Britain in Space by 1951

The BBC had this:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150824-how-a-nazi-rocket-could-have-put-a-briton-in-space

Basically, Britain, using Wenhrer von Braun's designs, had a practical rocket made by the British Interplanetary Society's Ralph Smith. The design was made to be reusable, meaning a rocket could be used for multiple missions. The article also mentions it's great spying capacity.

The article states that Britain could of been in space 10 years before the Americans, with an almost identical rocket- but one that is reusable, which I would speculate would greatly reduce the cost.

The main problem is that the Ministry of Supply would not fund this as Britain didn't have much cash. So I would presume that Britain either needs to convince the PM's government that this is as important as the Nuclear Bomb (or at least alert them to this project's existence, as this was dealt with as an internal Ministry of Supply matter) or suddenly Britain has money to fund this sort of stuff.

Is it possible that the US shares it's secrets on the bomb, hence allowing Britain to spend money elsewhere? Or Britain for do a technology trade (jet tech) or to have this space project joint Anglo-American (with Wenhrer von Braun as chief scientist possibly)? If such a joint project occurred would the world be more advanced in terms of the space race?

What would be the most realistic scenario?
 
Shades of Quatermass

Interesting. With that as a basis, it explains the birth of a British space programme, how Quatermass could send up three men in 1953 (The Quatermass Experiment) and how the UK is regularly sending manned missions to Mars by 1975 (Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death).
 
Aside from the possibility of explaining sci-fi plots, are there any practical and sensible ways of implementation of a British space programme and what would it's side effects be?
 
Well having the UK reach the moon first could effect the psyche of the Americans and Soviets.

Possibly a race to construct a space-station or a space race to Ceres or Mars. The Cold War tensions between the Ameicans and Soviets need an outlet, which the Space Race provided.

It would have to be something to do with space, or something equally attention grabbing or the proxy wars between Capitalism and Communism could be much higher in frequency then OTL.
 
Aside from the possibility of explaining sci-fi plots, are there any practical and sensible ways of implementation of a British space programme and what would it's side effects be?
Not really. The UK was flat broke after the war, and it's worth remembering that food rationing didn't fully end until 1954. I'm rather skeptical that they'd have suddenly made a massive, expensive effort at a "popgun" suborbital manned flight to little practical use when there was the NHS to establish and bombed-out buildings to deal with.
 
Thank you for your reply. The analogy of a 'popgun' make me chuckle. Apart from the prestige of a space-flight, is there not military application of the rocketry, especially in the concept of intelligence gathering?

Britain was 10 years ahead the Americans and Russians. Surely, even if Britain cannot single handily afford such, there is opportunity to enhance the soon to be NATO position in the world. Would it therefore be possible for the Americans and the British to begin sharing tech more?

I believe it was promised to the British that the Yanks would give us the secrets of the H-bomb, but didn't. Is it possible for an Anglo-American Rocketry group to form or something of that nature? Or if Britain was to receive the tech as promised, and then spend part of the money used to research the bomb IRL on the now affordable space-flight, would this benefit Britain in any way shape or form?

I know of the existence of other space experiments such as Black Prince. How would it affect them?
 
Thank you for your reply. The analogy of a 'popgun' make me chuckle. Apart from the prestige of a space-flight, is there not military application of the rocketry, especially in the concept of intelligence gathering?
There are...if you can build your own. This plan was to use looted German V-2s. To build their own program, a native production would have been needed, a program like the American Redstone, which was designed in 1950-1952 and became active in 1954 (and which later carried the first American to space, Alan Shepard, on his own suborbital hop).

Britain was 10 years ahead the Americans and Russians. Surely, even if Britain cannot single handily afford such, there is opportunity to enhance the soon to be NATO position in the world. Would it therefore be possible for the Americans and the British to begin sharing tech more?
As noted, everything the brits had the Americans had too, plus five or six times as many resources being spent on putting it into production and improving it.
I know of the existence of other space experiments such as Black Prince. How would it affect them?
It'd butterfly them completely. Black Prince was a name for civillian carrier-rocket applications of the Blue Streak missile, an early-60s project similar to the mid-50s US Atlas missile. If somehow the Brits magically jump ahead in rockets while the Americans somehow don't bother even to the level they did IOTL, then Blue Streak would be something totally different (notably, the RZ.2 was derived from the American S-3D used on the Jupiter IRBM).
 

jahenders

Banned
The most realistic scenario is the one that happened -- a cash-strapped and recovering UK forgoes anything more than theoretical research on a space program.

Despite what those in the article speculate, I suspect if the UK had funded the effort, they'd have found a lot of problems when they really went to build and fly the thing and would find they all take a lot of time and money. If it did fly, they likely NOT be far ahead of the USSR or USA, even if they can sustain the funding needed.

That being said, if the UK was willing/able to put more into space development, they probably could have reached some agreement/partnership with the US, though realistically it might have been as a junior partner.

In general, the US and UK did share some technologies. However, had they shared more (both in space, nukes, and intell), they'd both have been somewhat farther ahead. But, THAT kind of sharing requires trust and an avoidance of the not-invented-here syndrome.

The BBC had this:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150824-how-a-nazi-rocket-could-have-put-a-briton-in-space

Basically, Britain, using Wenhrer von Braun's designs, had a practical rocket made by the British Interplanetary Society's Ralph Smith. The design was made to be reusable, meaning a rocket could be used for multiple missions. The article also mentions it's great spying capacity.

The article states that Britain could of been in space 10 years before the Americans, with an almost identical rocket- but one that is reusable, which I would speculate would greatly reduce the cost.

The main problem is that the Ministry of Supply would not fund this as Britain didn't have much cash. So I would presume that Britain either needs to convince the PM's government that this is as important as the Nuclear Bomb (or at least alert them to this project's existence, as this was dealt with as an internal Ministry of Supply matter) or suddenly Britain has money to fund this sort of stuff.

Is it possible that the US shares it's secrets on the bomb, hence allowing Britain to spend money elsewhere? Or Britain for do a technology trade (jet tech) or to have this space project joint Anglo-American (with Wenhrer von Braun as chief scientist possibly)? If such a joint project occurred would the world be more advanced in terms of the space race?

What would be the most realistic scenario?
 
Not really. The UK was flat broke after the war, and it's worth remembering that food rationing didn't fully end until 1954. I'm rather skeptical that they'd have suddenly made a massive, expensive effort at a "popgun" suborbital manned flight to little practical use when there was the NHS to establish and bombed-out buildings to deal with.

In short, you'd have to butterfly away the world wars as well, for starters.

But there's the catch: if you do that, Britain is wealthier, but also doesn't have the technology that was developed out of the wars.
 
Thanks for all the replies! I think I'll go away and research more about Britain post-war, as I think the problem with this scenario, and many other post-British scenarios, is how strapped for cash Britain appears to be immediately after the war.
 
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