The only thing I can say in the under-engineered Valiant's favour is that it was used to drop Britain's first operational big nukes on tests at Christmas Island.
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I was about to say What The Fark, then I realised you meant the OTHER Christmas island!
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Ironically, there was a proposal to develop a air launched ACLM/ASAT system from Blue Steel, in the form of the Z124 Vulcan Orbiter, that could using a Vulcan as a luncher, insert a 400Lbs payload into Low Earth Orbit...America promised free launches on Scout rockets if Britain abandoned its plans to use Blue Streak as a satellite launcher - then promptly forgot the proposal once Blue Streak was gone...
...Like the MacMahon Act on the transfer of nuclear technology back to Britain. The revolving door went one way.
I still wonder what would have happened if poor old Blue Steel had been replaced by an ALCM programme, with three or four launched from Vulcan or Victor bomb bays. Much better than Skybolt.
what the British space program needed was a wealthy individual of mysterious background to lend massive resources and inspirational leadership...
... Try Richard Branson for size!![]()
no, no! Sir Hugo "Hugger" Drax is a British WW2 vet, he just doesn't remember anything about his background since some German saboteur blew up the hq building he was in.Wrong nationality, Kamerad...![]()
no, no! Sir Hugo "Hugger" Drax is a British WW2 vet, he just doesn't remember anything about his background since some German saboteur blew up the hq building he was in.
he's surprisingly good at cards.
granted, for a Brit his taste in cars does run a tad Teutonic, but hey, the man's a knight of the British Empire.
Sir Hugo Drax, the man behind Moonraker--a wealthy entrepeneur with a mysterious background and the owner of Drax Metals was actually Graf Hugo von der Drache. One of the geniuses behind the advanced German Rocket programme and an enthusiastic Nazi, von Drache was badly burned during a rocket test and was unrecognisable. He took the identity of a dead British officer (conveniently called Hugo Drax) at the end of WW2 and harboured his evil anti-British desires secretly.
I can't remember if James Bond bumped him off or he escaped to be nasty again. ( Allowing for the fact that, like Blofeld, he would now be over 100)