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

Archer · Nov 9, 2020

Professor
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.

Yes, because 1947 is post WW2, just in case you missed it mate. And that's why I asked what he meant by "power" because none of that seems very related to the space race.

Despite your dissing of anything not USA, lots of other countries in the world have made progress on these things, and a good amount of NASA people involved in the apace race were not Americans, including a number of key engineers.

Professor
At the present time the USN has more tonnage of ships than the seventeen next largest navies combined.

And present time is the 21st century...again, just in case you missed it.

Omegafanman · Nov 9, 2020

lexieb007
"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?......

I think that is a little harsh. My premise was that in terms of winning the race to get a man into space (and safely return him) the UK (admittedly like the USA using captured German technology) was in a very strong position to be first over that Kármán line. Maybe with a 6B-/59 on his wrist (it would have been a he back then). The plans put forward were viable and just needed funding and focus. The Gloster Meteor flew in 1943 and was the only Allied jet to achieve operation In WW2 plus Alan Turing developed the concept of the modern computer in 1936 and his Bombe Turin calculating machine cracked a number of enemy codes during the war - so there is evidence of innovation potential with limited funds. The UK tested its first atomic bomb in 1952 and that became a strong pull for all investment. I agree a moon shot would have been a stretch too far and by that time the UK was no longer a 'power' - too many wars and way too much debt had seen to that. Like the Roman empire these things tend to follow a ballistic trajectory / everyone it seems has their Apogee moment.

Omegafanman · Nov 9, 2020

kkt
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.

But an atom bomb was..... They wanted to keep a place at the top table...and that was the chosen path

kkt · Nov 9, 2020

I'm sure we're all aware of the USSR's many firsts in space while NASA's rockets still had the annoying habit of blowing up on the pad.
And without von Braun's team it might have been another 10 years before NASA got to the moon.

Now the UK has two shiny new large aircraft carriers, and that probably makes them the world's 2nd most powerful navy. However I still wonder if that was the most important kind of power for them to invest in.

Omegafanman · Nov 9, 2020

kkt
I'm sure we're all aware of the USSR's many firsts in space while NASA's rockets still had the annoying habit of blowing up on the pad.
And without von Braun's team it might have been another 10 years before NASA got to the moon.

Now the UK has two shiny new large aircraft carriers, and that probably makes them the world's 2nd most powerful navy. However I still wonder if that was the most important kind of power for them to invest in.

I bought Lockheed Martin Shares last week so UK carrier investment gets my vote :0)... I think the UK is now in the top 5 Navies but I would put the Submarines into that decision process. Taking your point and looking at the Russian Poseidon torpedo large carrier fleets might end up like the Maginot line depending on the conflict scenario. One thought I had not considered is that maybe the UK is responsible for the moon landings still.... Both the UK and Russia were economically in the cart after WW2 (but USSR had more natural resources). If the UK had focused on a space mission and been first into space then there would have been no space race imperative. The fact the Russians focused on that goal and achieved so much early on was what drove the huge investment needed by the USA to reach the moon (I think Kennedy did nearly cancel the mission at one point early on ?)

valkyrie_rider · Nov 9, 2020

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

No, they could not.

They lacked the rocket expertise (i.e. Von Braun), the industrial infrastructure (UK suffered a lot during the War, unlike America that had its territory practically untouched), monetary resources (UK was in debt with the USA), political will ('Got beat the damned Commies!') or large scale access to raw material and scientists/engineers from the whole world needed for the task.

Landing and returning from the Moon was no easy feat and so far, no other country aside the USA managed to do the job, even to this days.

Professor · Nov 10, 2020

I've always understood that Alan Shepard's flight was not considered to be very important as far as the conquest of space was concerned. A similar if less ambitious flight by a British pilot would have had no more impact.
Gagarin's orbital flight was the real feat.
In the long haul our German scientists beat everyone else's German scientists, with a boost from American industrial might.

In the end this thread is nothing more than another "if frogs had wings" bit of revisionist fluff.

Omegafanman · Nov 11, 2020

Professor
I've always understood that Alan Shepard's flight was not considered to be very important as far as the conquest of space was concerned. A similar if less ambitious flight by a British pilot would have had no more impact.
Gagarin's orbital flight was the real feat.
In the long haul our German scientists beat everyone else's German scientists, with a boost from American industrial might.

In the end this thread is nothing more than another "if frogs had wings" bit of revisionist fluff.

