blog

Light Build 2012

2012-05-10T15:08:59+00:00

Frankfurt’s Light+Building…........there and back again - along with the rest of the lighting world! Predictably, there was a lot of LED product and it was interesting to compare the state of the market today to the previous Light+Building two years ago. Manufacturer’s have become more confident and sophisticated in their use and integration of LED into their luminaires and this has been helped by the wide availability of Zhaga-standard LED modules produced by a plethora of LED chip manufactures (now including electronic giants Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba, Sharp etc.). Interestingly, a number of these modules have collimator lenses over the LED arrays the theory being either, a) it helps to organise the light distribution from the LED arrays in order to more efficiently control the design of the reflector around it, or b) smoothes out the part of the beam distribution that emits from the LED array directly with no influence from the reflector. It’s safe to say that for low to medium wattage downlights and spot lights (territory previously occupied by MR16, AR111 and compact fluorescent downlights up to 2x26w, maybe 2x32w at a push!!) LEDs are now a real-world viable option in terms of light output and cost - and a quick review of many of the stands and the number of LED downlights, spotlights, tracks lights etc. are a testament to this. It was good to see that many manufacturers pushing the limits of what LEDs can realistically do and attempting to move into T5 linear fluorescent territory. There were numerous examples of LED profile, suspended 1.2m direct/indirect pendants, 600x600 panels, even IP rated bulkheads etc. This thinking has also being picked up by the lamp manufacturers in the form of LED fluorescent tubes. I still have my doubts about whether LEDs are able to compete with fluorescent in terms of light output and efficiency . Despite all the technical improvements, advancements and positive approaches regarding LED design at Light+Build a lot of manufacturers are missing out a few key basics and sometimes I feel like a lone wolf in the wilderness crying about it: 1/ Many manufacturers only offer their LED product in 3000K or 4000K - I find this very limiting. As a minimum I expect at least four choices (2700K, 3000K, 3500K and 4000K). I don’t want to live in a binary world where the only options are warm white or cool white. Its a large colour shift and neither option will always be the most appropriate one. 2/ I have concerns with the colour-consistency in White for LED. For example, Zumtobel’s excellent True-White technology have very nice whites in all colour-temperature options. Compare this to other manufacturers and the differences vary from pink to green. 3/ I do not like the re-branding of 4000K as Neutral White and 6500K as Cool White. I’m strongly against this and find it hard to bite my tongue at reps when they mention it. For clarification: 3000K is Warm White, 3500K is Neutral White, 4000K is Cool White and 6500K is daylight. - it has been this way for a long time and reverts to the colour options in fluorescent lamps. My theory is that this is the result of a deliberate campaign of misinformation and manipulation by certain elements of the lighting industry to shift the market perception of Neutral White towards a cooler Kelvin figure in order to make published figures of LED lumen output data seem better than what they are. Fluorescent (and compact fluorescent) lamps have the same lumen output regardless of colour temperature - LED is more efficient at cooler colour temperatures, therefore claiming equivalent lumen figures to existing lamp sources using cooler LED as a base (regularly 4000K) improves the on-paper spec of LED. Rant over - here are my top standouts: LED Arcos by Zumtobel In my opinion, one of the very few LED spotlights that can be seriously considered for high-quality exhibition/museum lighting. Colour-tuneable using a variation of RGB that maintains consistent lumen output