Ministry of Space, or Briiiiiits iiiiin Spaaaaace!

[Mr.Bluenote]

Ministry of Space
What is it that makes a man willing to sit up on top of an enormous Roman candle, such as a Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rocket, and wait for someone to light the fuse?
- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff, 1979.

We’ve all seen newsfootage of huge multi-stage rockets lifting off from the Kilimanjaro Launch Facility and delta-shaped rocket-ship blasting off from the Woomera Space Center or manuevering through the star specked space. Or marvelled at the capabilities of the newest Oberon Sattelites. Or seen the grainy black and white photos of Malcolm Davis and Ceepak Basheer Saheb as they took their first steps on pock-marked surface of the Moon. As the mission to Mars is planned and next to five billions non-Commonwealth citizens daily walk in the shadow of the Zuckerman and Churchill Space Stations every day, the British Ministry of Space and their Commonwealth equivalents can look back at nearly 50 years of space flight and untold successes.


I've partially rewritten my outline of a MoS/More Brits in Space TL, so I'll start posting the parts under a new Thread!

The PoD is as before the meeting betwenn Solly Zuckerman, the BIS-members and Churchill in 1944. This butterflies into a more unsuccessfull Yalta Conference, to say the least, and thereby forces the Brits to develop their own Alliance based on the Commonwealth and nukes...

Best regards!

- Mr.Blunote.

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

MoS, part I

Part I
“All rightâ€, the critics said, “let's build the super V2 if we must...but let's have less of this worship of things German. The Germans didn't win the War!†It was a danger signal, a denial of science. The man who builds a swing doesn't plant a tree and wait for it to grow. He selects an established tree and secures his ropes to the stoutest branch!
- Ivan Southall, Woomera, 1962.

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories!
- Arthur C. Clarke.

The British Interplanetary Society (BIS) formed in Liverpool in 1933, and, due to a British law prohibiting the building of rockets by private individuals, concentrated on theoretical work in astronautics. In 1937 a study of a Lunar landing mission began. The BIS hoped to prove that that such missions were possible. The BIS had nonetheless done remarkably well with the little or no funding they recieved before the War. Their advocacy of using rockets to explore space made many view them as cranks. Still, BIS brought together a brilliant group of visionaries. Among the best known are Arthur C. Clarke and the popular sci-fi writer, John Wyndham. The group also included Val Cleaver, an engineer who would play a leading role in the Blue Streak Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) project and other similar projects.

The technology needed to place a satellite in orbit is very similar to that required to send a nuclear warhead intercontinental distances. And the ability to launch nuclear weapons at the Soviets would by far be the main British incentive for building rockets in the early 50’s. But many who worked on the military weapons saw their initial efforts to build a weapon as part of a more unspoken long-term mission to get into and ultimately explore space. One man’s Herculean effort brought German and British know-how and shared dreams together in what was to become the British Ministry of Space. As we all know, that man was Solly Zuckerman.

Unable to raise the funds to build large pieces of hardware in the 1930s, the BIS tackled the theoretical problems of space travel. However, after the first V2-missile attacks on Britain, some members of the BIS gained prominence. Not for their, at the time, somewhat loony space ideas, but for their knowledge of rockets and balistics. The BIS-experts got an unecpected friend in RAF’s inhouse technical expert, the ingenius South African, Solly Zuckerman. Zuckerman, eventhough he never publicly admitted it, saw the possibilities in space travel and exploration. Some time in late 1944, Zuckerman arranged for a meeting between some members of BIS, himself, naturally, Primeminister Churchill, Lord Tizard, the govermenst technological advisor, Fieldmarshal Alanbrook, the head the Imperial General Staff, and Airmarshal Tedder. Tizard was very direct in his dismissal of rockets, missiles and other little boy’s. It was his firm impression that the Germans were getting increasingly desperate and thus needed those fantasy weapons, the Allies should concentrate on real weapons. Tedder however noted that the Royal Air Force was unable to stop the V2’s in flight and that they on impact killed British citizens and destroyed property, which, in Tedders book, meant that they were a very real and relevant threat. BIS-member Val Cleaver noted that not only could rockets be made to transport bombs as the Germans did, they could take you into space. In space the possibilities were infinite. Cleaver is said to have sketched out the very first spy sattelite at the meeting. Alanbrook, an avid birdwathcher, and the always adventure inclined Primeminister seemed to warm to the idea of a concentrated British effort toward designing and building funktioning rockets. The RAF’s Department of Rocketry was thus born and placed under Zuckerman’s supervison. After the war the DoR took a leading role in pressing the case for space exploration and research, both in Britain and in the Commonwealth, and got moved from RAF to the Ministry of Aviation. Later it would emerge in its own right as the Ministry of Space.

