British and commonwealth rocket development

[Juumanistra]

1) Mostly true, but the first Anglo-French proposal lived for long enough - almost a year- for it to be completely ASB, I'll expand on it later since it's late, but IMO it's possible, just not the most likely option. Black Prince derivative is indeed, as I said, even more unlikely, but I think you could get something done with the intermediary option, French 2nd and 3rd stage, Blue Streak-Emeraude, Blue-Streak "Super-Veronique", Blue-Streak-Vesta, these appear in discussion and literature in mid-1960

Oh, it's possible, but that applies to a great many things. But yes, Black Prince and a new(-ish) mash-up of stuff from the Anglo-French parts bin are different things. I should have been clearer about that. The latter still has massive political problems, but that's what butterflies are for.

2) Sorry If I got myself misunderstood , I propose a minimum ELDO rocket, one that probably would struggle to send more than half a ton to orbit, as a 1964 launch date, it's potentially possible, all the main parts (Blue Streak, Emeraude - both's failure can be butterflied away, their causes were quite specific -, Rubis) were flying by this date (For my Proposal I also think that wanking french liquid propulsion in 2nd half of the 50s- relatively possible as Veronique got some quite unlucky funding cuts - would allow the french to have a more convincing upper stage proposal by 1960); the general idea is that if you can prove to the british that an ELDO rocket works by 1964, then you can have the best conditions possible to get a binding ELDO B agreement, and that second agreement could also be more europeanised.

It takes two to misunderstand! But a minimum Anglo-French is probably flyable by 1964, though it's probably going to realistically be into 1965 before an all-up stack flies, as it took into 1965 for Blue Streak to be fully shaken down. As I have a hard time seeing an Anglo-French launcher being able to shake loose more money than ELDO did, so the OTL testing schedule is probably what you're stuck with at least for Blue Streak. But there's enough wiggle room there for butterflies to allow for a successful launch before the 1964 election, but it's going to need someone pushing for it.

>RZ.20.
The actual engine that was being studied for ELDO B was a Franco-British one, derived from HM-4 (most of the engine) and RZ.20 (Thrust chamber) preliminary work, It's quite similar to how the production HM7 was a mostly French design with a German (MBB) Thrust Chamber. This cooperation also could maybe be lasting, which would be nice for keeping R.R. and british industries involved in the more propulsive parts of launchers through the decades.
IDK why you think of balloon tanks in this case, ELDO B's upper stage was an Aluminium design.

I got to balloon tanks by virtue of thinking you intended for a flyable rocket in the mold of ELDO B by 1964 and a start date just after the time of Blue Streak's cancellation as a military project. Which means, with the parts available, someone will inevitably notice that the Americans are building a balloon-tanked hydrolox upper stage using the same methods that had been used to build Atlas. And that as Britain had already been able to cut a fair number of corners with Blue Streak by just reusing stuff from Atlas -- a lot of which, at least on the tankage side, was also being used in Centaur -- it would only make sense to do that with the upper stage to shorten development time. The need to shorten development time would've also motivated just using the RZ.20, wholesale, because it was further along and any Anglo-French collaboration would just slow things down. Without a need for crash development for that 1964 target date, though, you get something that's distinctly more like actual ELDO B rather than a rocket of ELDO B's approximate capabilities but very different guts.

Which is, in some ways, a bit of a shame. As a Centaur-a-logue is in many ways the perfect fit for the capabilities of Britain in a multinational rocket development program. It's already licensed Convair's tank construction tools and methods and demonstrated them in Blue Streak, while having a promising hydrolox engine in development in the RZ.20. And the scale of the commitment is more in line with what Britain's got a stomach to fund. It really requires truckloads of narrativium to contrive a scenario where that can happen. But speaking of that...

Honestly I don't even like the Anglo-French proposal that much, In hindsight the best part of ELDO was that it kickstarted German orbital launcher industry, and enabled it to support Ariane as France's junior partner. I just think that a very conservative Anglo-French ELDO is only way to get an Europa rocket flying ASAP, the Germans picked the most conservative design they studied for the upper stage - they initially thought about putting H2-O2 and H2-F2 upper stages! - , and look at what happened...

If Europa's destined to go down in flames, going down in an explosion caused by its H2/F2 upper stage cooking off is absolutely the way to do it.

You could do some really wacky things with ELDO if you can contrive a scenario where Redstone is allowed to melt-away following the end of principal engineering on Jupiter. Much of the Peneemunde team returning to West Germany would give the German contribution to ELDO ambitions and motivation exceeding even that of the French. And a deep, deep dissatisfaction with just doing the third stage. Which rejiggers the discussion on ELDO B, with a Franco-German first stage -- given that now you've got a German engineering team, at least, that has two decades with boosters -- and a British Centaur-a-logue making a surprising amount of sense. It probably won't get British support, as it writes off most of what's been sank into Blue Streak, but that just means things happen more or less as OTL and then you maybe get something truly exotic like the *Ariane that's overbuilt like the various von Braun-influenced rockets but is doing ballistic spalshdown recovery in the Seventies.