between varying Kelvin settings and a claimed 90-something CRI; interchangeable reflectors (in a useable range from narrow spot to wide beam) with a variety of additional accessories, including an excellent projection system to be used either as a framing spot or gobo projector; lockable pan and tilt with an allan key; on-board dimming AND colour tuning Overall it allows for the flexibility and adjustability required for exhibition and display lighting that is critical for these kinds of environments and packaged in an atheistically pleasing design. There is a serious lack of LED product for this niche area of lighting and it was a relief to find a manufacturer that had taken the challenge and made a product that addresses all the key requirements that lighting and exhibition designers require. I have yet to find out from Zumtobel what they retail for though…..... XPM Point Module by Xicato I’m really excited about the possibilities of this new module. I’m a big fan of remote phosphor LED modules (beam consistency, colour consistency, colour appearance, colour rendering - in theory more efficient that chip LEDs until you start to erode that by bumping up CRI and lowering the colour temperature!!) but they have been useless where you want a tight spot because of their large luminous area. The new spot module has an aperture area about 1/2 that of the standard module and they were demonstrating a 10º reflector that had some real potential. Currently limited to 800lm (i think!!!) meaning it’s only really useable in MR16-type lighting environments. In reality I don’t see this module being picked up by luminaire manufacturers for at least another year. Button by Brick In The Wall A deep-buttoned upholstery plaster kit with the “buttons” back-lit with LED to give a very subtle halo effect. I couldn’t help but touch it to see if it was soft and cushy, it wasn’t, it was plaster. A lot of fun!!! Remote 3D Phosphor by Future Lighting Solutions Three-dimensional remote phosphor. Huge potential to convert this technology from direct source lighting to general/dispersive source lighting - it’s a pet project of mine that doesn’t seem to have any serious popularity at all…..ho hum. Mohow by DeltaLight I was really impressed with the product at Deltalight and felt that they had put a lot of effort into making LED fittings that were atheistically attractive, well packaged and fun…..a great stand! The Mohow is an over-large LED track light taking form and shape from basic AR111 track fittings. I has a really nice detail on the back where the 3x heat sinks poke through the body of the housing. Fun. Outrageous. Not serious at all. 100% pure retail! Supernova Pivot by DeltaLight Another great product on the DeltaLight stand, Supernova is a range of surface-mounted LED circular fitting with tilt arm bracket. Works best ceiling recessed into a housing kit. What it lacks in high-performance output, it makes up for it in designer potential. For where you want a downlighter design to not feel like a downlighter design. I liked the way they slightly pop out of the ceiling line and at a very slight angle - kinda warps your sense of a flat ceiling. LED Module for Traditional Lantern by Hess A really nice LED light engine used in their exterior traditional lantern range. Beautiful shaped glass object with an LED module inside that is beautiful on it’s own and it would be nice to have something like that picked up by other manufactures because Hess won’t do anything with i other than put into exterior fittings. It compliments the traditional design of the lantern in a way that an array of LED chip and lenses can’t. LED Lamp by Panasonic A very convincing product that accurately duplicates the sparkle of tungsten-halogen/incandescent mains-voltage lamps. Output was only equivalent to that of a 40w light bulb and there was very little other technical or commercial information but was still a very welcome change to other LED lamps in the market. Great potential for the historic and domestic market. Martin Granese May 10, 2012

