 Good evening and thank you for joining us for another of our inaugural lecture series. I am Professor Devendra Kodwani, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law here at the Open University. I am proud and privileged to be hosting one of our inaugural lectures, which showcases our research, teaching, and knowledge exchange portfolios. Each year, the Vice Chancellor invites newly appointed and promoted professors to give an inaugural lecture. Over the course of a year, our inaugural lecture series provides an opportunity to celebrate academic excellence with each lecturer representing a significant milestone in an academic career. This evening, we will hear from Leslie Budd, Professor of Regional Economy in the Department of Public Leadership and Social Enterprise, PULSE at the Open University Business School, who will explore the recent increase in public interest in space exploration and the future of using urban and regional economics for assessing its impact. Before we begin some housekeeping, the lecture will be followed by a question in on association. Then we invite you to celebrate with us downstairs for those of those who are with us in person. For anyone in the audience using Twitter, please feel free to tweet using the hashtag displayed at the Open University, and let the world join us this evening. For members of our audience joining us via YouTube, please use the email address provided and keep your comments and questions brief so that we can address them during the Q&A. And now some background about Professor Leslie Budd. Professor Leslie Budd is a Professor of Regional Economy in the Department of Public Leadership and Social Enterprise at the Open University Business School. He is an economist who is internationally known for his work on regional and urban economics in the context of global issues, the digital economy, the socioeconomic impact of Brexit and evaluating the socioeconomic benefits of space exploration. He is currently Director of the Space Exploration and Analysis Research, SPAIR, Cluster in the Faculty of Business and Law, and a visiting professor at the Center for Brexit Studies at Birmingham City University. Leslie has undertaken economic and financial analysis for a number of regional, national and international organizations. These include Cooperation of London, the Small Business Service, the Capital Market Authority in Riyadh, and Iraq Ministry of Planning. Between 2014 and 2016, he was Special Economic Advisor to the Committee for Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly. In research and policy briefings, for example, the consequences of the devolved taxation and the impact of Brexit on the Northern Ireland economy. It now gives me great pleasure to introduce Professor Leslie Budd. Leslie, please come. Thank you for those kind words. Okay, this lecture focuses on the socioeconomic analysis and evaluation of the space economy, its industry, and international exploration programs. It covers research that attempts to create a critical narrative of the social societal challenges that go beyond the narrow purview of space exploration as not just as an outcome of science. Now, we all know that mathematics and science drive all knowledge, but the growth of the socioeconomic benefits generated by the space economy, its exploration in industry between the Earth and space economy, is also becoming very important. And I've never subscribed to see Pien Snow's notion of two cultures between natural sciences and humanities. He's a much better fiction writer than he is about describing that false opposition. Now, this is a learning journey which is central to the student experience of the Open University. So mine is no different in many respects. Like any journey, there's been continuities and discontinuities along the way. The picture on the right is by the Urbanites, a 1980s radical art collection that decorated the ceiling of the Scarlet Sysmar in London, which some of you here I know know well, influenced by the Sistine Chapel in Rome. And my own identity reflects my professional and personal commitment to things urban and regional. In the last, oh sorry, this slide is, so I'm trying to do two things at once. In the last 30 years, I've developed an interest and expertise in regional economics and transport, but also retained an interest in structural engineering and architecture. Also reflects my own, if you like, professional and personal journey from my father working at British Airways for 30 years as an engineer through structural engineers, economics, transport, planning, regional economics, higher education, and also my professional and personal commitment to all things urban and regional. Four years ago, along with my colleagues in the science, technology, engineering and maths faculty, Manish Patel and Vic Pearson. We were successful with our benefits of the European Exploration Roadmap in Economics, known as BEERS Project, funded by the European Space Agency. This outcome was a starting point of my interest and developing expertise in the socio-economic impacts of space. There are lots of people to thank along the way on that journey. Some of here are here tonight and online. This is an overview of the global space economy in 2021. As can be seen from that representation, there are three largest contributors, consumer services related to media and communications, navigation, positioning and timing of satellites and government space budgets. The projected growth of 1.5 trillion to 2040 shows the widening and deepening impact of space in many industries and regions across the world. The distribution of the global space economy is shown in this slide that reflects the changing trajectory of advanced economies, but also the growth of space manufacturing underpinned by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Industry 4.0, known as IF5.0 strategies. They are becoming an important component of the Earth and space economy and its urban and regional territorial distribution. IF5.0 is closely associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, whose design principles have direct applications