Canada to become the next big space power?

Canada must ensure it has the capability to launch and control its own satellites and should embark on a $100-million program to do just that so it can keep watch over the Arctic and its coasts, a science panel has advised the Defence Department.

The panel, made up of scientists from industry and universities, says a national system of small satellites would help protect Canadian sovereignty, particularly in the North. They stress that the satellites and rockets to launch them must remain under the control of Canadians and the equipment must be built in Canada using domestic technology.

The report was produced by the Defence Science Advisory Board, which is made up of researchers and scientists from industry and universities. The board estimates it would cost about $100-million for the Defence Department to establish and maintain a capability in domestic industry to build and launch what are called micro-satellites.

Launching a rocket is tricky business.  Rockets tend to blow up.  Indeed, a rocket is just an explosion funneled out the bottom of a tube, with the payload at the top of the tube.

Given the inherent dangers with rockets, the most obvious launch site would be in Labrador or the island of Newfoundland.  Sparsely populated, and more importantly, east coast locations.  Another good pick would be Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.  Remember that the earth is turning, so rockets always launch on an eastward trajectory in order to borrow some momentum from the earth's rotation.  In fact, I don't know of anyone who launches westward.

So if the rocket is aimed east, you want the ocean on that side in case something goes wrong.  When a bad launch splatters all over the place, you don't want it splattering on local communities.

I suppose another possible launch site would be on the west coast of Hudson Bay, but I'm not certain the bay is big enough to protect the land on the far side from falling debris caused by a bad launch.

Is anywhere on the east coast acceptable?  Not so fast -- with all the offshore oil development, so some locations might put debris on a collision course with oil platforms.

Like I said -- tricky.

Remember, too, that we're talking linear speed.  Though the whole earth is rotating at the same angular speed (one full rotation every 24 hours), the speed at which the surface is moving is faster the closer you get to the equator.  That just makes sense.  The circle that defines the path taken by a point on the surface on the earth at a northern latitude is smaller than the circle for a point near the equator.  So to make the same rotation in 24 hours, the northern location doesn't have to move so fast.

So what does that mean?  It means that the rocket is not getting nearly as much of a kick from the earth the farther north you go.  The Americans built their launch facility in Florida, as close a point to the equator as their east coast goes.  The Europeans are using the facility on South America's north-east coast (Kourou in French Guiana), again, close to the equator and aiming launches over the Atlantic.

We'd be stuck in Labrador or Cape Breton.  Not that a launch center there would not work, but it would affect the ability to put up big payloads.  The more speed you get from the earth's rotation, the big the payload you can put on a rocket of a given size.  The earth's rotation is giving you free thrust, but how much depends on where you are.

For the same size rocket, we get to launch a bigger satellite if we borrow the American or ESA launch facilities than we could ever launch from one on Canadian territory.

Less bang for the buck.  Well, hopefully no actual bang as such, but you know what I mean.

There are plenty of good reasons to have our own launch capability.  But the physics of the situation make the economic justification harder.  The report does focus on micro-satellites.  That might be what Canada needs, but it might also be as much as a Canadian rocket could manage.

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