Bye bye T12 Fluorescent Lamps

2012-03-27T11:52:15+00:00

April 1 2012 sees the banning in Europe of the manufacture and sale of T12 fluorescent tubes. While there has been much concern over the majority of the EcoDesign legislation on lighting emanating from Europe, there has been little attention paid to the impacts of the “Tertiary Lamps” rules. Unlike incandescent lamps or Low Voltage reflector lamps there will be little mourning in the demise of the T12 fluorescent. This was the standard fluorescent tube from the start of fluorescent lighting in the 1940’s until the 1990s when T8 and then T5 have come to replace it. There are , however many millions of these older lamps and fitting still in daily use so this legislation will impact on many small businesses who are faced with having to change not just lamps but all their fittings. These lamps are also still in widespread use in the transport sector and can still be seen in London Tube trains of the 1960s and railway carriages in many countries dating from similar periods. So should we welcome this necessity to change at this time? I guess the market has again failed to convince users to make the change by now despite the obvious energy savings so maybe the compulsion of legislation in this case will provide some kind of benefit. Kevan Shaw 27 March 2012

They knoweth not what they do!

2012-02-28T12:57:34+00:00

I have upset the EU by blogging the impact of the draft legislation on reflector lamps! I received a call on Friday from Andras Toth, policy officer at the Directorate General for Energy in response to articles in the Daily Mail and Daily Express last week. He believed that my previous blog on this issue had been the source of these, as usual inflammatory, articles. It was clear from the conversation that there was no intention to ban MR16, AR111 and other lamps and he felt that the provision for continuing IRC and Xenon filled versions, at least to 2016, answered that. Basically this provision does mean that some of these lamps will still be available, albeit at inflated prices, it does not, however, do anything to ensure that the current huge range of light outputs, beam angles and reflector options will still be available after September 2013. Press statements from ELC and the Commission have tried to smooth out the situation however the lack of understanding is highlighted by the headline picture in the Commission’s article being a mains voltage rather than a low voltage lamp! The bottom line remains that we do not know what products will be available after the September 2013 cut off. Requests for information that would enable me to actually work out the “Maximum Energy Efficiency Index” (MEEI) to both lamp manufacturers and the ELC remain unanswered at this date. Until we have this information for ALL currently available lamps no one can claim that lamps are not being banned by this legislation! Kevan Shaw 28-2-2012

New Year New Ban!

2012-02-06T18:44:52+00:00

MR16 and AR111 Low Voltage Tungsten Halogen Lamps to be banned in September 2013 with more efficient Infra-Red coated types not guaranteed beyond 2016. This is the proposal in the Draft Legislation on reflector lamps that landed on my desk on January 24. Since then I have been trying to make sense of the implications. To be frank the actual proposal has come as quite a shock after being involved in both consultative and technical sessions on this over the past 3 years. During the most recent technical session in September we thought that the message had got across that there is no reasonable replacement for these LVTH lamps in the market now or in the foreseeable future that will meet the requirements for the professional applications . We also thought that the efficiency requirements would be set to deal with the older and less efficient classes of lamps such as the R40 , PAR38, PAR 30 and the like and permit the LVTH lamps to continue in use to replace the more critical applications for these technologies producing energy savings of 50% or more! The delay in posting of this blog is that I have been trying to work out exactly what lamps are critically affected. The problem here is that the energy performance criteria have been set around an arbitrary value of Lumens in a 90 degree cone from the centre of the lamp. This value is just not something that is published by lamp manufacturers. It has no sense or use in the consideration of reflector lamps and can only be properly measured using a goniphotometer, a seriously expensive and relatively rare piece of kit! Again this was pointed out to the technical meeting particularly by the individual countries representatives who will need to use these to undertake market surveillance in order to enforce these regulations. So I am at this point unable to determine what lamps fall foul of this newly invented and complex metric, the “Maximum Energy Efficiency Index” (MEEI) all I can rely on are the statements in the guidance notes: Stage 1 (2013) If Φuse ≤ 450 lm : MEEI < 1.2 Poor conventional low voltage halogen lamps (D class) are phased out even at low lumen outputs already in Stage 1. If Φuse > 450 lm : MEEI < 0.95 Phases out quality conventional low voltage halogens starting with high lumen outputs (12V 50W MR16 lamp). Leaves only B-class enhanced lamps (infrared coated or xenon filled) Stage 2 (2014) MEEI

A Bright New Year!

