When we think of Britain, we think of a powerful modern country. For centuries it had the world's most powerful fleet and a gigantic empire. Vestiges of the empire still remain to this day. Wouldn't you expect a country of this caliber to have a blossoming space program? Many countries today, even the tiniest which have joined with bigger countries to get their satellites launched, have a space program. Where is the British space program? They have the talent, they have the ambition, but they really don't have the program. What they do have is a pale imitation of a space program. They got off to almost the same start that the U.S. and Russia did at the end of World War II. Many people don't know this, but the English also got some of those German rocket scientists, after the war. The idea was to develop a space program and to develop missiles. An ambitious program was devised for redesigning a German V-2 rocket. The idea was put forward by two English scientists. It consisted of a pressurized cabin that would replace the area in the rocket, that the war head took up. This was going to allow a British Astronaut to ride in the rocket and then parachute back to Earth inside the cabin. The program was never adopted. It could have beaten both the Russian and American programs to launch men into space, if it had been implemented right away.

The next step that took place in England was a paper that outlined the types of vehicles that could be used to launch satellites. The paper was submitted in the end of 1951. Again the ideas were never adopted by the British, but the paper didn't go unnoticed. NASA used some of the ideas from the paper in its design of the Explorer I satellite. The British were just falling further behind. Nothing much more happened in Britain concerning space until 1953, when a program was started to develop two ballistic missiles, the Blue Streak and Black Knight. The Blue Streak missile took 8 years to come into service. The Blue Streak and Black Knight rockets were the same, the Black Knight was the designation for the test rocket. Britain now had experience in rocket building. Again program cancellation reared its ugly head when a program was started to turn the rocket into a multistage vehicle. The Blue Streak missile was cancelled in 1960 and the Black Knight was allowed to continue only as a scientific rocket since it could be built for a mere 41,000 pounds each. The Black Knight spawned the Black Arrow and that rocket launched a British satellite in 1971. The Black Arrow had 3 stages but was only about 43 feet high. The budget was so tight that no test rockets could be fired.

Blue Streak Rocket
Photo Source:UK National Archives. Photo is subject to the Crown Copyright

In the early 1970s a British Select Committee stated that the British Government just couldn't afford the Luxury of space exploration. What could have been sadder than this? There was never any lack of ideas for space vehicles in Britain. Studies were conducted, in the 1950s, to see what shapes were best suited for space planes. One idea that had been popular was a three stage vehicle. The first two stages were like any rocket, but the third stage contained a vehicle that had wings. It was thought that such a vehicle could slow itself down by skipping off the atmosphere on reentry, much as the space shuttle does today. Another shape that was experimented with was a wingless shape that provided lift. Space plane concepts continued and in the 1960s several designs were being examined. One design called for a two stage rocket. The rocket was unusual because the first stage would have air breathing engines that were capable of achieving hypersonic speed. Was this where we got the idea for our pulse jet engines? Another concept would use a ramjet for the first stage. Even a moon rocket was designed that used atomic power. It wasn't designed by the government, but by a private company. The highlight of the 1960s space planes. was the Mustard. It was a transport and recovery vehicle. Supposedly it would be capable of manned flight or remote control. It was a vehicle similar to our shuttle only more powerful and capable of reaching the moon. The 1970s saw Space plane design taper off. A design from the 1950s was proposed that had been refined to the point where it was said that a vehicle could reach orbit with 4 tons of cargo.

HOTOL
Graphic Source: NASA

An engineer who had worked on the Blue Streak project proposed a space plane that was far in advance of the space shuttle. It was called the HOTOL which stood for Horizontal Take-Off and Landing. The year was 1982. The vehicle was to have air breathing rocket engines. The engine for this vehicle was classified as Top Secret by the Ministry of Defence. What made this vehicle so revolutionary is that it didn't need liquid oxygen. It extracted oxygen from the air that it mixed with its fuel. Gee this sounds like an automotive carburetor, doesn't it? Only an ordinary runway would have been needed. A rocket powered sled would have been attached to the vehicle and dropped off when it reached a certain speed. This would have been a great vehicle. The program was announced in 1986 and a couple of million pounds sunk into it. The project was cancelled in 1989 when the government just didn't want to fund it. It would have launched cargo for far less than the shuttle and probably have been far more reliable, since it used air breathing engines for launch. The engineer went to Russia and designed a vehicle he called the Interim HOTOL. It used a Russian Antonov-225 cargo plane as the first stage and rockets took over and sent the vehicle into orbit, of course it couldn't use the top secret engine. After the design was completed the engineer went back to England with the system, but both England and the European Space Agency refused to buy the design.

One British design that always seemed to hold the promise of distant space travel was the Daedalus starship. I really wish that this would have become a reality. The idea was to build a spaceship that would be able to reach different star systems within a human's lifetime. It was going to be built with the idea of reaching Bernard's Star which is 5.91 light years distant, but other targets were also being considered and some were closer. No it was not a light speed ship. The ship was calculated to be able to travel at about 12% light speed. This meant that it would have needed a newer type of propulsion and the propulsion of choice was internal confinement fusion. It was like a pulse jet. About 250 explosions would take place every second, propelling this ship to its projected speed. The ship would start out as two stages and one would be dumped. It would have contained many probes for planetary investigation. In flight repairs were to be made by robots. The payload bay was to be shielded by a 50 ton Beryllium disk. This was for protection from meteoroids and dust. The trip to Benard's star was projected at somewhere around 47 years. One design of this ship had it refueling hydrogen by taking in hydrogen atoms from space as it traveled. Most of the flight would be powerless since the engines would have shut down after about 1 year and 9.5 months. Wow there is no margin for error here since you will no longer had power. Also, as you can see, you may get to where you are going in your lifetime, but you will be old when you get there and it is a one way trip.

NASA is forever begging Britain to join us in the space program. It is a shame that they never really did much except concept work. There were many rich ideas that were demonstrated and possibly Britain could have led in quite a number of fields in spacecraft technology. We have to remember that space exploration does pay us back in many different ways. If we look at the things that have been invented that are a direct result of space exploration, we realize that space is not just a money pit. As we develop better ships and begin to mine some of the other heavenly bodies, we will begin to realize a tremendous profit from our space exploration. I could also mention the military aspects of space, but I hate that. It makes me sad to see space being used for missile bases and secret weapons. Space should be free to all. Anyway, maybe Britain will have a change of heart someday and decide to invest more into space exploration. When this day comes, it will serve to benefit all of us.