I do find revisionist fluff a tad loaded language. I do like to examine facts and re-visit commonly held believes (like hesalite selection for space) but I would never intentionally distort or misinterpret facts. To know the future one must fully understand that past - and the victor often writes that narrative. Do frogs have wings or do dinosaurs have feathers? - both topics open to debate. Given the importance of aviation and space exploration to the Omega story I like to revisit certain topics + BIS, E H Ross and Ralph Smith deserve to be recognised for their contributions to the conquest of space. I also think the little chap below might be attempting re-entry without a heat shield....

Professor · Nov 11, 2020

Omegafanman
I do find revisionist fluff a tad loaded language.

I had not meant that as a reflection on you personally. The determinations of sources you used are what I find to be less than credible.
"Could have" might better be phased as "might have". "Should have" is an opinion not a fact, and more an emotional statement than anything else.
If simply stuffing a man into a capsule and firing him off like a ballistic missile was winning the space race then the USSR won. They went everyone a step further by achieving orbit.
A jacked up V-2 was a dead end. Nothing substantial would have been achieved. Unmanned sounding rockets could have done as much at a fraction of the cost in resources.
I'm reminded of the trend in recent years to minimize and even denigrate America's contribution to defeating the Axis powers.
I'm also reminded of the Canadian production recounting the development of the AVRO Arrow. In one scene they try to claim that the Arrow was the first to use the Area rule principle after AVRO engineers discovered it by putting a coke bottle into a wind tunnel. That was a complete fiction yet they showed this film in Canadian schools as if it was true history.

The worst fabrication I can remember was the attempt to lay the bombing of Dresden at the door of our eight Air Force. The mission was under full command of British Bomber Command under "Bomber Harris" and at the behest of Russian intelligence. on top of which civilian casualty figures are inflated ten fold or more in most supposedly historical accounts, despite the German's own official records showing the true figures decades earlier.
Claims of American fighters strafing civilians turned out to be based on a single incident of an escorting fighter chasing a German interceptor from high altitude down to near ground level and stray machinegun fire coming close to a group on civilians.

Archer · Nov 11, 2020

Professor
That was a complete fiction yet they showed this film in Canadian schools as if it was true history.

I assume you are referring to the mini-series from 1997?

This is a fictional account, and was criticized at the time for not being completely accurate.

I would be interested in seeing the evidence for your claim that it was shown in schools as true history.

Professor · Nov 11, 2020

Archer
This is a fictional account, and was criticized at the time for not being completely accurate.

Weakly criticized by a single reviewer while being publicly lauded as accurate by a former Avro engineer and awarded a Gemini award.

I would be interested in seeing the evidence for your claim that it was shown in schools as true history.

I'd like to see any evidence that the schools preceded every showing with disclaimers listing the provable inaccuracies.
Besides showing of the film itself clips from the film were used in creating "Heritage Minutes" and documentaries.
Unfortunately while the Heritage Minutes and documentaries are still listed on several sites all the links appear to be dead.

From Wikipedia
"The continued rebroadcasts and accompanying DVD releases have served to re-animate the controversy over the Arrow's cancellation and introduce the story to a new generation."

Its still commonplace to see the many bogus claims from this film quoted as fact by Canadian members of aircraft history boards and dropped out of the blue in discussions that otherwise had little or nothing to do with the Arrow.
The same sort of members occasionally drop in claims like "America stole the Canbera bomber". Young people these days seem to have no grasp of the concept of "Licensed Production".

Archer · Nov 11, 2020

Professor
Weakly criticized by a single reviewer while being publicly lauded as accurate by a former Avro engineer and awarded a Gemini award..

Well, since I live here, watched the show, and heard the criticism at the time it was broadcast, I can tell you it was more than just one reviewer, so your Google searches are failing you in this instance.

By the way, the Gemini awards are for show business. Lots of fictional works won them. They are now known as the Canadian Screen Awards. Here is what this one for...

Gemini Awards in 1998

Aidan Devine won Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series
Rene Ohashi won Best Photography in a Dramatic Program or Series
Tim Bider won Best Production Design or Art Direction in a Dramatic Program or Series
Michael Baskerville, Jamie Sulek, Dan Sexton, Jonas Kuhnemann, Leon Johnson, & Steve Baine won Best Sound in a Dramatic Program or Series
John Coldrick, Thomas Turnbull, Joel Skeete, & Doug Hyslip won Best Visual Effects
Paul Stephens, Eric Jordan, Mary Young Leckie, Jack Clements, & Aaron Kim Johnston won Canada's Choice Award

You will note that it won zero awards in the documentary category, because no one believed it was a documentary.

The show had a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode that explained it was a dramatized version of events, so the idea this was passed off as accurate history is simply untrue.