2012-01-05T16:12:22+00:00

2012 looks to be a year where we will see some significant changes in the lighting regulatory landscape. We will see the new requirements for the UK Building Regulations to be issued in 2013. It is no very likely that these will be based on the LENI. At last we will have a measure for lighting energy use that does consider aspects such as daylight availability and the hours that lighting is actually used. We will also finally see the European Ecodesign regulations for reflector lamps. This has been debated and “consulted” on extensively in the past 3 years however the EU has failed to come up with a realistic regulation. Last year saw further technical meetings and a draft that should be reasonably close to what we will end up with. We should be happy that the low voltage incandescent lamps is still going to be with us for the foreseeable future. There just is not a viable replacement for the MR16 and what is available for the AR111 is rather restricted and does not meet the beam characteristics and light output particularly for the very narrow angles and higher outputs where these lamps excel. 2012 will also see the beginning of consultation on the first revision of the Ecodesign regulations for domestic lamps part 1, aka the Incandescent Lamp Ban. It is vital that the Lighting Design Community engage with this process and do not get left out like we did at the beginning of the first round of this legislation. From what we have seen and learned it is now vital that we secure the future of the Halogen energy saver lamp. At present we are beginning to see the problems I and others have forecast with the disposal of CFLs. We are also seeing increasing numbers of people with non specific photosensitive disorders coming forward. These people can not live with CFLs or LEDs and so far there is insufficient research to understand what this apparently broad range of disorders are caused by though all seem to be able to live with incandescent light. Well as we say in Scotland “Hae a Guid New Year!” Kevan Shaw

Durban Debacle

2011-12-12T12:31:42+00:00

Despite announcing an agreement Durban has failed to achieve its aims. As with previous summit conferences on climate change Durban has once again highlighted the frustration of countries with emerging economies trying to seek a reasonable agreement with the long established major consuming economies. I believe that the emerging economies do have a strong case. The principal that “the producer pays” is almost always the route used to deal with environmental issues, however in the case of overall global economic and environmental issues this seems to be a rather unfair and unreasonable way of looking at things. In Europe and the USA it is now quite difficult to find products be it consumer durables, electronics, or day to day necessities that are not made in China or elsewhere in the far East. In the commercial sector this also now goes for business equipment whether it is a laser printer or a machine tool not to mention a light fitting or lamp! Even if such things are branded “Made in the EU” it is inevitable that they contain, probably the majority of components and sub assemblies that come from China, India, Malaysia etc. What is more the raw materials that are used to make these come from other poorer nations for example copper from Sub Saharan Africa.This is largely the result of developed countries effectively exporting dirty , labour intensive and energy consuming production activities to these emerging economies. Is it really appropriate that the developed economies should now demand that costs and technological burdens be placed on the emerging economies just at the point where they are becoming able to develop their internal markets and improve the life styles of their own populations? It seems that we now need to revise the approach to producer responsibility certainly at the level of Nations. Is this a practical idea? I believe so. It comes back to an issue that I have be looking at for some time, that of “Embodied Energy.” This is the energy required to win materials, form and manufacture products and then store, distribute and .transport them to their final place of use. There is an absolute reluctance of industry and commerce to properly asses this and identify its value. We really should be looking even further than the embodied energy and also factor in other environmental impacts, for example what ecological damage was done to win the raw materials, what proportion of the product can be recovered for re-use through recycling and what impact the remaining fraction will have through its disposal by land fill or incineration. As we are a long way from being able to quantify all these impacts and do not even have a single measure that encompasses all these we need to start with energy alone. Where we are looking at international trade and global energy use would it not be much more fair and reasonable for the countries that benefit from energy used to manufacture things to take the hit on emissions? This would obviously impact the established economies more than the emerging economies however it would be fair in distributing the pain according to benefit in a much clearer way than crudely looking at the energy use and generation in producing countries? The real challenge is one of consumption. Finding a way to make the ultimate consumers pay is much more fair and reasonable. Properly worked out this idea will also fairly address the developing consumer societies in developing countries as the burden will fall back on those countries in proportion to the amount of product and embodied energy that will be consumed by the population of those countries. Kevan Shaw 12-12-11

International Energy Agency wages war on environment!

