In 1945 as the war in Europe came to a close the allies scrambled to acquire German technology and scientists. In particular the V2 Rocket was highly sought after with the various allied nations almost racing against each other to recover as many rockets and technical staff as possible before the other allied powers could get their hands on them.
The United States came away with the greatest prizes in the form of over 300 railcars loads of V2 Rockets, parts and technical documents and over 120 of the most senior German rocket scientists. Most notably the US was able to secure Wernher von Braun who would go on to design rockets that would put American astronauts into space and ultimately land man on the moon.
While not having been anywhere near as successful as the Americans Britain had still managed to recover a significant quantity of material including intact rockets and the parts to put together more.
To evaluate and make best use of what they had obtained Britain carried out Operation Backfire in October of 1945.
Backfire involved firing V2 rockets from a former German launch site in the Netherlands (with the help of captured German personnel) to the edge of space before they splashed down in the North Sea. The experiment was a success and the Engineers overseeing the tests realized that in the V2 the Germans had solved a number of fundamental problems that had plagued rocketry up to that point such as designing a sizeable engine, an advanced pump to get fuel in fast enough and a sophisticated guidance system.
Following the success of Operation Backfire which had demonstrated the capabilities of the V2 rocket a team of engineers at the British Interplanetary Society realised that their long held dream of spaceflight now potentially had a path to realisation.
After H.E. Ross observed that the V-2 was “nearly big enough to carry a man” a designer by the name of R.A. Smith put forward a proposal in 1946 for a manned suborbital spaceflight using a derivative of the V2 under the name Megaroc. The proposed rocket was essentially an enlarged, strengthened and technologically enhanced version of the V2 and actually had a lot in common with the later Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle that would put the first American in space some 15 years later.
While the origin and turbo pumps were largely the same as the V2 their orientation would be changed. The fuel tanks would be of greater radius and length to carry an increased fuel load party offset by a lighter payload. The stabilisation fins at the base of the V2 would be removed and the rocket was made to spin slightly to improve stability. Finally the explosive warhead was to be replaced with an unpressurised capsule.
The capsule as designed would have a weight of 586 kg, two large side-ports for access, observation and egress and a “strobo-periscope” for rearward viewing after the rotating cabin had separated from the hull.
The occupant of the capsule (Likely to have been the legendary Royal Navy test pilot Eric "Winkle" Brown) was to wear a standard high- altitude g-suit with its own air-conditioning unit and personal parachute. No other air-conditioning was proposed owing to the short duration of the flight. The occupant would sit in a counterbalanced cradle designed to tilt. The capsule would be attitude-stabilized by hydrogen peroxide jets and fitted with automatic, manual and emergency controls.
Megaroc’s capsule was suitable for either sea or land impact and was fitted with a crumple skirt to absorb some of the shock and avoid bounce with a quick-release mechanism for the parachute.
Not being powerful enough to achieve orbit Megaroc was to be a suborbital flight with the occupant experiencing an acceleration of no more than 3g and approximately 5 mins of weightlessness.
The proposal was submitted to the Ministry of Supply in 1946 with an observation that there would need to be a roughly 5 year period of development and testing with the aim to conduct the first manned flight by 1952.
The British government did not take the project forward and instead, chose to concentrate on Nuclear and conventional research which had a more immediate military use. The United Kingdom was effectively bankrupt after WW2 and there were only limited resources available but even when funds became easier the government mostly chose not to participate in space research except when derived relatively cheaply from military projects.
The project was noted to be 10 years ahead of its time by NASA engineers who reviewed it years later. The same NASA engineers predicted the rocket would have been capable of first achieving a crewed suborbital flight between 1949 and 1951, and capable of sending people to space reliably by 1951.
What if the British Government had been of the opinion that rocketry was something worth pursuing decided to take Megaroc forward?
If the money and political willpower was there would Megaroc have actually been technically and scientifically feasible?
If Britain were to bring about the dawn of the space age by launching both the first human into space on a suborbital flight in 1952 what would the global ramifications have been and what would this have meant for the future of spaceflight and the British Space Program?