This, of course, is eliding past the massive butterflies this has for the American space program without Redstone/Marshall. But most of the really interesting early things with European space flight tend to involve doing that.

 

[Ogrebear]

People have said in his thread that to get a British space program off the ground (pun intended) then you need a POD way back in xxxxx point - so what are the points that could have lead to a British space program?

What needs to change to get Brits in Spppppaccceeee!

 

[Ry01tank]

People have said in his thread that to get a British space program off the ground (pun intended) then you need a POD way back in xxxxx point - so what are the points that could have lead to a British space program?

What needs to change to get Brits in Spppppaccceeee!

WW2 is better, either ending early or a war in 38 with Hitler overthrown. Basically the British Far East where the colonies don't fall to the Japanese

Britian lost most of its financial Revenue from the loss of tax's from the colonies, keeping them is neccesary, alot of the 50s the british just tried to keep their Pound worth high while paying massive debts

1. Colonies in Mid east, SE asia and India (not naming every country here) stick with the UK with partial independance, the UK has a better post war, keeps more of the royal navy and enters the Cold War as the third superpower (US and USSR don't pressure for independence)
2. WW2 is faster or ends early (38 start and Hitler coup), Britian would owe FAR LESS from lend lease, which crippled the country in debt, if the colonies are lost it would have a huge effect, but without the debt the UK could affort a rocket program
3. Europa was designed for GEO from the beginning, Blue Streak is uprated, britain stays in the program and takes Frances place otl in ESA
4. Britain has more internationalism in mind for ESA
5. Britain captures the Pennemunde team, if the colonies are kept then the UK can be a huge space power and potentially beat the Americans to space

 

[Simon]

Have fun discussing guys.

I'm going to rain on the parade and argue that the idea of a Commonwealth programme, at least in terms of joint development, isn't really likely. IIRC until modern times the UK outstripped the other members in terms of GDP so any contributions wouldn't be great, and not provide the sort of work-share payoff that governments could use to justify them.

The most viable path I can see is one where the UK decides to invest in and concentrate more on military missiles than our timeline. You can then use this to build a small civil space programme adjacent to it. Commonwealth countries can second their scientists and fund parts of missions e.g. sub-systems or instruments as their interests and budgets allow. There won't be any manned missions, strictly probes and satellites.

Skylark is underrated.

Skylark, or more accurately a rocket similar to it, was originally proposed a number of years before it was developed. Since most of what was used in Skylark was already existent there was nothing, other than perceived need, to stop it being developed earlier.

All of this left Britain with a totally fucked financial situation…

The UK was the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world by the 80s IIRC, if you consider that to be a 'totally fucked financial position' then most other countries in the world were in even more dire situations. I'd argue that it was the UK deciding it had other higher priorities rather than being incapable.

If ESA received funding as a fraction of the EU's GDP similar to the share NASA receives in the US, then ESA would be more like a $19 billion agency than the $8.5b agency it is in reality…

From another thread I calculated that if a UK space agency was funded at a similar percentage of government spending as NASA it would equate to a theoretical budget of $5.24 billion.

I think this rather misstates the nature of Anglo-American atomic cooperation. The U.S. and U.K. were to be equals in the sharing of atomic information: The Hyde Park Memo was the entire point of that.

It's important to note that the Hyde Park memo was merely a personal agreement between Roosevelt and Churchill, it had absolutely no official standing.

A good number of the people involved went on-record that, had they known about the Hyde Park Memo, the McMahon Act would not have been enacted as it was.

Of which I am sceptical, it's easy to claim that after the UK has caught up and an agreement been put in place. From the language and actions of the time there were plenty of politicians and military officers who felt that they had no duty to share.

… and that, eventually, the U.S. gave Britain the keys to the kingdom in 1958.

Only after the UK had developed their own thermonuclear weapons, and a final push by the Kennedy administration to use their Multilateral Force proposal curtail the possession of nuclear weapons by other Western powers. Once they realised that the UK wouldn't be giving up their deterrent they decided that cooperation was best.

 

[Ry01tank]

I'm going to rain on the parade and argue that the idea of a Commonwealth programme, at least in terms of joint development, isn't really likely. IIRC until modern times the UK outstripped the other members in terms of GDP so any contributions wouldn't be great, and not provide the sort of work-share payoff that governments could use to justify them.