2011-11-13T19:01:39+00:00

Having saddled us with incandescent lamp ban, the IEA now promotes Nuclear power! In this year’s issue of the IEA’s flagship annual publication “The World Energy Outlook” The recommendations in the central New policies section make disturbing reading. The main drift outlines that the world is still totally dependent on fossil fuels in the immediate future up to 2035. It still proposes that global warming should not be allowed to exceed 2°C and that the way to achieve this is by reducing CO2 emissions from the human use of power. The report identifies that, despite the policies in place to reduce energy use including the incandescent lamp ban, they are not going to achieve the necessary savings of energy. As usual they make recommendations that we have seen before find their way into legislation across the 28 industrialised countries who take advice from IEA. In the New Policies Scenario, nuclear output rises by over 70% by 2035. In a telephone interview with the Huffington Post, Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the IEA was quoted: “Our analysis showed that a lower nuclear future would be bad news for energy security,” Birol continued “Renewables cannot make it alone,it is not enough.” In the IEA’s press release Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. is quoted: “Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades. But we cannot continue to rely on insecure and environmentally unsustainable uses of energy,” said “Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies. The Fukushima nuclear accident, the turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and a sharp rebound in energy demand in 2010 which pushed CO2 emissions to a record high, highlight the urgency and the scale of the challenge.” It seems the IEA is set to continue making pronouncements and recommendations that directly challenge the public mood. One has to wonder if this is sheer disconnection with the zeitgeist or a deliberate process to provide “evidence” that allows politicians to promote policies that are just not wanted by their electorate but do satisfy big industry and the multinationals. Kevan Shaw 13 Nov. 2011

A Measure for Lighting Quality

2011-10-21T23:33:49+00:00

Two papers presented at PLDC today bring us close to the “Holy Grail “ of a measurable value for lighting quality. As Lighting designers we are all aware that the standards and measurement of light that we have all been working with have little or no relationship with how we see space and how we feel about its visual appearance. We know that measuring the the light output of fittings and that largely in a horizontal plane notionally connected with tasks relevant to the space does not in any way describe the visual appearance of that space. We are aware of this and we see many attempts to devise ways of working with this measuring system to try and avoid the worst visual results that it tends to create. Kit Cuttle’s paper “Percieved Adequacy of Illumination. a new basis for lighting practice” abundantly demonstrated that the existing lighting standards based on the measurement of illuminance have strayed a long way from ensuring the delivery of adequate and appropriate task based lighting through a wholly erroneous attempt to produce the appearance of well lit space. As the plane of measurement is almost universally horizontal at a relatively low level in the space and our normal visual field encompasses more of the vertical and ceiling planes, the amount light measured in the horizontal required to ensure any degree of luminance on the vertical and ceiling becomes quite unreasonable! In fact the combined results of this approach and the ever increasing search for “efficient” lighting with reduced energy use are delivering lighting solutions that reduce the possibility of creating what are perceived as well lit spaces. If we accept in very general terms that a space perceived to be well lit meets at least some of the requirements for lighting quality we are now on our way to establishing something we can model and measure. Kit has defined an approach to this problem in the form of the concept of Mean Room Surface Excitance (MRSE). Instead of measuring or calculating the light that comes directly from the fittings, this approach quantifies all the light that is reflected from all the surfaces in the room, the actual light that we see. In terms of design this will have a significant impact on the working practices of not only the Lighting Designer, but also the Architect and Interior Designer as, quite obviously, the reflectance values of all the surfaces in the space need to be decided in order to determine MRSE. While this may sound onerous and challenging, attempts to achieve good quality workplace lighting using the current approach has already resulted in surface reflectances being included in the 2011 revision of the European Workplace Lighting Standards, for now this might have escaped the attention of architects and interior designers however it won’t be long before the lighting designer is forced to bring this to their attention in order to meet increasingly limiting power densities required in LEED, BREEAM and building regulations. How we will approach calculating and measuring MRSE and any other luminance based quantification of lighting formed the content of Dr Craig Bernecker’s paper “ A Practical Method for Commissioning Lighting using High Dynamic Range Photography.” HDR is a technique that has sprung from image making photography and Computer Graphic Imagery. The initial desire was to create images that relate more closely to what we see with the eye than the restricted ranges of luminance that can be captured by cameras. Digital photography and computer image processing allow the capture of a number of images at different exposures and processing them to create a single image containing a true record of all the luminances within the image. To create a picture another set of processing is required to re-compress all this information into a range that can be output on a screen or printer. For our purposes the intermediate data is immensely useful. In software it is possible to identify a numeric value for each and every pixel in the image that proportionately represents the luminance in that area of the camera’s field of view. Dr. Bernecker’s paper describes how it is possible to calibrate these values to luminance values using easily available tools such as a photographic grey card and an illuminance meter. He also pointed us towards “Photoshere” by Anywhere Software This program provides a function to create HDR images and calibrate the camera from a single measured point, typically the grey card that should be located in the image and a luminance or illuminance measurement taken at at hat point to provide the calibration value. Currently this software is available for MAC OS however it is being ported to Windows and eventually Linux. Elsewhere at PLDC other speakers have talked around the subject of designing to Luminance values and considering the values of darkness in visual compositions. notably Edward Bartholomew’s paper “Applied Darkness - A model for Luminance based design”. Unfortunately I had to leave on Friday afternoon however the message of this convention is clear, Luminance design must replace Illuminance design and we do now have the tools to do this. The next challenge is to change the basis of standards and legislation to a Luminance based mode. Kit invited us all to join the conversation on luminance design issues on his blog here see you there (and here if you want to comment!) Kevan Shaw 21 October, 2011

