AH Challenge: Save The British Space Program

There were 4 V bomber types prototyped and flown and 3 produced, I'd drop 2 of these to maximise resources; the Sperrin and the (forgive me) Vulcan.
 
Drop a bomb(er)

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.

Keep the Victor and the Vulcan, spend the dosh on Blue Streaks with double or triple engines, maybe grouped together like the Titan IIIC, and you have a good heavy lifter for a geostationary satellite.
 
what the British space program needed was a wealthy individual of mysterious background to lend massive resources and inspirational leadership...
 

Cook

Banned
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.
.

I was about to say What The Fark, then I realised you meant the OTHER Christmas island!
:)
 
I was about to say What The Fark, then I realised you meant the OTHER Christmas island!
:)

for those who don't understand
there two christmas islands: called today Kiritimati in Pazific, the other the Indian Ocean.
on Kiritimati United Kingdom made nucklear bomb test

back to To V-Bomber
the best was RAF had never take The Vickers-Armstrongs "Valiant"
because the use inappropriate type of aluminium alloy in the wing spar attachment castings.

i favor of keep Avro Vulcan, why ?
there were many proposals to use the Bomber als launchplatform
for X-15 like manned rockets and even Orbital launch rockets with French Diamant Rockets
why to hell sound that more like a good Skybolt ALBM alternative ?
 
Dastardly Americans...

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.:mad:

I still wonder what would have happened if poor old Blue Steel had been replaced by an ALCM programme, with three or four launched from Vulcan or Victor bomb bays.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.
 
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.:mad:

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.
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...
As for the ALCM, there was a 1962 proposal for a 3 stage system, using the TSR2 as a carrier, which first stage was ramjet powered...
However, this Proposal fell through with the demise of the TSR 2...
The closest that the U.K got to the above ACLM programme however, was the Violet Club C proposal, that would have used a heavily modified Bloodhound SAM carrying the 10kt Indigo Hammer warhead...
 
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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.

1954_Mercedes_300_SL_Coupe.jpg
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
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)
 
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)


according to wikipedia, Bond and his female accomplice re-program the Moonraker rocket to target a patch of ocean (instead of um London), and, when Drax makes his escape in a Soviet-supplied submarine, the sub makes the fatal error of navigating into the location of the missile's redirected landing.
 
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