to space science, technology and innovation spillovers. You can see those design principles, which also correlate to regionally based industrial policy as an agency of development across the global economy, stimulating space 4.0. For example, places like Brayman, Glasgow, Shetland, Toulouse and Turin were locales for shipbuilding, aeronautics and oil and gas production, but this continuity has depended on active industrial strategies and policies ever since. The Orion European Service Module case study, which we'll come on to, also demonstrates the role of space as a propulsive industry in enabling a range of municipalities and regions to exploit IF4.0 technologies and innovation spillovers in different urban and regional contexts. So this is a statement that was made by the Ministerial Council of ESA in December 2016. I will really read it out, but because it shows the multidisciplinary nature increasingly of space exploration and its importance in addressing societal challenges. So space, that space serves societal needs, response to European and global challenges and offers opportunities notably to those related to the attainment of sustainable development goals and socioeconomic growth, mitigation of geopolitical risks, which have been harnessed much more recently, security, science, knowledge, climate change and a digital Europe. And I'm not someone who usually states publicly, I'm proud of things, but I'm proud working at the Open University because it's one of the few universities in the world where you can bring these things together. And there's people in this room who have done a lot to actually fulfill that role. So there's high level of cooperation between the EU and ESA. The EU relies heavily on ESA's technical excellence and a large part of the EU's space budget is delegated to ESA to the extent that the EU today is amongst the largest contributors to ESA programs. Article 189 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union that builds upon the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 calls for the EU to establish appropriate relations with ESA, which is a complex phenomenon itself, but at least it's a public statement of collaboration. So looking at new economic aspects between the space and Earth economy, here we see the territory mentioned to spaceports, which as we can see from their dimensions are actually very urban and very regional and connect two kinds of territory, Earth and space. The figure on the right is taken from the 2021 National Space Strategy showing the territorial distribution of the key nodes of the UK space industry. Spaceports are launch sites for satellites, they are either horizontal or vertical. The former using conventional aircraft with satellites slung under their wings, which are then launched beyond land. The latter consists of rockets launched over water carrying satellites. Presswick is an example of a horizontal spaceport and Shetland is a vertical one. They have benefits and costs including economic growth, employment, low operational costs, but environmental damage. So it's not all unalloyed joy from this kind of technology and its development. Spaceports are increasingly important in regional development around the world, especially in Europe, as well as promoting space 4.0 industrial strategies. So in developing our socio-economic analysis of the pennant assessment of spaceport Scotland, known as SEA BAS, and associated space exploration research, spare cluster activities contributes to the development of using urban and regional economics as a framework for space exploration and the role of spaceports in space-based industrial strategies. Don't blame me for the acronyms, they're the fault of my much more creative space science colleagues who are in the room, but I won't point to them. So this gives us an overview of the trajectory of the Global Exploration Roadmap, version 3 of the European Space Agency. It was adopted as said in 2007-2014, it proposed to consolidate exploration activities in a single European exploration envelope program, E3P, which integrates the three ESA exploration destinations, beyond Earth, the Moon and Mars, as part of a single exploration process. It also consists of four cornstones, humans in low Earth orbit, the International Space Station and Columbus 2030 are examples, humans beyond low Earth orbit, Heracles and in situ resource utilization, otherwise known as space mining, human lunar robotic exploration, the Moon Gateway and Orion ESM programs, and Mars robotic exploration, ExoMars and Mars sample return. These cornstones were analyzed and evaluated by the Open University Beers research team to identify the range of socio-economic benefits and their direct, indirect, upstream and downstream impacts. So direct impacts and upstream benefits as shown in this slide. And they connect the Earth and space economy, but there's a tendency to measure these types of benefits using quantitative methods to create indicators of outcomes, which policy makers and politicians love. But I always say, if you want a number I'll give you one, but things are much more complex than that, as we know. And the invasion by mathematics into economics is something that bugbear of mine for many years. And economists trying to reduce the methods of physics to that of economics to make it a science would seem laughable to many of the scientists in this audience, as well as me, but I don't claim to be a scientist. Similarly, there are set of indirect and direct benefits, which collect the Earth and space economy. In this case, there's a tendency to measure using qualitative based methods to create more descriptive indicators. But this does represent a bigger challenge for analysis and evaluation of these types. And certainly for the beers, sea bass and spear teams and activities, we are undertaking that, but it is a challenge. And I have to say, the title is from Urbanite to Astronaut and I count myself as an apprentice, but I'm very grateful to my space science colleague because I've learned a lot and I've read space science papers, which I really don't understand, but they are intrinsically