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

MoS, part II

Part II
How posterity will laugh at us, one way or other! If half a dozen break their necks, and balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use: if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted!
- Horace Walpole, in a letter to H. Mann, 1785.

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination!
- Bertrand Russell.

As the Allied invasion finally got moving and the Germans fell back, it bevame obvious that the War was about to be won. The Allies and the Soviet Union were beginning to play political games to ensure influence and dominance in the post-war world. Having a energetic and highly intelligent man like Solly Zuckerman leading the DoR fueled Churchill’s always quite capable imagination to a point were Hastings Ismay, his personal chef of staff, laconically said that; “Winnie talks about nothing but space planes and rockets these days!†That was of course untrue, but the British PM seemed to have seen the larger implications af space exploration and control. He once said to Alanbrook: “He who control the high ground is destined to win any given battle. Space is the ultimate high ground!†Politically the situation was worsening for Britain. The USA seemed oblivious to the threath posed by Stalin and Soviet Russia. The French under deGaulle was already making all kinds of troubles as had they actually won the war by themselves. And the Soviest seemed hell-bent on taking all they could both in Eastern Europe and Asia. Churchill did not have an excellent personal relationship with President Truman of the USA as he once had with FDR, and the more anti-British forces within the US administration had begun to manist their new found strength. At the Yalta Conference in February, 1945, a near split occured between the British and the US. This led to information and data from the joint nuclear programme being either withheld or edited. The British began to feel isolated and alone. Under Churchill’s guidance the British government began to plan for the post-war periode; A time were the Empire and Commonwealth had to stand perhaps alone in an increasingly hostile world. It was decided that the Commonwealth shuold be strengthened, so a conference on a proposed more integrated and united Commonwealth should be arranged some time directly after the War and should be held in Canada – it appears that Churcill already foresaw the need for more equality between Commonwealth nations.

Churchill then gave his favorite trouble-shooter Lord Mounbatten a crucial task. Track down the German scientist involved in the German rocket programme and get them to Britain when the fighting stops. Sieze all relevant materiel as well. Mountbatten sat to the task with great vigour. Men like Ian Flemming, Maxwell Knight and the Sterling-brothers will forever be names remembered fondly by the British Ministry of Space and space enthusiasts in the Commonwealth for their participation in Operation Backfire.

At the end of the war von Braun and most of his V2 team were taken to Britain, while both the US and the Soviets scrambled to gain as many experts as they could. It is rumored, but still classified, that Backfire-commandos under David Sterling actually engaged the Soviets in several firefights at the time and later clashed with the American Operation Paperclips-teams. Even if the stories are only that, stories, it do tell us how seriously the British took the matter. What is known, is that several Luftwaffe test facilitis near the Russo-German front was bombed by the RAF at the end of the war. A major raid on Dresden was among others cancelled and the bombers diverted to other more important targets, to paraphrase Airmarshal Tedder. The only logical reason for this step would be to prevent German technology to fall into Soviet hands. The German missile assembly centre at Nordhausen in the Harz mountains of central Germany was captured by an operation under Mountbatten’s personal supervison. British Paras were dropped near by and rushed to the giant facility mere hours in advance of the Americans. Nordhausen ultimately ended up in the Soviet sector, but not until the British Backfire-teams had stripped the place of al that was not bolted down.

