To boldly go where Mexico has been before

By a vote of 28o to 2, the Chamber of Deputies has approved creation of a Mexican space agency, Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEXA).  As Gancho reminds us, the Senate voted back in 2008 to also create an agency, but that measure eventually died in the Chamber.  This new agency is likely to pass… just in time.

The sky … or rather… SATMEX is falling.  The immense geographical challenges of communications in this country have always led to a search for creative solutions, especially in providing education in hard to access locations.  Building on the success of the first color television satellite transmissions (of the 1968 Summer Games), and one small step for man and one giant leap for Mexican space exploration when Mexican invented technology sent back live images of the 29 June 1969 moon landing, Mexico had the scientific capability to utilize satellite technology, and the potential was realized.  But unlike the great military powers the country had no way to launch or build its own satellites.

The Secretariat of Communications and Transport financed the  first generation of Mexican satellites, Morelos I and II, in the late 1980s.  Both were  built by Hughes Aircraft and launched from NASA space shuttles but controlled from a Mexican command center.  In the early 1990s, Solidaridad I and Solidaridad II followed.

While satellite communications revolutionized telephone and television service, two government services — the satellite schools (literally… these are the rural schools too isolated to be served by regular teachers, and classes are though satellite communication) and the elections system — also changed the way Mexico works.  With instantaneous communications, election officials anywhere in the country — even if they can only access the polling station by canoe or by riding a mule up the side of a mountain — can upload voter identification, and receive confirmation of the voter’s status (and at the same time, prevent the same voter’s identification being used anywhere else in the country) in real time.  For the first time it was possible to provide isolated communities an education equal to that of the cities, and to guarantee with some certainty voter integrity.

In a real sense, Mexican education and democracy — as well as the control over the banking and telecommunications system — depended on Mexican satellites remaining under Mexican control.

So, of course, in 1997 in the rush to privatize, Carlos Ruiz Sacristán, then Secretary of Communications and Transport, said that “a new era of investment, international competitiveness, economic and social profitability, quality and operational efficiency, meant a better future” and the government sold the entire operation at a loss to the private sector.

SatMex (Satélites Mexicanos), more interested in the lucrative business of providing Mexican television to South America and South American programming to Mexico than in furthering education or providing voter services — and returning a profit to its stockholders — has been going broke for years.  The satellites launched by the privatized Mexican space company — SATMEX 5 and SATMEX 6 (the latter designed mostly to carry internet traffic) are losing money.  In 2005 SATMEX had to be bailed out by the government to get SATMEX 6 off the ground (literally… SATMEX didn’t have the money to pay the French for including it in an Ariane rocket payload) and was back — cap in hand — to ask for another bailout this year.

Mexico needs its satellites, more than SatMex needs to make a profit.  Even for die-hard libertarians, this is one of those no-brainers.  It’s just cheaper to own than to rent, and a government agency doesn’t need to turn a profit or even break even.  Whether it’s to their taste or not, it looks like even the conservative, “free market” Calderón Administration is going for renationalization. Of course, expect them to try selling concessions for transmission rights at below market value to favored customers.