interesting. Well, it's because I don't have the training. Now, we come on to the impact evaluation framework on the benefits of the ESA exploration roadmap in social economics, beers. And I won't explain why it's called beers, but again, my creative colleague wanted the ESA ministerial council to talk about the benefits of beers and space exploration, which shows insight and humour, which we do have in abundance of the OU. So this was an ESA funded research project to evaluate E3P by the beers research team, drawn from three OU faculties. We created this evaluation impact framework based on a stage based stage approach using a multi criteria methodological framework. This was first pioneered over 10 years ago with other OU colleagues in the electronic governments for you project funded by the European Union. So the first is a critique of conventional studies, which are usually cost benefit analysis. But when it comes to qualitative based benefits, the response is usually and is too complex. And we are talking about some of the large management consultancies that can add to their list of failures, but I'll not be controversial there. Secondly, input output analysis is an economic method most closely associated with the Soviet American economist Leon Tiev frequently used in regional economics. And it provides a comprehensive treatment of the economy as a whole, accompanying all of its industrial sectors using standardized input output analysis. I'm very pleased to see some of our ex PhD students here tonight who've got great expertise on input output analysis I have and also a colleague from the Department of Economics. And again, that kind of environment in which we attract people like that from all over the world is again one of the benefits of the OU. And I'm not looking for promotion, that's me. But it is a fact. Now the capital's approach is based on Pierre Bourdieu's approach. He was the French anthropologist and sociologist. And he criticised conventional economic capital as being too focused on material exchange. He argued that people from different social positions, different from one another, with regard to their possession of three forms of capital, economic, social and cultural. There is also a relation here to the continuities and discontinuities of my own journey. I had a research succumbent to the Centre for Urban Sociology in Paris in 1985. And many of my French colleagues had actually studied for their PhDs under Bourdieu. And every Friday I'll enter his public lectures at the College de France. And that also formed the basis of my developing interest and links to the OU by becoming a part-time PhD student two years later. So there's lots of people in this room to blame, but I won't go there. And finally we have, but these forms of capital can also be classified as community capitals or resources that have increasingly been used in studies evaluating public policy programmes within a community or society. So things about two years ago, Greater Manchester Authority took on more public service roles and they undertook a capitals approach to evaluate what the benefits might be of that policy shift and what kind of public management and services that they may deliver. So in a sense, we are ahead of the game and this kind of approach is becoming increasingly important, based a lot on urban and regional economics. Fourthly, logic models are widely used in programme evaluation. These models represent the most important relationships between project activities and expected outcomes. Outputs and impacts. And finally, data visualisation methods were adapted to graphically demonstrate some of the outcomes. And in the Space 19 Plus strategy for funding ESA's programmes for the next five years, the OU beers team's work was mentioned, but they were particularly happy as policymakers and politicians are with the graphic representation of some of our results. Excuse me. So this is the adaptation of Bordeaux's capitals, otherwise known as community resources. So for the beers programme, we expanded beyond the three programmes and you can see the definitions there. And you could probably evaluate any kind of programme by the interaction of these things, because they do show the kind of socio-economic integration of social sciences with natural sciences and also humanities. But you might wonder why we didn't choose education as a capital for the beers project. We've had a lot of debates about that and we can't actually remember. But it seemed to me that we didn't include it as a discrete capital, because it related to elements in human capital, particularly skills, formation and training, as well as conforming to the OU's purpose of promoting lifelong learning. But the choice of capitals is pragmatic, like many evaluation projects, and it depends on the nature of the project and its context. I like pictures. And I like old technology, I'm a generation that actually remembers, we had a day off school when the first Russian satellite was launched long ago about the reputation of Russia. But the International Space Station is a 20-year cooperation between the European, US, Japanese and Russian space agencies. And they're their logos, fairly obvious. And I haven't deliberately put the Russian one on the bottom right. But ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes. A board of astronauts from various participating nations who undertake experiments that have led to a number of benefits, including technological, environmental and health ones. Many of these experiments are under microgravity conditions, which is weightlessness, leading to new scientific evidence, technologies and innovation. The ISS closely connects the Earth and space economy through environmental mapping, including weather forecasting and managing the effects of extreme climate changes, for example, tsunami. The current challenge is the continuous participation of Roskamos due to the war in Ukraine, for which the head of the Russian space agency announced Russia's intention to withdraw next year. Despite senior NASA figures seeking to continue to the collaboration. And it is quite interesting, and