I think the original poster is onto something when he talks about an ~1880 PoD. A lot of the reasons it was the US and Russia, and why grabbing German scientists and engineers was so important was due to the economics of the 19th Century.
In particular, what's called the Second Industrial Revolution. This was the second half of the 19th Century, where the innovative fields where alloys, chemicals, and electrification, as opposed to the First half of the century, where the dominant fields where railroads, textiles and iron. Britain lead the First Industrial Revolution but lost ground in the Second, while Germany and America lead the second.
The English maintained their position by moving even more heavily into finance in the Second Industrial, which will build a lot of gilded age palaces but fund very few innovations. Throw on to of that the German invention of, and American adaptation of, the big scientific research university, a trend the British avoided.
When you think where those 2nd IR techs lead - materials sciences, fuels, computers, at those same research institutes - you can see why you need an early, and substantial PoD in the 19th for an English space program. This isn't a case where the right kind of weapon, or the Mark II version instead of the Mark I version of an airplane will give you UNIT. It's underlying economics and not weapons procurement here.
Maybe have the British get on the research uni bandwagon?