Nearly all of the very large number of Germans appropriated by Britain in Operation Backfire were sent to the Department of Rocketry’s Propulsion Study Center at Westcott near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. The German scientists were from a variety of different backgrounds, not all of them had any specific relation to the V2-team who had developed the V-2 at Peenemünde, but were deemed usefull nonetheless and put to work for their new masters. Among them were Dr.Eugen Sänger, Konrad Zuse and Dr.Irene Brandt. As DoR was integrated into RAF and therefore under military control the German scientist were at first considered PoW’s and were kept in a prison-like enviroment with a barbed wire compound and armed guards. It, however, soon became obvious that the Germans were no threat, they self-ironicallyrefered to themselves as PoP’s – Prisoners of Peace -, nor uncooperative. Despite some initial apprehension, the barbed wire and armed guards soon focused more on intruders and general security than to keep an eye on the resident Germans. At the end of the 40’s all the scientists were more or less integrated in the British society. Quite a few of them would evntually retire to Rhodesia, Australia, the Federation of South Africa and New Zealand.

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

MoS, part III

Part III
If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong!
- Arthur C. Clarke.

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them!
- Isaac Asimov.

In the years after the War, both the Soviet Union and the United States put a significant effort into creating a strategic airforce as part of their expansion of, and increasingly reliance upon, their nuclear arsenal, but because of the highly succesfull British Backfire-operations and pre-war research, they took another route altogether. The British focused on long-range missiles for military purposes instead. RAF foresaw a day were bombers couldn’t get through and backed the DoR’s progammes, but still build several types of heavy bombers, among them the Victors and Vulcans. As Greece erupted in civil war and American Marines had to intervene, politicians and military officials in both Moscow and Washington alike began speaking of a Cold War and increased their airforces even further. In London, however, a recently reelected Churchill was pleased indeed, it might be expensive, but the missiles and the associated technology would give the British military and industrial sector an edge for centuries to come, he was sure of that – a technology and missile gap began to develop.

In late 1945 a committee was convened under Solly Zuckerman, who, at Churchill’s request, had just taken over as the government's chief scientific adviser besides his job as daily leader of the Department of Rocketry, to examine the possibilities of not only producing independent British nuclear arms, but to put them in missiles. The Zuckerman Committee clearly stated that with present day technology it was indeed possible and advantageous to do so. At the time the true problem was the guidance system. Zuckerman recognized this and recruited a handfull of young mathematicians from the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. One of these mathematicians was Alan Turing. Turing had earlier proposed an Automatic Computing Engine, which Zuckerman thought could be of help in matters related to balistics. The guidance system necessary to make nuclear armed missiles accurate enough to be effective weapons was thus on its way to be developed. Zuckerman might have been overly optimistc in his statement about the feasibility of nuclear tipped missiles, but he did not, as Lord Tizard before him, deem it outright impossible. The Automatic Computing Engine, or ACE, would be an indispensable tool in the time to come. As a direct consequence of the Zuckerman Committee’s work the British efforts were focused and determined.

After the Commonwealth Conference in Canada in early ´46, a scientific exchange programme had been created between, what Churchill in private refered to as, the core nations. Several economic and military agreements were also signed and the Commonwealth emerged stronger than ever. The Britons still felt like they were a world-spanning power. So did most of the Commonwealth nations apparently, as they saw that the British still wielded considerable military power and were a world leader in advanced technology. Advanced technology used among other things to make advanced weaponry. Weaponry the British made readily available for their allies in the Commonwealth. The core nations soon began to buy their way into Britians various projects with men, resources, bases or money.

Undoubtedly Wernher von Braun would have liked to go to the USA, but he soon settled in under British protection and undoubtedly in somewhat more modest surroundings than had he gone to America. However, now he could do what he always dreamed of doing; build rockets. The DoR was military, no doubt about it, but many of the British scientists, working with the Germans and on the various British projects, still had the dream of going into space. Together with Val Cleaver and Arthur C. Clarke, von Braun orchestrated the much acclaimed International Congress on Astronautics in London in the summer of 1951, where PM Churchill himself spoke. This led to an increase in public interest and to more sophisticated ideas of how space travel and exploration could be brought about. The British economy naturally had been seriously damaged by the War and, even with Churchill at the helm, the government refused to spend large sums of hard earned and much needed money on such idealistic notions as space flight for the sake of space travel alone, so the main focus was to remain on developing military missiles for the time being. However, the idea of space exploration became a very popular theme, aided by entertainment features like the comic-strip space-hero Dan Dare and the rocket-plane riding Commonwealth fighter-aces of the Missile Musketeers. The idea of space gave many people in poverty striken Britain hope of a better tomorrow and a belief in themselve and Britain.