the dynamics of this, and I don't want to go into it, but a number of the Russian cosmonauts above the, aboard the ISS were actually wearing Ukrainian t-shirts and flags. And the colleagues at ESA we dealt with, ESTECH, always said, the thing about Russians is if you sup and drink with them, they're really good collaborators. And the ISS is important for its technology. I mean, the old so's rockets, which launched it, they're now using SpaceX, is really old kit. And ESTECH in the Netherlands, which is the technical and scientific branch of ESECH. They've got mock-ups, which I'll show you later. And you're going, you think, Blimey, this reminds me, frankly, of my childhood, flying on Dakota DC-3s at 5,000 feet without, you know, no flat beds, no business class in those days, an old kit, which I am probably, but it is remarkable. And it's remarkable, I think, that's come into the public perception of the benefits of space, particularly of ISS in the last few years, using old technology, but with new kind of adaptations and new discoveries. So ISS inputs and outputs. So we have input-output analysis to analyze the economic effects, but they are, so the input is the onboard experiments. And that on the left-hand side is the mock-up, where they undertake experiments. And when I first got involved with the beers program, they kept talking about ice cubes. And I thought, hmm, they just drink gin and tonic up there. Is it ice cubes? It's actually little mobile laboratories, and they're called ice cubes, because they're cold. But it's like, oh, well, perhaps we'll have an ISS gin. I mean, we've got Ed in the gin these days. So the image on the right-hand side is of the XMLMRI scanner, the diagnosed osteoporosis in minutes. As a result of the ISS astronauts undertaking experiments on themselves and building a prototype that's now been commercialized for international markets. Osteoporosis is a condition that ISS astronauts can suffer for at least four years after we enter the Earth. Telemedicine is also a health benefit because of the development of robotic arms for surgery. And this has led to experimental collaboration between NASA and US health companies aboard the ISS in real time. So aboard the ISS, they've been using these robotic arms. And in real time, this is projected down to hospital theaters, where surgeons are actually undertaking operations. So again, these connections, the ISS is a classic example of connection between the Earth and space economy. Now, this is a particular experiment called electromagnetic levitation, EML, aboard the ISS. Along the top we've got the E3P activities, outputs, application and technological externalities. And so it's call cop, which could be a kind of dodgy US film, magnifast and semi-therm. And this is using the Columbus laboratory on ISS. So this EML allows metal to be melted at high temperatures and then cooled under microgravity conditions, weightlessness, to create new allies for development on the Earth's economy. And there would not be possible on the Earth because its weightlessness allows various metals to be combined to create an alloy. So to actually do them on Earth, you would actually have to to build a chamber under microgravity conditions. But again, it shows these kind of insights and things that you can do on aboard space, under weightlessness and not on the Earth. So if we look at the outputs, copper and coalball, nickel, titanium, silicon, along the bottom you've got the experimental component ready to market applications, commercialization, future applications and then value edit. So those important linkages and without things like E3P programs like the ISS, these things would not be possible. But the inputs and outputs of this form of technological capital also creates environmental capitalist consequence as well as innovation spillovers. But all three experiments can be said to relate to urban and regional economic development, smart cities, of which Milton Keynes has apparently won. And lunch today some of my friends and colleagues were actually impressed, I think because the sun was out, but it is again, it's a smart city and lots of things are going on here. So architecture, engineering, building materials and intra and inter regional transport systems that generate locational advantage and agglomeration economies. So the Orion ESM network is a driver of space locals. So the European service module is the service module component of the NASA Orion spacecraft serving as primary power and propulsion component until it's discarded at the end of each mission to the moon. So funded by NASA and ESA, Orion ESM is a six phase program to service the Artemis lunar missions from 2018 with annual launches between 2021 and 27 with both robotic and human missions. During the development construction of ESM, Airbus is drawn under its experience as a prime contractor for ESA's automated transport vehicle between spacecraft and say the moon. ESA selected Airbus in Germany to lead a consortia of companies develop and construct phases one to three of ESM, all of whom had ATV experience. The network of contractors and subcontractors includes more than 18 countries in 10 different European countries as shown on the map, unfortunately excluding the UK. The experience of the members of the consortia working together over the first three missions represent the form of organisational capital with an externality consequence of social and human capital. As the network gains in efficiency lower transaction costs which is the cost of doing business result. The ESM network is also a driver of space as a propulsive industry within the agglomeration economies in the space city regions and municipalities where the network members are located. But also the one thing we overlook is the role of space science and exploration in contributing to the design economy. So the Orion capsule is a successor to the famous Apollo ones and central to plans for lunar missions of the Artemis one program which has six phases and Mars exploration programs in the future. Much of its design principles are drawn from lunar upon for lunar architecture projects