When Britain Surrendered The Stars

Once the UK was a serious player in space. Why did we give it up, and are we going to make the same mistake again?

The early demise of Britain’s only indigenously developed launch vehicle, Black Arrow, in 1971 is lamented as a road not taken for the country, much like the cancellation of the Apollo program. The reality is the rocket was not large enough to be useful at that time, and did not have a mission. But years earlier, we had an actual chance of being a leading space power, one that we gave up for reasons that are instructive to current British politics.

As World War 2 in Europe was coming to an end, the three main allied powers scrambled to recover V-2 rockets, parts and expertise. All of the allies wanted V-2 materials, and the US was unwilling to share. As recounted in Blue Streak: Britain’s Medium Range Ballistic Missile by John Boyes:

Wernher von Braun, the mastermind behind the V-2, had surrendered to US forces and the Americans were well aware of the value of their captive. The American forces had also overrun the V-2 production facility, Mittelwerk GmbH, at Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains… Railway trucks full of missile materiel travelled to Antwerp and the onwards to America. Wartime understandings were now redefined and self-interest now reigned as the Americans refused to hand over half the missiles to Britain, as had been agreed by prior arrangements and Liberty ships left Antwerp bound for America with the components for about 100 missiles.

Still, in October 1945 the UK was able to assemble and launch 3 V-2 rockets during Operation Backfire with the help of captured German experts, beating both the US and the Soviets to being able to do this. Characteristically, the UK then abandoned this capability and walked away from serious rocketry for some time.

Frosty post-war relations with the United States on technological cooperation (notably regarding atomic weapons) thawed somewhat as the Cold War got underway and the two nations drew closer to counter the Soviet threat. Once the UK independently developed atomic weapons, technology sharing resumed and this came to include cooperation on ballistic missiles. From this, Blue Streak was born.

The Birth of Blue Streak

Blue Streak is a medium range missile that uses kerosene and liquid oxygen for fuel, and stores them in a thin stainless steel balloon tank. The resemblance to the contemporary Atlas rocket in the US is not coincidental. Boyes writes: