The UK should have and could have won the space race - Magaroc

The UK should have and could have won the space race beating USSR and USA by ten years - Magaroc

I have enjoyed a few Youtube videos by Mark Felton and was not so well informed on the British Interplanetary Society Megaroc project.

Using captured German V2 technology the designer E H Ross proposed to Ralph Smith of BIS that a man could be launched into space. The British had already been the first to test three captured V2 in 1945. Smith had already been working on space suit designs (including gas propulsion guns!)

The proposed rocket system did not need a heat shield (reefing parachute) and could land on sea or earth. It could have been ready for launch into space by 1951, but after being submitted to the Ministry of Supply late in 1946 it was quickly rejected as all budgetary focus went into Nuclear bomb/power technology.

The links below give more background and are also a reminder of the suffering which paved the way into Space.
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https://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/megaroc



https://spacecentre.co.uk/blog-post/britains-space-race/

Malarky.
This is why.
Death trap.

Sadly the loss of American Monkeys Albert 1-4 shows there would have been testing and trials before leaping to manned flight. Also the fairing recovery from Space X and the Virgin Galactic Spaceship both show re-entry is possible without a large heat shield. The Megaroc was not designed for an orbital mission - just to breach the Kármán line - so the speeds and ballistics would have been very different / much less compared to a full modern orbital launch.

Slight aside but this is a great video of the Space X fairing separation …

So The Megraroc might have traveled to an atlitude of 100 KM +. Alan Shepard reached an altitude of 187 KM.
Exactly what materials were available in 1951 to fabricate a reefing chute that would hold up under such forces?

PS
The Karman Line is the edge of space, not space itself. It is at the edge of the atmosphere where theoretically no aircraft could generate lift.

I do hear you but it would have been interesting to let the project run its course - they may have ended up with needing some form of heat shield + deciding that a craft with orbital potential made was a better objective than a straight up-down mission. I also hear you ref the Kármán line but like international waters the point space starts is a bit arbitrary and I think for a while the USA set it lower?

Looking at the technical challenges of re-entering from an orbital mission (around) 17,000 mph) I can see why a vertical straight up and drop mission (around 4300 mph return speed but I am no mathematician) might have seemed attractive. People were working on hi-speed ejection systems and in the USA I think a number of Chimps and Bears took to the air at crazy speeds (project Whoosh being one example). The kit often seemed to hold up much better than the animals / physical endurance was the limiting factor (the Bears did pretty good but were poor pilots). Again, linking back to WW2 German engineers had worked on ejection capsules for their jets and rocket planes. George Smith also just survived ejecting with standard kit at 800mph from an F100a in 1955. He lost his wedding ring and wrist watch so Omega could have been on the case with the RAF for a better watch band….

This did lead me to the UK Miles M.52 project which also shows the ambition of forties and fifties designers and included supersonic escape designs - and another project cancelled - and without public knowledge in 1946. According to senior figures at Miles, the design and the research gained from the M.52 was shared with the American company Bell Aircraft and that this was applied to their own X-1 which broke the sound barrier. The Air Ministry had signed an agreement with the USA to exchange high-speed research and data. Miles Chief Aerodynamicist Dennis Bancroft stated that the Bell Aircraft company was given access to the drawings and research on the M.52 however, the U.S. reneged on the agreement and no data was forthcoming in return....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_M.52

If the UK had been first into space there was probably a good chance (RAF/Omega) that a 6B/159 would have been first up :0)

If You carefully check out some Convair B-58 Hustler Mach-2 capable SAC Bomber crew photos, You'll notice, besides their USAF wristwatch, a preference for a certain pilot watch 😗

Because it had been revealed to US intelligence services that the post WW2 British aircraft industry was shot through with communist spies. If the information had been shared the Russian MIG 15 would have ended up with it as well and the USAF would have had no advantage over the MIG during the Korean war.
BTW the all flying tail was not a new concept, Taylor Aircraft had a long expired pre WW2 patent on it, and a number of early aircraft designs had used tail structures very much the same.
As noted the tail of the X-1 was not designed as all flying, it was field modified by two men who had not seen the British information in question. They simply bolted the elevator locks closed and used the trim control to change angle of attack.

Hopefully science and the moral compass have moved on a bit in terms of Animal testing needs - slightly off the track but part of me imagines one of these top secret tests drifting off course and some unsuspecting dirt farmers rushing over to a stars and stripes capsule ..keen to render aid ..only to release a 500kg bear.... who after surviving a high speed ejection and probably with any drugs worn off might be more than a touch grumpy..... Get your hands off me you dirty human :0)

What wristwatch would the British astronaut have worn on the moon?

I think Rolex and Omega would have been front runners - but based on all the data I have seen so far I think the UK could have won the race into space.... but not a moon-shot. The 1964 film is the nearest ...

Belgian cartoonist Hergé (Georges Remi) based his two " Tintin on the Moon " books on the 1950 movie " Destination Moon "
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042393/

They would have worn Smiths, of course.

"The UK should have and could have won the space race"
LOL.. the UK were a power in the 18th and 19th C.....not the 20th....
Were you dreaming?......

😲
Did You know the BIS - British Interplanetary Society is the oldest astronautics & spaceflight-related organisation !?
Founded in 1933
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Interplanetary_Society

In the late 1940s-early 1950s, Britain was in very poor shape economically. Serious trade deficits, losing hard currency rapidly, even food was still rationed. A space program at the time just wouldn't have been possible.

By 1947 Britain had lost most of it's "empire", India gaining its independence. Battleships won't get you to the moon and battleships on the bottom of the ocean will get you no where.
At the present time the USN has more tonnage of ships than the seventeen next largest navies combined.

They were still eating Whale burgers as late as the early 50's and much of London's water main system was still heavily damaged into the 70's. At one point they had to greatly lower water pressure in the mains to reduce losses due to the millions of cracks caused by German bombs and missiles. In some neighborhoods if you lived on a second floor you had to have a booster pump to raise water for your kitchen and rest room needs.

I had thought it was Professor Quatermass' British Experimental Rocket Group.