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

MoS, part IV

Part IV
Money was no object. They had not realised - few had - that Britain was bankrupt!
- Ivan Southall, Woomera, 1962.

If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life!
- Gus Grissom.

“We must lose the Empire in order to preserve it. But it must be a different Empire, an Empire where we in the brotherhood that is the Commonwealth of Nations shall stand by each other in joy as well as sorrow! We must share all burder and rewards equally for only as brother can we survive and thrive in this new world, where an Iron Curtain has descended upon Eastern Europe and a Fortress of Ignorance arisen in the Americas. The eyes of the world now look to us, the Commonwealth of Nations to create a better future. As part of that dream we must look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond!†It is with those words at the International Congress on Astronautics in 1951, Primeminister Winston S. Churhill inspired not only the Britins, but subjects of the Commonwealth nations all over the world. He challenged them to reach beyond Earth and seek their joint fortunes out in unsailed territory. Most people of course knew that he was referring to space, so with this speech Churchill had given birth ot the very impressive British Space Programme. Unfortunately Churchill would never live to see the first man, a Brit, naturally, in space, nor the launch of the first man-made satellite. One tragic June morning in 1952, PM Churchill died of cardiac-arrest. Doctors belived the heartattack to be stress-related. Being Primeminster in a troubled time had been too much for the elderly statesman. But Churchill’s much bemourned death, that truly grieved a billion people and made a quite few sigh in relief, would not be in vain. Together with his now famous speech at the International Congress on Astronautics, Churchill’s death galvanized the various nations of the Commonwealth’s resolve and inspired generations of young men and women to reach for space and unity.

As the Korean War began, with American and Chinese troops being deployed in increasing numbers on each side, Britain exploded a Commonwealth developed nuclear weapon at the Emu Test Site in Australia. Initially it was believed by most in the British government and Imperial General Staff that the RAF could be relied upon to deliver nuclear weapons to their targets with the V-type bombers, but soon it was realised, though, that these aircraft were too vulnerable to air defences, especially the Soviet ones. The Americans found that they needed heavier bombers, capable of reaching higher altitudes, the Soviets soon followed their lead, but in Britain it was found that long range ballistic missiles would not only be preferable, but absolutely necessary to national security.

In 1954 the DoR’s Striker guidance system programme under the Ministry of Aviation developed a highly accurate inertial guidance systems. In the same periode the Americans, and soon after British themselves, tested a two-stage thermo-nuclear device, the Hydrogene-bomb. The H-bomb, as it simply became known, was of such hitherto unimaginable power that there was less need to use a highly accurate delivery system as needed for the less powerfull A-bombs. Missles were most definitely in and development were pushed further and faster. The Department of Rocketry was soon one of the largest entities in the British Military, soaking up men and resources to a degree that began to worry the British Minister of Defence and quite a few Generals (not to speak of the Admirals, who saw ship after ship laid up).

The de Havilland Aircraft Company won the contract to produce an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) under the codename Blue Streak, while the Rolls-Royce company gained the contract for development af an engine in cooperation with Department of Rocketry’s Propulsion Study Center. Eventhough it would be cheaper and quicker just to licence an existing rocket engine rather than start development from scratch, the British government and Solly Zuckerman pushed for a homegrown design. Later it was disclosed that the RZ2 rocket engine was actually based on Rocketdyne’s S3D rocket engine, but the Britsih had wastly improved it and made it more efficient by reducing weight and increasing power-output. In August 1956, the first engines were tested at the Spadeadam Test Site in Cumbria. Soon Blue Streak itself was tested…

The first official step to towards a true space programme was taken as far back as December 1946, a study group of the DoR under the visionary R.Smith and H.Ross had submitted a design for an adapted space-going German V2-rocket to the Ministry of Aviation, now the masters of the DoR. The adaption consisted mainly of a pressurised cabin in the nose of the rocket, in place of the usual explosive warhead, which would enable a man to be launched as a passenger on the flight. The cabin was detachable, allowing the astronaut to experience several minutes of weightlessness before it parachuted back to Earth. Now several members of the DoR and in the Ministry of Aviation itself wanted to try for a manned fligth, but not on the basis of the original V2-proposal, instead planes were being drawn up for a modified Blue Steak to be lanched into space along with a crew of two. Needless to say, Churchill, Solly Zuckerman and Wernher von Braun was firmly behind the idea, as was many other influentical political figures; they all saw this as a way to anounce to the world that Britain and her Commonwealth allies was still to be recogned with. The project was to be launched from the newly constructed Woomera-base in Australia. Austraila had from the beginning backed the British rocket programme and was together with several other both major and minor Commonwealth-nations involved in it.