particularly the use of new materials as well as in situ resource utilization again known as lunar mining. There's a lot of noise about the knowledge economy. My parents in law were in care homes where I was really impressed by that branch of the knowledge economy where the carers were highly skilled in just things like putting on their clothes when I tried to put my father-in-law's jacket on and he broke his arm. It's a knowledge economy you know there's there's nonsense talked about it and again it furiates me but in fact it's really about the design economy of which the relationship between Orion ESM lunar habitats and ISRU can set to constitute one. In its 2018 report the UK design council stated design and design skills are the heart of the fourth industrial revolution. They give us the tools to respond to these unprecedented challenges and instigate the growth innovation and jobs that will drive the UK's global future and we define this activity as the design economy. The value created by those who use design in a wide range a wide variety of industries. This includes designers in design industries other roles in design industries as well as designers in other sectors of the economy such as banks, consultancies, automotive or aerospace. Now we come on to if you like definitions of organisational capital and linkages I'm grateful to my colleague Stefania Paladini of the of Birmingham City University for bringing this to my attention. So intellectual resources and development linking to organisational capital human capital and relational factors. This form of capital is rooted in corporate strategy and accounting valuations but the later elements include human capital, relational factors, intellectual resources and development as well as organisational culture and structure, learning and international property. And again going back to the continuities and discontinuities of the journey at the Open University. One of the original authors was JC Spender a former visiting professor at the Open University Business School. Now the ESM can also be considered a learning organisation in that the process of manufacturing a series of large items creates learning effects for the internal external stakeholders through collaborative working and sharing knowledge. This form of capital also links to space 4.0 industrial strategies in countries and places participating in the ESM consortium. Again this shows the locational distribution of Orion ESM's organisational capital. It represents the proportion by funding based on a hub and spoke model with Airbus Germany and Talas Alenia in Italy as the main hubs but there's also a locational hierarchy within the network and trade and transport links amongst the participants. But most importantly is the creation of agglomeration economies in the network locations as a basis of the territorial distribution of the socio-economic benefits of Orion ESM. So it's just another example of the way in which de-industrialisation can actually take away a major propulsive industry be shipbuilding, mining etc and the knock-off impacts are in indirect employment for the indirect employment. And where I live in North London if you had a major hit economically to North London you think of all the coffee shops of the clothes which may or may not be a good thing but that's a personal choice. Let's come on to agglomeration economies. Here we have a short definitions and details of the three types of agglomeration, localisation, urbanisation and activity complex economies. So these types of economies are central to urban and regional economics as well as territorial development in which organisations and individuals co-locate for a range of activities. One aspect of agglomeration is that firms are often located near to each other leading to cost savings arising from urban agglomeration. This concept also relates to the idea of economies of scale and network effects and important links between transport improvements and agglomeration. They can be intensified without increasing the physical concentration of firms and workers but rather by improving transport connectivity. The propulsive industry in activity complex economies refers to the work of the famous Schumpeter, Joseph Schumpeter, most closely associated with the concept of creative discussions and these definitions are based on edited work of John Parr at UCL. So let's come on to loon architecture. Again new economic aspects of the lunar region because the moon can be seen to be its planet but could be described as a region. So the UK architectural practice fostering partners are promoting their lunar village whilst the large US firm Skidmore, Owens and Merrill is creating its moon village both as lunar habitats. The latter was on show at the Venice Biennale exhibition in 2021. So again this is an example of architectural firms, space science and exploration, the design economy and cultural capital. So SOM work closely with ESA on a semi-inflatable habitat design which could be part of a long-term vision for an international moon settlement insulated by regolith a locally found material. Now I'm not one of those space cadets who believes that we're all going to move to the moon like in Douglas Adams famous book and radio series but rather you will see scientists and engineers staying longer on the moon to explore and undertake research and there may be benefit for both the lunar habitats but also the earth economy. There's also strong support for the development starting with the former director of ESA Ayan Verna and now through the formal cooperation agreement between ESA and the large architectural firms for lunar and Mars habitat architecture. I won't go near Mars because that is just too challenging frankly but is also an interesting future development and again we have experts in the room can tell you more about that than I ever could in a lifetime frankly. But the proposed location of the moon village is on the most favorable part of the moon. Near the south polar region on the rim of the Shackleton crater. This self-sufficient settlement can use continuous daylight that that region receives