Ya

The UK was the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world by the 80s IIRC, if you consider that to be a 'totally fucked financial position' then most other countries in the world were in even more dire situations. I'd argue that it was the UK deciding it had other higher priorities rather than being incapable.

Their economy was huge, but due to other issues like war debt, lower tax revenue (loss of colonies) and different governments economic policies and spending, left Britain in a "rocky" Government spending position (not the economy), Thatcher basically cut everything, the military was supposed to Axe Hermes and Invincible but the Falklands saved them (Invincible was sold to Australia)
Thatcher basically gutted the Steel and Coal industry due to most facilities operating at cost (not making money)

By "totally fucked financial position" I was mostly referring to the 50s and 60s, the Government could not afford to fund a space program wholesale, doing so would require cutting more important stuff, and I agree that the UK had much higher priorities then Space

Basically it would cost to much and the next election would probably result in the opposing party cancelling it on cost grounds

It's important to note that the Hyde Park memo was merely a personal agreement between Roosevelt and Churchill, it had absolutely no official standing.

Yes, it was always the intention to hold the "bomb" stuff to themselves and not share, there were proposals by the scientists to share the tech with the soviets but this was mostly "talk" and one guy (Foch) actually gave secrets

Of which I am sceptical, it's easy to claim that after the UK has caught up and an agreement been put in place. From the language and actions of the time there were plenty of politicians and military officers who felt that they had no duty to share.

If American scientists shared the technology, it is treason no matter what (unless its government-sanctioned), the people who gave the UK the bomb were the British scientists on the Manhatten Project (and Canadian scientists), who by being British citizens are not barred from transferring the secrets

Only after the UK had developed their own thermonuclear weapons, and a final push by the Kennedy administration to use their Multilateral Force proposal curtail the possession of nuclear weapons by other Western powers. Once they realised that the UK wouldn't be giving up their deterrent they decided that cooperation was best.

Ya

 

[Juumanistra]

It's important to note that the Hyde Park memo was merely a personal agreement between Roosevelt and Churchill, it had absolutely no official standing.

Don't most pacts between nations involving compartmentalized state secrets start as just that, agreements between the principals? And saying than an agreement between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has "no official standing" is burying the lede, isn't it? You're not wrong, in the sense that there is no mutual enforceability to it. But diplomacy, especially between major allies, is heavily reliant upon appearing to operate in good-faith and appearing to reliable in your political decision-making, Even a mere agreement -- especially one on something so strategically sensitive -- carries with it the assumption that, all other things being equal, it will be honored. (Which is why the Hyde Park Memo affair is such a farce, as the reactions of both sides are eminently justifiable.)

Of which I am sceptical, it's easy to claim that after the UK has caught up and an agreement been put in place. From the language and actions of the time there were plenty of politicians and military officers who felt that they had no duty to share.

Which is fair. There were certainly plenty of individuals who would have been unsatisfied with abolishing America's atomic monopoly before it even properly existed. But I think it's a very important distinction if that happens in the context of the involved parties knowing of the Hyde Park Memo versus OTL, where the operating assumption was that there was no preexisting agreement between the US and UK. As there are considerably more diplomatic ramifications for the former than the latter -- legislative repudiation of executive agreements in the foreign policy context are rare because it undermines the ability of the US to conduct foreign affairs effectively -- which will play their role in the crafting of and legislative decision-making regarding an alternative McMahon Act. So even if you get a legislative enactment regulating atomic weapons that's not as favorable to British interests as the amendments required by the US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement, I strongly suspect you're still going to get something considerably better than the OTL 1946 McMahon Act.

Only after the UK had developed their own thermonuclear weapons, and a final push by the Kennedy administration to use their Multilateral Force proposal curtail the possession of nuclear weapons by other Western powers. Once they realised that the UK wouldn't be giving up their deterrent they decided that cooperation was best.

Except the US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement, which restored full information-sharing on atomic weaponry, was ratified in 1958. A full two years before Kennedy was even elected, let alone sworn in. That Operation Grapple demonstrated that Britain had its own independent thermonuclear capability certainly was a factor in shaping the terms of the US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement. But it was one of several, which also included the general rethink of American strategic priorities after Sputnik and years of increasingly close Anglo-American nuclear cooperation between the 1954 amendments to the McMahon Act and Projects E and Emily.

I don't disagree with you that the strategic logic of the Eisenhower Administration was that it was easier to further American strategic interests by restoring the Special Relationship when it came to nuclear weaponry after Operation Grapple. But it wasn't just because of Operation Grapple, especially when an interest in cooperation in on nuclear weaponry and strategic policy was a hallmark of Eisenhower's second-term in comparison with the Kennedy Administration's approach to the subject.