The Rotary Club of Anstruther was pleased to welcome speaker Martin Shelley to its meeting of 3rd September. Martin, as project manager with Cobham Technical Services coordinated major bids in the satellite communications market and had previously worked with the Space agency and the British National Space Centre. He chose as his talk ‘What space does for mankind’

This proved to be a journey around inner space and the benefits brought by weather, communication, navigation and even surveillance satellites. We learned that the possibility of Earth-orbiting satellites had been proposed by French and Russian scientists as early as the 19th century. But it was not until Sputnik, Tyros and later developments made today’s multitude of services, including TV, more accurate weather forecasting, defence intelligence and Satnav possible.

It was something of a revelation to learn how these machines work and of the technology – and multi billion pound costs involved in delivering what we now take for granted. Intriguing too to hear that Satnav devices guide helicopters in crop spraying – the needs of a particular field and it’s crop being carefully determined and displayed on a giant ‘barcode’ so that fertilisers can be carefully metered and efficiently applied.
Martin spoke in some depth of the functions and reliability of satellite navigation – all based on the extreme accuracy of clocks used to provide the time base controlling the calculations needed.

In conclusion, Martin spoke of his belief in the vital importance of interesting young people in the importance of technology in order to maintain our way of life for the future.
A vote of thanks was proposed, on behalf of an appreciative audience, by Ian Kennedy.