throughout the year. But again let's go back to the design principles. Atmosphere, thermal protection, meteorites, radiation, moonquakes. Regolith consists of 45% oxygen as well as water and now Tallinn University is using this material to build solar panels for other regions of the moon and issue in other moons because you get two week days and nights and the Chinese have landed on the dark side of the moon which is interesting whether they're fans of Pink Floyd or play it continuously I don't know but is their worst album but again we can discuss that. Helium-3 is important for cold fusion a potentially safer nuclear power that can contribute to sustainable energy transition that also has implications for the earth economy as we face energy challenges at the moment as well as future developments but it's been unsuccessful to date but there are also important developments in the governance environmental sustainability of space missions is also occurring and under its space and governance work stream the OU's astrobiology research program is addressing these issues so future research this image is taken from a report by the Space Science Board of the US National Academy of Sciences published in 1965 and again reflects the continuities and discontinuities Henry Ford might have said history's bunk but history is always with us and we often as we know to our cost don't learn from it so hopefully we can learn from these earlier research for the future so particularly in relation to the earth and space economy so the role of i4.0 in stimulating space 4.0 and its developing relationship to environmental social and governance esg criteria is important this criteria is a set of stands for companies operations that socially conscious investors use to screen potential investments the environmental criteria consider how a company performs as a steward in nature the social criteria examines how it manages relationships with employees suppliers customers and the communities where it operates governance deals with a company's leadership executive pay audits internal control and shareholder rights it can be argued that much of what constitutes space science for example the moon and mars rovers is actually part of the design economy to which space exploration in general supports its growth in 2019 the design museum in london had a space exploration exhibition to further exemplify this relationship the next steps on the journey is to further progress a multi-disciplinary and cross faculty approach this can make significant contribution to addressing the societal challenges of future space exploration as well as analyzing and evaluating the social economic benefits between the earth and space economy just to thank everyone who's come and feel patients and keeping you from your refreshments are both here and online but i also want to thank the one person who's enabled so much of this journey as a global commodities analyst she has taught me so much about the mining and metals industry particularly opened my eyes to its potential in relation to the space economy so here's thanks to my wife venessa davidson thank you thank you Leslie fantastic thought provoking reflections and findings from your research thank you for sharing so it's time for us to hear from you in the audience here in the theater as well as online for a questions answer chance to discuss with Leslie some of the aspects of what he has presented and other questions you may have so please join me in the so before you ask questions i'd suggest wait for the roving mic to reach you and please tell who you are from where you are and keep your questions or comments brief so that we can have as many questions and answers as possible and those who are watching online and will have any questions for Leslie please use the email which should be somewhere here yeah comes to inaugural lecture at open dot ac dot uk and we'll try to pick up those email questions as well so thank you for your patience we are Leslie are happy to take questions now of course yeah questions we have one from online straight away Helen yeah i've got a couple that are related online so i'm going to read them both because they're they're around the same team could russia's involvement in space programs aid their worldwide reintegration once the war Ukraine is over or even help contribute to potential peace by keeping conversation lines open while the war is ongoing and another one does it seem likely that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent pulling out of collaborative projects will lead to a significant economic loss well they've already suffered an economic loss and obviously it depends on regime and political change but it's very interesting that's senior figures at nasa really do benefit from that collaboration difficult position for the astronauts and heads of roscamos beyond that i have really nothing to say because it's too complex too early and frankly too tragic i'm someone who's not usually depressed but 2022 is not turning out to be a good year just there thank you my name's melvin hurley and my question relates to funding nasa has suffered from political interference since the start of the mercury missions and when i refer to mercury i'm talking the manned missions today it's even further hit by political intervention in their funding streams to the degree that they've moved to a system whereby they tend to private companies how much of a threat do you see private companies being to the continued exploration and the economic effects of space um that's kind of hitchhiker's guide to the to the galaxy territory well space x is subsidized by nasa and it's inevitable um and the state enables so much which is misunderstood by most and the issue with funding is i mean when trump was in power he wanted a space army and there's always the issue of security and space and who owns space in those treaters i don't think there are threats but i do think they could be like you know the new robber barons of the digital companies but it's shut you know shumper to point out this you know um but if you actually think of without the public funding