Eventhough things were looking much better for Britain and the Commonwealth in general, the economy was still reconstructing after the damage of the War years, but not only were there political backing for what was now in reality a space programme, there was also a large public endorsement for the programme; Churchill and Wernher von Braun by their sheer strenght of personality and the highly successfull International Congress on Astronautics in London back in ’51 had worked wonders to fuel the publics imagination. In the spring of 1958 the Monarch lifted of with astronauts Alan Smith and Roy Radford. While the whole world watched Smith and Radford was sent on a sub-orbital flight and experienced several minutes of weightlessness as their capsule detached from the converted Blue Streak. Helicopters launchend from the deck of the carrier HMS Ark Royal recovered both the capsule and the two unharmed astronauts in the Indian Ocean. The successfull fligth of the Monarch gave birth to the British Ministry of Space as an independent entity in its own. The MoS would became responsible for all space related matters and for interdepartmental policy co-ordination on rocket matters and to establish equivalent organisations throughout the Commonwealth.

 

[Torqumada]

Was there really a need to put this in an entirely new thread?

Torqumada

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

Was there really a need to put this in an entirely new thread?

No probably not! It just seems a little less messy that way.

The first parts are rewrites of the old ones, I know, but there should be a completely new part in just a minute!

Best regards!

- Mr.B.

 

[Pax Britannia]

This is a great story, keep up the good work!

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

MoS, part V

Part V
If Britain had rejected satellites it would have been easier to reject the next major advance, and the next, and the next. There would have been no end to it. Yes, there would have been an end. Britain would have become a Switzerland with a few specialised skills - an admirable little Switzerland, but not a Britain.
- Ivan Southall, Woomera, 1962.

In early 1960, Blue Streak became operational as a delivery system for nuclear warheads. The criticism of Blue Streak however would in the end lead to the development of submarine-based missiles like the Peregrin. Blue Streak’s underground launch sites were far too vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike and the fuel used gave the missile a long fueling time. The first British Ballistic Submarine, HMS Dreadnought, put to sea in late 1962 and Blue Streak was officially replaced by Peregrin Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile system in the summer of 1963 as Britain's nuclear deterrent. Submarine-based missiles continue to be the British nuclear delivery system to the present day. The dozen Blue Streak underground launch sites, named silos in the US, are to this day used as bomb shelters and emergency control facilities by the RAF.

The world appeared stunned not only by the Monarch’s suborbital flight, but espacially by Britain’s ability to lob nuclear missile halfway across the globe. Against ballistic missiles interceptors or airdefences were of no use. A missile race now began, where the United States of American and their rivals in Soviets Union tried desperately to catch up with Britains lead.

The newly created MoS also knew that Blue Streak was not he tfuture, neither was simple suborbital flights, so another design was thus tested; the now famous Black Knight, the true forefather to modern rockets and the deadly Shadow multirole rocket-planes.

The Black Knight rocket had begun life as a research vehicle programme in 1954. Black Knight was constructed on the Isle of Wight by Saunders-Roe and tested on the island at High Down. The engines were produced by Armstrong-Siddeley using hydrogen peroxide. Under the leadership of H.Robinson a MoS-team of scientists and engineers from the Commonwealth carried through the Black Knight programme. The first launch was in the autumn of 1958 from the now famous Woomera Rocket Base (Later to be named Woomera Space Center). Black Knight proved to be an outstandingly reliable vehicle, and unbelievable cheap too; Each vehicle cost less than 50,000£.

