stormy weather, or when Things Happen on that Dawlish/Teignmouth stretch!

    2. SimonM

      And if proof needed of the IETs not being affected by sea spray at Dawlish, today is a good example, Voyagers not running today but IETs continue, watch here: https://www.dawlishbeach.com/

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. The Pi Man

    Why?

    Anyone know why we need all these satellites?

  7. Chozo

    Is there a pilot in the house?

    Quick look on google earth measures the runway length at about 2600m/5300', isn't that a little short for a fully laden 747?

    1. SimonM

      Re: Is there a pilot in the house?

      Not far off... 8986ft / 2738m / 1.7miles. Depends if the 747 needs to be fully laden to launch said rockets, doubt it...

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Is there a pilot in the house?

        The drag from the rocket isn't going to do the mileage all that great and how much fuel they need onboard will depend on how far they need to travel to get to the best launching point. The base they operate from will need to have a runway based on the worst case scenario, heaviest rocket, most fuel worst air density altitude. The runway in Mojave is a couple of miles long.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Is there a pilot in the house?

        runway is 9006 ft (2745 m) long

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