Manifesto or Propoganda!

2011-10-03T17:00:05+00:00

Cree’s “manifesto “ for LED lighting highlights what has gone wrong with LED marketing. From the outset the document suggests that all other lighting technologies are effectively obsolete in comparison with the LED “miracle” light source, or at least should be! While it goes on to suggest the reasonable aims that we already strive for: * Reduce the damaging effects of energy inefficiency on our economies and environments * Realize energy-efficient lighting products in every country, city and home It then suggests that: * Revitalize the lighting industry and release it from its century-old habits Except that overselling and over claiming has been rife in the lighting industry since Thomas Edison. His marketing genius included the “invention” of the AC electric chair beloved of the USA penal system to scare people into using his “safer” low voltage DC power distribution and lighting system. While Cree may fairly claim to be innovators I believe their claim to be “the doers, the influencers, the teachers” and “the rebels, the nonconformists, the free spirits.” rings hollow. As for signing the manifesto this is hardly an act of non-conformity! Again the “Universal Declaration of LED lighting” borrows heavily from what we all recognise as good practice: * All human beings are born into light. Created light is a fundamental and integral part of our productivity, security and artistic expression as human beings. * Creating light consumes energy. The least expensive, most secure and cleanest energy is the energy that is not used. * Proper quantity and quality of light are essential to human perception, performance, and enrichment of life. These should not be sacrificed in the name of energy savings. however goes on into some suspect territory: * Poisoning our ground water, lakes, oceans and fellow humans with toxic mercury is not an acceptable price for energy-efficient lighting. I do not have any disagreement with this however I do not see how LEDs will significantly better this in the short term. In fact a wholesale and overly rapid change to LED will cause worse pollution. For a start what happens to all the lighting equipment and lamps that are replaced, often before they reach end of life? Admittedly they should be re-cycled however more will end up in landfill and much of the material gathered from “recycling” will end up being disposed of rather than re-used due to contamination with mercury from lamps and the widespread use of brominated fire retardants in plastics used in light fittings. Manufacturing LEDs involves winning some specialist new materials for phosphors and for the LED deposition process. Most of this is done in China, where CREE are now manufacturing and where environmental concern and control is a lot less rigorous than elsewhere in the world. *Innovation and creativity can make efficient LED lighting affordable and available to all. Above innovation and creativity questions have to be asked about commercial approach. LEDs are accepted as a “more expensive” light source. There are many “proofs” offered in marketing blurb that they really are cheaper if all the long term issues of maintenance and power used are factored into a lifetime calculation. The truth is that prime cost is still the determining factor in the decision to use LEDs or not. While we have been paying these high prices it is notable that companies such as Cree have grown exponentially and made sufficient money to purchase significant players elsewhere in the value chain, such as Ruud lighting. Philips have also been doing the same however it is not so easy to show a link between LED production and cash growth with such a large and broad based company. Patent issues also have a strong influence on the LED market. Manipulation of patents and legal challenges have affected the share value of many companies. Some of these patents are substantiated through the weak patent process in the USA. The royalties that some companies set for use of these patents are so high that smaller and new companies cannot meet these demands so are blocked fro entering the market. If we need a manifesto for LEDs in the current market then is should be : * Honest and realistic information on products available today * Realistic efforts to reduce costs of LEDs and reduce the number of profit hungry companies in the supply chain between LED manufacturers and Light Fitting manufacturers * Cooperation rather than profiteering and share price pumping from Intellectual Property * Create meaningful industry standards and all companies adhere to them There are some, few companies who do adhere to these principles. Their honest information looks inferior to the bloated clams of others. It is also sad to note that the much vaunted Zhaga consortium ostensibly founded to create standards and comparability seems to have descended into an industry exclusive talking shop that has failed to deliver anything and is pretty much silent even on what has been discussed. As practitioners we need to support the good guys and challenge the rest of the industry to come clean and drop the crazy marketing stories. Kevan Shaw 4 October 2011