Professor
I'd like to see any evidence that the schools preceded every showing with disclaimers listing the provable inaccuracies.
Besides showing of the film itself clips from the film were used in creating "Heritage Minutes" and documentaries.
Unfortunately while the Heritage Minutes and documentaries are still listed on several sites all the links appear to be dead.

From Wikipedia
"The continued rebroadcasts and accompanying DVD releases have served to re-animate the controversy over the Arrow's cancellation and introduce the story to a new generation."

Its still commonplace to see the many bogus claims from this film quoted as fact by Canadian members of aircraft history boards and dropped out of the blue in discussions that otherwise had little or nothing to do with the Arrow.
The same sort of members occasionally drop in claims like "America stole the Canbera bomber". Young people these days seem to have no grasp of the concept of "Licensed Production".

So far you have not provided any evidence to back up your claims. I didn’t expect you to, by the way...

Professor · Nov 12, 2020

Archer
Well, since I live here, watched the show, and heard the criticism at the time it was broadcast, I can tell you it was more than just one reviewer,

Your anecdotal evidence is given the weight it deserves.

So I take it that you at least believe that the Arrow conspiracy theories and unsupported claims RE the area rule principle are bogus?

"The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991, as part of a one-off history quiz show hosted by Wayne Rostad.[5] Originally distributed to schools,[2]"

About 30 minutes into the miniseries you'll find the bogus coke bottle scene.

Area rule was an old concept pionereed by German aircraft designers to reduce drag of subsonic aircraft. It was first applied to supersonic aircraft design work by an American engineer shortly after WW2.
On top of this area rule was not applied to the Arrow fuselage, only to intakes and a few other features.

The earlier F-102B and the contemporary F-106 used a full on area rule fuselage design. The F-106 achieved Mach 2.3 with a single engine compared to the Arrow's two engines and Mach 1.9 and last I heard the F-106 still holds the speed record for a single engine jet.

Archer · Nov 12, 2020

Professor
Your anecdotal evidence is given the weight it deserves.

So I take it that you at least believe that the Arrow conspiracy theories and unsupported claims RE the area rule principle are bogus?

"The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991, as part of a one-off history quiz show hosted by Wayne Rostad.[5] Originally distributed to schools,[2]"

I'm not sure what your goal is here, but what I will say is this constant bashing of anything not USA is quite tiring.

As I've already stated, the TV mini-series was a fictionalized account. It's in the same vein as Oliver Stone's JFK movie, or "The Right Stuff" in that it is based on real events, but things are changed for entertainment value. I can't speak for the entire Canadian population, but no one I know of thinks it is a true retelling of the actual events, so you pretending that it is viewed this way is downright strange.

So you have copied text from somewhere that says the Heritage Minutes were distributed to schools. Where does this come from? Please cite sources. What in that Heritage minute do you believe is incorrect?

I'm also waiting for evidence that the film was shown in schools, and was portrayed as 100% accurate history. What schools specifically (publicly funded, private, etc.)? What class was the film shown in? In what context?

Professor · Nov 12, 2020

Archer
I can't speak for the entire Canadian population,

Glad to cleared that up.

Archer
So you have copied text from somewhere that says the Heritage Minutes were distributed to schools.

Are you disputing that fact? Have you never seen a Heritage minute? I left the shortcut to the references page intact, use it.

Archer
I'm not sure what your goal is here, but what I will say is this constant bashing of anything not USA is quite tiring.

So by pointing out that the USSR beat both the UK and USA in achieving orbit of a manned vehicle is somehow "constant bashing of anything not USA".
I hope "bashing" an inaccurate Government sponsored and obviously politically motivated, Miniseries has not caused you any severe butthurt.

Unfortunately using the internet doesn't give one a godlike power of looking into every classroom in Canada decades in the past.
Articles on the showing of this film in Canadian schools weren't hard to find at the time it was being done. Not so easy to find since several respected authors have dug up official documentation that torpedoed the politically motivated conspiracy theories that have popped up again in the last year or so.

Archer · Nov 12, 2020

Professor
Are you disputing that fact? Have you never seen a Heritage minute? I left the shortcut to the references page intact, use it.

Not disputing that there were Heritage Minutes at all, obviously. They used to be on TV pretty regularly.

I'll ask again - what in the Heritage Minute you have linked to was incorrect?

Professor
So by pointing out that the USSR beat both the UK and USA in achieving orbit of a manned vehicle is somehow "constant bashing of anything not USA".
I hope "bashing" an inaccurate Government sponsored and obviously politically motivated, Miniseries has not caused you any severe butthurt.

