United Kingdom Space Activity, 1957-1987

摘要

When the ESA History Committee requested concise national histories from the Member States I offered, with the British National Space Centre's (BNSC) support, to do the UK one. I thought that at ten thousand words, including footnotes, the task would not be too onerous. It would fit in well with my work at the Science Museum and my general research interests in UK space policy. How wrong I was! The relevance to the Museum work was clear, but the ease of writing? I apologise here and now, to my assembled peers, for the late arrival of this concise history. Karl Reuter, Johann Oberlechner, Bruce Battrick and their colleagues have been patience personified. But the delay in delivery has not been due entirely to my shortcomings as an author. Any brief account is challenging; the key information, points and themes must be conveyed in fewer rather than more words. Wasteful language is not desirable. But such criteria applied to all of the authors assembled here; all of the ESA national histories were being written to the same set of rules. I would say, though, that the distinctiveness of the UK's actual space record adds to the set of common constraints that faced all of the authors. I would cite two main reasons: first, as for France, perhaps, the sheer scope and scale of activity pursued by UK space communities between 1957 and 1987 is daunting for the historian. To put it succinctly: during this period, there was no aspect of space endeavour that the UK did not embark upon, with the notable exception of manned astronautics (a British astronaut had been due to accompany the Space Shuttle's launch of a Skynet military satellite, but the 'Challenger' disaster meant the satellite was eventually launched by an expendable vehicle). During this thirty-year period the United Kingdom designed, built, launched and operated spacecraft. Its industries operated at the forefront of European space commerce. Its space scientists established and maintained an enviable reputation of excellence in a range of scientific disciplines. It participated in international space programmes (Ariel-1 was the world's first international satellite) and played leading roles in the establishment of all the European space agencies - ESRO, ELDO and ESA. Much of the time spent on composing this history was devoted, therefore, to acknowledging this record and providing what I hope is at least a definitive if not the definitive listing of flown spacecraft, instruments and experiments that the UK was directly involved in between 1957 and 1987; some 45 science spacecraft, carrying 90 experiments, and 46 applications satellites of which 11 had UK companies as the lead contractors. And this excludes those other activities such as sounding-rocket launches (Skylark, Skua, Petrel and Fulmar), the extensive ground-based space operations in the UK and abroad and, of course, the entire cornucopia of Blue Streak activity - more of this, though, in a moment. I should mention here Matthew Godwin's near complete academic thesis for the Extended ESA History Project on the Skylark, the vehicle that carried the first UK and European space science packages and which, in a few days' time, comes to the end of an illustrious forty-seven year life.