What would be the legacy of this flight and its achievement today?
The United States came away with the greatest prizes in the form of over 300 railcars loads of V2 Rockets, parts and technical documents and over 120 of the most senior German rocket scientists. Most notably the US was able to secure Wernher von Braun who would go on to design rockets that would put American astronauts into space and ultimately land man on the moon.
While not having been anywhere near as successful as the Americans Britain had still managed to recover a significant quantity of material including intact rockets and the parts to put together more.
To evaluate and make best use of what they had obtained Britain carried out Operation Backfire in October of 1945.
Backfire involved firing V2 rockets from a former German launch site in the Netherlands (with the help of captured German personnel) to the edge of space before they splashed down in the North Sea. The experiment was a success and the Engineers overseeing the tests realized that in the V2 the Germans had solved a number of fundamental problems that had plagued rocketry up to that point such as designing a sizeable engine, an advanced pump to get fuel in fast enough and a sophisticated guidance system.
Following the success of Operation Backfire which had demonstrated the capabilities of the V2 rocket a team of engineers at the British Interplanetary Society realised that their long held dream of spaceflight now potentially had a path to realisation.
After H.E. Ross observed that the V-2 was “nearly big enough to carry a man” a designer by the name of R.A. Smith put forward a proposal in 1946 for a manned suborbital spaceflight using a derivative of the V2 under the name Megaroc. The proposed rocket was essentially an enlarged, strengthened and technologically enhanced version of the V2 and actually had a lot in common with the later Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle that would put the first American in space some 15 years later.
While the origin and turbo pumps were largely the same as the V2 their orientation would be changed. The fuel tanks would be of greater radius and length to carry an increased fuel load party offset by a lighter payload. The stabilisation fins at the base of the V2 would be removed and the rocket was made to spin slightly to improve stability. Finally the explosive warhead was to be replaced with an unpressurised capsule.
The capsule as designed would have a weight of 586 kg, two large side-ports for access, observation and egress and a “strobo-periscope” for rearward viewing after the rotating cabin had separated from the hull.
The occupant of the capsule (Likely to have been the legendary Royal Navy test pilot Eric "Winkle" Brown) was to wear a standard high- altitude g-suit with its own air-conditioning unit and personal parachute. No other air-conditioning was proposed owing to the short duration of the flight. The occupant would sit in a counterbalanced cradle designed to tilt. The capsule would be attitude-stabilized by hydrogen peroxide jets and fitted with automatic, manual and emergency controls.
Megaroc’s capsule was suitable for either sea or land impact and was fitted with a crumple skirt to absorb some of the shock and avoid bounce with a quick-release mechanism for the parachute.
Not being powerful enough to achieve orbit Megaroc was to be a suborbital flight with the occupant experiencing an acceleration of no more than 3g and approximately 5 mins of weightlessness.
The proposal was submitted to the Ministry of Supply in 1946 with an observation that there would need to be a roughly 5 year period of development and testing with the aim to conduct the first manned flight by 1952.
The British government did not take the project forward and instead, chose to concentrate on Nuclear and conventional research which had a more immediate military use. The United Kingdom was effectively bankrupt after WW2 and there were only limited resources available but even when funds became easier the government mostly chose not to participate in space research except when derived relatively cheaply from military projects.
The project was noted to be 10 years ahead of its time by NASA engineers who reviewed it years later. The same NASA engineers predicted the rocket would have been capable of first achieving a crewed suborbital flight between 1949 and 1951, and capable of sending people to space reliably by 1951.
What if the British Government had been of the opinion that rocketry was something worth pursuing decided to take Megaroc forward?
If the money and political willpower was there would Megaroc have actually been technically and scientifically feasible?
If Britain were to bring about the dawn of the space age by launching both the first human into space on a suborbital flight in 1952 what would the global ramifications have been and what would this have meant for the future of spaceflight and the British Space Program?
What would be the legacy of this flight and its achievement today?
) bomber and the Vulcan getting enhanced EW gear to supplement it's unsuspected (if only slightly 