they won't do anything i mean i mean elon musk would not be able to take over twitter and they can do some good things like in south australia with battery technologies etc etc but again it's about regulation it's about governance and law but also the i think off the top of my head the space 19 strategy of isa for its funding for the next five years was 19 billion euros that's the equivalent of each citizen in the whole of europe not just the eu going to the cinema once a week they're big numbers but it's like when people discuss public debt we live in a 1.5 trillion economy per year so many of these sort of figures now they make a difference on the ground but if you think of their kind of benefits but it's a kind you know it's it's and again it's the way in which the UK space strategy goes on about global britain it's all about security and it's like well boys johnson dismissed the idea of european ground wars as macmillan said it's you know it's about events dear boy events and was a question no ah there in the front second row get them out thank you les thank you for fascinating talk this evening um we've just recently had a government white paper on so you are filled oh sorry phil tomlinson university of bath um thank you for fascinating talk um we've just recently had a government white paper on leveling up and trying to address or reporting to try and address regional imbalances how do you see or where do you envisage the space industry playing a role in leveling up britain well funnily enough i actually put in a paper with my colleague alessandro san chino about space place based leadership of space city regions and municipalities referring to the sm unfortunately the friends providence uh funding let us down but we'll put it in again but if you take someone like yoville so yoville poor town near where you live um center the western scout westland scandal but um in italian helicopter company and name escapes me took it over and there's space activities there again one of my colleagues works with um airbus in stevenage in the 1980s stevenage was the insurance capital of europe mergers collapsed in the market you know became a relatively poor place but you can actually see these you know these demonstration effects and again if you look at the relationship to battery metals and things like green hydrogen which is becoming important so the treatment of um batteries on the i s s bike hydrogen expands their life so there's a link there so you could see these kind of um towns with it former international heritage stoken as an example of where you come from and where ceramics is a very good insulating material for the iran space capsules but my own view even as a diagonal london uh privileging london is um is bad economics and bad politics and frankly london needs to be leveled down and i think the space industry can do something and its associations with aeronautics and aerospace sorry and automotive to level up some of those towns in a kind of distributed way and that's what we want to explore the degree to which place-based leadership in in those places in the uk and italy might achieve that thank you i think we have a question next there i'm elin cochran from social sciences um i did once have a close relationship with les is one of his phd supervisors 153 years ago um it's all his fault blame him um i just i that's fascinating uh talk i i i'm interested one of the things that came across of course is the is the direct and indirect effect of of space investment and space exploration i think that's interesting question i have is the indirect effect could there have been other investments which might have had those indirect effects or could there have been other investments which might even have better indirect effects is there something particular about space exploration which gives you this range of indirect effects which are particularly good for the economy in various ways or is that uh you know if you looked at something else i don't know if you looked at military expenditure or expenditure on universities or whatever it was would you be able to find a range of indirect effects which were not intended because they're not intended i presume now by the by the people spending the money in the first place are there is it why do you think there's something special about space work in the space exploration industry if you like that generates particularly powerful and important and worthwhile uh spin-offs um well i agree with other direct impacts in it's the it's the kind of societal and political choices about resources and i do look upon myself as a kind of apprentice ashton or you know i went from urban it's your fault um but i think what's interesting for me about space is the way in which you can bring the socio-economic impacts you can bring together socio-economic benefits location geography that interacts with thick with a number of sectors automotive but also universities and i said the OU is a classic few you know frankly at the time we were astounded we got the ease of funding for beers because we are up against the big consultants but this is one of the few universities could do that but i think a better understanding and some of the things that have come out in the last 10 years regard to environmental sustainability and in the scale of things um in the scale of things compared to military expenditure it's not that much but you know so people would say well why can't you have clean water but it well we can have clean water and we can fund it in parts of the world but also some of the scientific experiments and discoveries and exploration we're actually bringing about ways on the ground of addressing that so that would be my argument it's stage i'm not saying it's primary but um uh i mean just reading some of the my frustration with science papers is they're intrinsically interesting and for me difficult i mean i don't have the maths either am i but my response is this is really interesting and and there's not enough and that i mean so that would be but i said i've become a bit of a convert so um you know but i i actually do think it's worth investigating