The Black Knight had several remarkable features. One of the more important ones, was the re-entry body made by ablative materials and low-drag shapes, which were of great interest to RAF’s experts. Ablative materials burn up on re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere, producing a char which is carried away from the rocket's body. The char which is shed carries heat with it, thus allowing the body to lose heat energy built up in the ablated surface. The low-drag shape meant that the re-entry body would re-enter fast and decelerate sharply at a lower altitude than earlier designs, making them more difficult to destroy with an anti-ballistic missile system. However, the British took this a stage further, developing low radar-observable shapes used in the design of the Shadow-series of modern warplanes. Black Knight was thus an immensely important programme, gathering expertise and data valuable to Britain and the Commonwealth of Nations alike.

Further, it was suggested that Black Knight could be stretched and used to act as a satellite launcher. Project Black Prince was thus born. Black Prince used Blue Streak as a first stage and Black Knight as a second stage as part of a three-stage launcher. The Black Prince would later lead to the development of Black Duke, but that’s still in the future..

In 1962 the Ministry of Space launched their first satellite, Titania. A Black Knight Rocket lifted the small satellite into orbit. Titania was designed only as a technology test vehicle, and so carried no experiments. It was placed into a 531/1402 Km orbit, and would circle the Earth every 100 minutes for 40 years. The satellite's radio transmitter could be heard broadcasting on 137.56 MHz when ever it passed overhead. Had the Monarcha and Blue Streak spurred the Soviets and the Americans, Titania caused a frenzy.
More importantly, though, the successful launch of Titania cleared to road for Arthur C.Clarke and Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai’s world-spanning system of communication satellites in geostationary orbits. In 1945 Arthur C. Clarke had published a speculative, but highly technical paper on Extra-Terrestrial Relays, where he laid down the principles of the satellite communication. Now some 15 years later his vison was to be realized. Today, the geostationary orbit at 42,000 kilometers is named The Clarke Orbit by the Commonwealth Astronomical Society. It would not be long before the telecommunications market would become a major industry, and it would be a major source of income for the British and the Commonwealth, who monopolized nearly the entire commercial launch market.
At then same time, the Ministry of Defence commissioned its first spy satellite, the Prospero. The British would gain much by selling satillite surveilance photos to the Americans until the first American spy sattelites became opeartional in 1969.

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

MoS, part VI

Part VI
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
- Winston S. Churchill.

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving.
- U.S. Grant.

The world in the mid-1960’s was a dangerous place. Not just because the United States of America and the Soviet Union stirred at each other eyes over open sights in numerous flash-points across the world, but also because several ethnic and colonial conflicts broke out. Since the Commonwealth Pact and the subsequent agreements on free trade, exchange of technology, manufactored goods, raw-materials, the 1955 Commonwealth Defence Alliance, the custom union and the monetary ditto in respectively 1957 and 1960, and other similar achievements, the Commonwealth had prospered. Now all that was threathened by the Mosleem revolt in Nothern India and the US-instigated Military Coup in Egypt. The true strenght of the Commonwealth was seen as British, Canadian, Australian, Indian, Rhodesian South African, Kenyan and New Zealand forces poured into the Soviet-backed self-proclaimed Mosleem Republic of Pakistan and in three weeks of fighting reduced the area to nothing more than a razed desert. Some Soviet-made fighters and SAMs had somehow turned up in Pakistani hands, but were no match for the Commonwealth’s anti-radar missile-equipped multi-role rocket-fighters and guided precision misisles. All in all the Commonwealth’s Armed Forces showed the world the potency of its new weapons, but the most impressive weapon of them all was used in Egypt.

American agitation had given some hot-headed Egyptian officers the idea that Egypt should be a Republic, under their benevolent rule, naturally, and that the Suez Channel should be the property of the Egyptian people.
Besides from flyning in some few extra hundreds Paras in the great Asteroid jet-transporters, the only British reaction was to launch all of the five Black Prince-rockets currently in stock in rapid succession from Woomera. Needless to say, this, together with the uprisng in Northern India, gave the Egyptians the nerve to begin moving in on the Channel Zone after having disposed of the King.
The boffins at the Special Defence Initiative in Pretoria had in the greatest of secrecy developed a new spaceborn weapon under the code-name of Mjolnir. Each Black Prince launch brought a Mjolnir into orbit. Mjolnir consisted of a solid core clad with ablatives, a satellite guided controlsystem and a rocket engine. Mjolnir was in short a kinetic-impact weapon designed to be launched from orbit against a target on the surface of Earth. On a sunny June morning, British Primeminister MacMillan, in consent with his fellow Commonwealth PM’s, activated three Mjolnirs. Two of the weapons impacted in the proximity of the Egyptian troop-formations moving towards the Channel and the third hit Port Said more or less dead on target. The three hits generated enormous mushroom clouds that could be seen far away. The Egyptian Kings rightfull rule was soon restored as the Egyptian Military collapsed completely as Commonwealth troops from the Channel Zone moved inland and took control.