No pointing out the obvious is not bashing. The way you go about this is tiring though.

Professor
Unfortunately using the internet doesn't give one a godlike power of looking into every classroom in Canada decades in the past.
Articles on the showing of this film in Canadian schools weren't hard to find at the time it was being done. Not so easy to find since several respected authors have dug up official documentation that torpedoed the politically motivated conspiracy theories that have popped up again in the last year or so.

So, you had no trouble finding articles about this at the time it was being done? Okay, when was that? That should be an easy question for you to answer.

And if you had found them then, why do you not have them now?

Professor · Nov 12, 2020

Archer
I'll ask again - what in the Heritage Minute you have linked to was incorrect?

What in the opening clip is correct? Listen to the actor's words and tell me how much you agree with.
Using clips from the miniseries in a heritage moment gave the viewers the impression that the film was an accurate account.

"And if you had found them then, why do you not have them now?"
Perhaps because since I read of this more than ten years have passed, I've gone through three PC towers since then.
I was a bit surprised that almost every reference link I found on the subject is dead as a door nail, that is not so common.
It never occurred to me that such information is so easily ignored or simply forgotten.
Looking over more recent information on Canadian schools I'm not surprised that such information is not publicly available at such a late date.
Lots of archived student history essays on the subject though.

I was surprised that otherwise intelligent people were only this year claiming Canada should cancel plans to buy F-35 fighters and restart the Arrow program. The indoctrination into the mythology is deeper that I'd expected even now.

Archer · Nov 12, 2020

Professor
What in the opening clip is correct? Listen to the actor's words and tell me how much you agree with.
Using clips from the miniseries in a heritage moment gave the viewers the impression that the film was an accurate account.

Not sure why you won't answer the questions...please be specific about what is in the heritage minute that is inaccurate.

Professor
"And if you had found them then, why do you not have them now?"
Perhaps because since I read of this more than ten years have passed, I've gone through three PC towers since then.

So your dog ate your homework. Okay then.

Professor
I was a bit surprised that almost every reference link I found on the subject is dead as a door nail, that is not so common.
It never occurred to me that such information is so easily ignored or simply forgotten.
Looking over more recent information on Canadian schools I'm not surprised that such information is not publicly available at such a late date.
Lots of archived student history essays on the subject though.

Please post links to these archived essays. You make a lot of statements, but are unable to back them up with substance.

Professor
I was surprised that otherwise intelligent people were only this year claiming Canada should cancel plans to buy F-35 fighters and restart the Arrow program.

Please cite examples. I don't know what world it is you live in, but this isn't something that I've heard anywhere, and I've been following the discussions of the next fighter we may purchase pretty closely.

Professor
The indoctrination into the mythology is deeper that I'd expected even now.

Gee, thanks for setting us all straight. What we we do without you. You are a hero...

::facepalm1::

Professor · Nov 12, 2020

Canadian source Jan 7, 2020
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/things-canadian.277477/page-35
The scheme goes back to 2012, recent discovery of a set of the original blueprints has reignited the stories.
If you'll notice the Arrow, which was far larger, with huge radar signature and has no stealth features of any kind, was supposedly going to be a better war plane than the stealthy F-35. This at a time when the far more capable F-15 Strike Eagle has been dissed due to its lack of stealth.

Archer · Nov 12, 2020

Professor
Canadian source Jan 7, 2020
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/things-canadian.277477/page-35
The scheme goes back to 2012, recent discovery of a set of the original blueprints has reignited the stories.
If you'll notice the Arrow, which was far larger, with huge radar signature and has no stealth features of any kind, was supposedly going to be a better war plane than the stealthy F-35. This at a time when the far more capable F-15 Strike Eagle has been dissed due to its lack of stealth.

So the link takes me to "Army Rumour Service"...seems like a very reliable source for information...

That links me to a story from 2012...that was quickly shot down as being ridiculous by the government of the day. By the way, the commenters one that page of the "Army Rumour Service" also said it was daft, because it is. So much for the indoctrination you speak of.

If this is your smoking gun, you should go back to smoking weed or crack, or whatever it is you do for fun while cruising your conspiracy theory web sites, and leave this stuff off OF.

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

Archer

Omegafanman

Omegafanman

kkt

Omegafanman

valkyrie_rider

Professor

Omegafanman

Professor

Archer

Professor

Archer

Professor

Archer

Professor

Archer

Professor

Archer

Professor

Archer

Similar threads

Watches - Lets see what you could have won thread