and i just gave an example take Glasgow uh Glasgow is now become the Glasgow sub region has become the largest manufacturer of satellites below 250 kilos with it you know it's um and if you could say that's linked to a kind of industrial archaeology archaeology the issue is of course all these commercial satellites that are thrown up in the environmental damage so there is a kind of balance to be struck but i um but what i um one of the i was in John Lewis and um Brent Cross collecting a parcel one day and it came up this is a before the lockdown one of the Mars landers and everyone just stopped and watched and i kind of enjoyed that moment because i thought well actually there's there's a lot behind this but we need to do more work in it and again my view is it should be more multidisciplinary and more cross-faculty real question here self-dive okay it's um David Bailey University of Birmingham thank you very much um sorry to raise the b word but brexit uh post-Brexit UK is out of Galileo as far as i can understand a lot of speculation about one way but whether that could be made into something but could you talk a bit about the impact of brexit and the possible cost of that are there any opportunities for global Britain in terms of going or is it just these big platforms now there is i mean the problem you know we're in this kind of interregnum in a way um i mean a brexit opportunity would actually again um put re-smog on the ISS but again that's personal prejudice um the problem is that what again in terms of one web and Galileo is that this i mean all right let me say this publicly and i'm willing to defend it this is the most stupid incompetent government of my lifetime and i've seen a few and when i was um especially i come and advise a sort of setty committee in northern island i wrote the first briefing on brexit and i gave evidence to the northern is first committee there were 23 peers and members of parliament on that committee three had a clue of what brexit actually meant particularly for northern island so similarly so if you the three in one of the slides which will be available there's a three major EU programs which the which the UK cannot bid for because it's a third member country and so if you think about sorry satellites and number of things and the argument you could make about the possibility of Scottish independence but the growing space sector in in Glasgow could bail out some of the fiscal implications but it's it's it's damaging and um the other the other thing is just things like the erasmus programs the flow of students and you know the astrobiology program here is its first successful phd's that's a really important thing but where they're going to go so we have you know the covid we haven't been hit by the consequence of brexit but each stage you're going to fight look what's happened to automotive look what's happened to air you know airbus pulls out of the UK you know which it could do building the wings etc etc at Broughton and in north Wales there's difficulties brexit's a disaster whatever way you look at it but there's no strategic thought and I had I was at lunch with you today so I didn't read the queen's speech but there's nothing about science there's nothing about to technology and I mean you know so I think global Britain in five years time will look like a fair ground merry-go-round not a very encouraging thought too but look I'm old enough and ugly enough for younger colleagues fair enough we live through these things and we come out the other end yeah yeah okay so I think we need to uh wind this it's been fantastic conversation the amount of interest we have generated Leslie is there a question there let's take the one more question I just have to ask a question because the woman who's asked a question so we've got to go for it haven't we I'm just curious les you talked about space as a problem please introduce yourself sorry I'm Sheila Watson I work for something called the FIA Foundation um you mentioned space is a propulsive industry yeah and we touched a little bit on private and public but you talked a lot about initiatives I think and programs which are largely publicly funded one by another what is your take on the impact in terms of territorial claim and also local economic impact of Elon's projectile which I still think is the funniest thing in the world that is a advantage to design it to look like that and everybody else's private space missions well I think space brit I mean without the public friend funding you know it's the classic you know monopoly capitalism is underwritten by the state end of and without the state you wouldn't get it um and unfortunately we've you know uh again I had if those who are old enough to remember hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy where they pretended the earth was going to explode be hit by a big um meteorite and the hairdressers marketing PR people not communications uh advertising people were sent I'd happily sent Bezos mask and all the rest of to mars which I understand takes 16 to 24 months to get to and back again there is an issue and there's a clear issue about who owns space and so we've got colleagues in the astrobiology who've done a lot of work on space and law and one of the great things um and I missed it on the slide is the work that was done by the citizenship and governance strategic research area on that very thing there is a danger of all these private satellites going up because when I mean it's good for stoke because the ceramics built the garner iron but when they come back into earth there's a real danger so it's something again we have to really look like and it's like big tech you know the internet was going to free us all but again it's just another if you like development in monopoly capitalism so again in terms of space research and pro programs be careful which what you wish for um but at least in other european countries um there is some and particularly in Italy there's some attempt to actually look at that role um we will need a change of government here as as you well know thank you thank you have a good evening thank you