Immediately after the Egyptian Civilwar a somber US-President Nixon signed the Trans-Atlantic Friendship Charter. It seemed that the roles of the two countries was once again turned.

Eventhough resources at the time was diverted to Defence, the MoS made do. Afterall, space and all things related was most important for both Britain and its allies in the Commonwealth! In 1966 the MoS and RAF in cooperation sat the altitude and speed record (6,166 kph and an altitude of 95,940 meters) for a rocket-plane with the Galahad SR-200. And begun to look into building the replacement for the Black Prince-rocket.

 

[Pax Britannia]

Truly Excellent Work!

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

Truly Excellent Work!

Thank you very much, PB!

So, any other comments? Is it bad (well, the gramma at least is, I know)? Is it plausible? Or just far out?

Unless I get stoned be angry readers first, I'll try to post the next part tomorrow!

Best regards!

- B.

 

[Pax Britannia]

I find all the stuff about a closer allied Commonwealth very intriguing, maybe you could post some more on that.

 

[Flocculencio]

I agree in full. A more tightly knit Commonwealth has always been one of my AH dreams...

Unbreakable union of freeborn Dominions...

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

I agree in full. A more tightly knit Commonwealth has always been one of my AH dreams...

Unbreakable union of freeborn Dominions...

Yes, I totally agree myself - would have been a very different would, I'd say-, but more politics then! Will do!

Good quote btw, Flocculencio!

Thanks for the feedback both of you!

Best regards!

- Bluenote.

 

[Pax Britannia]

I'm getting a sense from this AH that america is slightly hostile to the British Commonwealth, why is this?

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

I'm getting a sense from this AH that america is slightly hostile to the British Commonwealth, why is this?

Hm, well, in OTL there was a slight rift, primarily seen in the Nuclear Programme - The Americans began to move on and, shall we say, left the Brits fending for themselves in matters nuclear, hence the accelerated British programme! To get the Brits into space, they have to focus on nukes and missiles. And the only reason they would do that and try harder to keep the Empire in form of a more equal Commonwealth is fear, plain and simple. In my view the only way to generate that fear, would be to expand the tiny rift between the US and Britain. The next steps are straightforward, as I've written somewhere, there's not much difference in launching a nuke or a satellite, but back in the 40's and 50's satellites were not on the menu, but nukes certainly were!

In the MoS TL I've let the Yalta Conference go wrong somehow, and thereby created the circumstances needed. So, we have no UN, no real NATO, but a US that tries hard to hold the USSR back more or less alone, since the Brits fell back from all but the core members of the Commonwealth!

I'm thinking about letting France take Britains role as the closest US ally in Europe? Maybe the political climate after the War made the US intervene more actively in Indochina, thus keeping the warm US-French relations?

Does any of this make sense at all? I don't like splitting the alliance between the US and Britain, but it's the only way I can see Britain keeping its status in the post-war world!

The best of regards!

- B.

 

[Pax Britannia]

A good post war relationship between US and France is possible but the US would have to intervene in a big way to keep the French Empire going and I dont see that happening.

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

British PM's in the MoS TL

British PM’s
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action!
- Bertrand Russell.

Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade?
- Benjamin Franklin.

List of British PM’s in the post-war period in the Ministry of Space TL.

Winston S Churchill: 1940-45.
Winston S Churchill: 1945-51.
Winston S Churchill: 1951-52.
Anthony Eden: 1952-58.
Anthony Eden: 1958-64.
Harold MacMillan: 1964-72.
Alec Douglas-Home: 1972-78.
Edward Heath: 1978-82.
Margaret Thatcher: 1982-88.
Margaret Thatcher: 1988-92.
Magaret Thatcher: 1992-98.