Lost in space

2011-07-22T14:29:14+00:00

Have we lost the impetus for technological advancement? Yesterday was the 42nd anniversary of the first moon landing and today saw the final return of the last Space Shuttle. This has set the blogosphere and twitterverse alive with comments. These range from the “Oh how sad that we are not putting men in space,” not strictly true given the Russians seem to be able to continue with the Soyuz Programme with what remains an essentially 1960s spacecraft design. There is another, quite vitriolic strand about how puitting men in space is and always has been a monumental waste of money better spent on ‘humanitarian’ programmes. The space Programme was undoubtably based on national hubris and development of defense technology. There is an absolutely direct line of descent between the first ballistic missile , the WW2 German v2 and the appollo Programme with the main player throughout being Werner Von Braun. Many elements of the Shuttles’s rocket motors continued the same technological DNA. What the naysayers are missing is the absolutely massive spin off technological development without which we would be living in a very different world. To start with however you are reading this be it smart phone, personal computer or even ink jet or laser copy exist due to space related technology development. The whole field of microelectronics owes its development to the requirements for compressing what were then wardrobe sized computers into a box the size of today’s typical games console. It is not just space and rocketry that has led these developments but the human needs of astronauts that have driven so much of the useful spin off which affects our everyday lives. Technologies born of the astronaut programme really are pervasive and are so important for dealing with many of the issues currently causing concern. First let’s look at the renewable generation area. Photovoltaic panels exist and are as developed as they are due to the necessity of producing electrical energy in outer space. Those massive sails on wind turbines are built from composite materials that were hugely advanced by the need to produce stronger and lighter structures for space craft capable of providing a human liveable environment in space. We are all aware of mundane space spin off such as Velcro that remains a fashionable and very useful fastener and PTFE, the non-stick on pans however the more esoteric sounding cross linked olefin pipe originally developed for plumbing in human occupied spacecraft is now the standard material for water supply pipes in the street and for new water supply schemes in less developed parts of the world. The decline of manned space exploration has already resulted in a huge reduction in the rate technological innovation seen during the 1960s and 1970s. The impetus provided by the challenge set by President Kennedy to land a man on the moon within a decade is long lost. We need a new challenge with comparable political will and public excitement to re-invigorate industrial innovation. The current negativity brought about through global financial crisis and scare stories of global warming do not provide the impetus given by a strong forward and outward looking target that the race to the moon provided and without which we seem to be sinking into a technological torpor. Kevan Shaw 21 July 2011