The aggressive post-war behavior of the USSR and the failed Yalta Conference in 1944 gave Communism and along with it Socialism a bad name among the British. Churchill managed to secure the cooperation of among others Labour’s Ernest Bevin and had the Conservatives monopolize all matters relating to space. The policies under the Our Future Is Bright-slogan, the restructurering of the Commonwealth and the need for a firm leadership in the uncertain post-war times secured the Conservatives total dominance in Parliament. A dominance only twice in any real danger. The Liberal-Democrates saw a massive rise in public support in ´72 and the Conservatrives subsequetly nearly lost their majority to them during the General Election in ´78. The first female PM, Magaret Thatcher, however, restored the Conservatives to their former glory.

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

The British Commonwealth of Nations

British Commonwealth
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society!
- Benjamin Franklin.

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.
- William Shakespeare, King John, Act 5, scene 7.

The British Commonwealth of Nations has not always been the strong Federation it is to day! Before the War it was a voluntary and lose association of independent nations with neither power or influence, nor any responsibilty. The Commonwealth was created by Britain and its former Colonies top act like a forum, but not much more. Those times are , as we all know, long gone. One thing hasn’t changes, though, in the past through times of trouble the countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations have stood together, and today they still stand together as brothers on Earth as well as in outer space.

The object of the British Commonwealth of Nations today is to advance democracy, economic relations, science, culture, social development within its member nations and the influence og the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth is a legacy from Britain's Imperial past, but changes profoundly during the last of war-years and in the years immediately after the War. The Empire ahd already given given the countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations a legacy of shared language, and a common legal and political system. Now

All members recognise the British Queen as their own, and thus as the Head of the Commonwealth.The day to day business is run by a general-secretary and the Commonwealth Council. The general-secretay and the council is appointed by the Commonwealth Parlianment sited in Wellington, New Zealand. The Council is located in Bombay. Modern day Commonwealth communications technology keeps the various parts of the Commonwealth governing body in close contact. The general-secretary’s office in placed in Toronto.

The one man who can be attributed to creating the modern Commonwealth, as well as many other thing, among them the unbroken string of Conservative PM’s and the enormously successful space programme, is, of course, Winston S. Churchill.

In the years running up to the War, the British had granted Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Ssouth Africa and Ireland total independence, eventhough they still were a part of the old pre-Churchill Commonwealth, the realtions were somewhat unequal, as between a benevolent, but arrogant Father and his Children. For instance the British was committed to defend the nations in the Commonwealth, while the parcipitation of the Commonwealth nations in any British wars never was a given. Furthermore, the Commonwealth nations had little say in neither British domestic, foreign or military matters.

Churchill and his government in late 1944, after the horrendous diplomatic catastrophe known as the Yalta Conference, sat about to change all this. Some key colonies were immediately recognized as independent nations within the Commonwealth, now refered to as the British Commonwealth of Nations, not just the British Commonwealth as before.

The entire political structure of the Empire was changed, but the true magnitude only became visible late in Churchill’s first post-war term and procalmined in his famous socalled Empire-speech at the International Congress on Astronautics in 1951; “We must lose the Empire in order to preserve it. But it must be a different Empire, an Empire where we in the brotherhood that is the Commonwealth of Nations shall stand by each other in joy as well as sorrow! We must share all burder and rewards equally for only as brother can we survive and thrive in this new world, where an Iron Curtain has descended upon Eastern Europe and a Fortress of Ignorance arisen in the Americas. The eyes of the world now look to us, the Commonwealth of Nations to create a better future!†Those words will forever be imprinted in the minds of every citizen of the Commonwealth. His speech is even today, nearly 50 years later, recited with great affection at Commonwealth Day.

As part of Churchill’s restructurering process colonies and Dominions lost their status and became nations, but not just nations, they became Commonwealth nations. Each had a seat in the newly establish Commonwealth Parliament. The number of seats each country had was based on voting population. However, Commonwealth Parliament in Wellington, at first had limited responsibilities; it handled the foreign affairs of the Commonwealth, the exchange of goods, technology, man-power and such, the Commowealth infrastruture and, finanly, it handled the defence of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The various national Parliaments handled, as they of course still do, most other matters. The Commonwealth Parliament had control over the Commonwealth Armed Forces via the United Commonwealth Command in Johannesburg. The Commonwealth nations financed this new political structure with a fixed percentage of their tax revenues.