Blue Streak ballistic missile

I said somewhere in another thread - Black Arrow come at the wrong moment for the wrong mission. Had it existed ten years before, it could have snatched Blue Streak (land based) and Polaris (sea based) missions, altogether. HTP on submarines is probably too controversial, however. But as a land based IRBM or ICBM, can't be worse than Titan II storables, who had their shares of troubles (1965 and 1980 disasters, cough, cough).

While Black Arrow payload to orbit was rather small, ICBM and IRBM are going suborbital. In this peculiar context, the rocket equation being such a malevolent PITA actually becomes a bonus. Less delta-v = more payload. Orbital speed is Mach 27, ICBM only needs Mach 22 and IRBM, Mach 15. This would have a large impact on Black Arrow payload.
 
There was an even better design produced, from memory, in 1957.

The original Black Knight was powered by a rocket motor from the RPE, which in turn was later replaced by the small chamber of the Blue Steel missile. David Andrews of Armstrong Siddeley proposed an IRBM using the large chamber of the Blue Steel missile, which had about four times as much thrust. This proposal was completely ignored by the powers that be. This is unfortunate, since it would be quicker and cheaper to build than Blue Streak, and, of course, used storable propellants.
 
The Gamma 8 engine ? and the Stentor combustion chamber ? (from memory, I've vaguely remember a similar story in "A vertical empire").

David Andrews was a smart engineer. In 1990 he summarized his past experience with HTP in a landmark paper which had a lot of influence in many places (Maxwell Hunter, Mitchell Burnside Clapp, hybrid rockets...)
 
Ah yes, this very one. Excellent. And dang, that's a Black Arrow / Black Knight - derived, HTP IRBM ? Interesting.

Note that, from the French side of the fence, it wouldn't be too hard to modify SEP "V" Diamant engines - Vexin & Valois - to run on HTP-RP1 rather than storables. although solid-fuel will always prevail in the end, for submarines and also for land-based missiles.

Hell of TL, that could make...
 
PMN1 said:
Given the idea behind the silo was it was designed to survive a nearby detonation from a Mt warhead and then launch, what if the silo was a coffin type with the missile stored vertically and raised to the vertical for launching?
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The specification was to withstand 1 megaton at half a mile, which works out at a bit more than 100 psi overpressure. The Atlas E coffin launchers were hardened to 100 psi for a larger missile, so it's potentially feasible. Worth noting that this isn't a terribly high level of hardness, though - Titan 2 and Minuteman silos were hardened to 300psi, and later silos may have been even harder.
 
RLBH said:
PMN1 said:
Given the idea behind the silo was it was designed to survive a nearby detonation from a Mt warhead and then launch, what if the silo was a coffin type with the missile stored vertically and raised to the vertical for launching?
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The specification was to withstand 1 megaton at half a mile, which works out at a bit more than 100 psi overpressure. The Atlas E coffin launchers were hardened to 100 psi for a larger missile, so it's potentially feasible. Worth noting that this isn't a terribly high level of hardness, though - Titan 2 and Minuteman silos were hardened to 300psi, and later silos may have been even harder.
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There was the 1964 GOLDEN ARROW study that proposed to hollow a Sierra Nevada granite mountain and turn into the ultimate super-hyper-mega-hardened ICBM silo: 1500 psi overpressure ! :eek: :eek: :eek:

Meanwhile the Army had a bit similar scheme called ICE WORM. Except that, instead of excavating the Sierra, they wanted to dig ICBMs silos... inside Greenland polar cap.

Cold War madness from the 60's... O RLY ??!!!
 
Mercurius Cantabrigiensis said:
The first vehicle due to fly was on its way to Australia when the programme was cancelled in 1960, so presumably would have flown later that year. So the time between the start of real work and the planned launch date would have been about four and a half years.
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The first firing of a complete Blue Streak took place on April 14th 1961 at Spadeadam. The launcher at Lake Hart was still under construction in 1960. If a Blue Streak was sent out then, it must have been a slave for setting up the systems at Lake Hart. It could't have been cleared to fly.

I've lost the thread where the question arose, why was lox chosen rather than HTP but the answer is that HTP has a lower specific impulse than lox. Roughly speaking you can lift 17% more load per pound of propellants with lox. It is true that HTP can be stored at ambient temperature but it is not without problems. At 85% concentration it is borderline unstable and dissociates violently if any catalyst material eg cadmium or silver gets in. It ignites spontaneously if it gets on natural materials like cotton so that fuelling crews on Black Knight had to wear full protective suits. (It hurts like hell if it gets under your fingernails too.)
 
The only HTP motors we had in 1955 were very small, designed mainly for boosting aircraft. We licensed a lox design from North American Aviation. I would think the largest HTP motor in the UK at that time was probably around 5000lb thrust, whereas the North American Aviation motor was 135000lb - 27 times bigger!

The problem we had with Blue Streak was the weight of the warhead. The UK was struggling to get a megaton warhead at less than one ton weight. This meant a very large rocket.
 
I think it was on the Alt History board that someone wondered about if as well as catapult launching for the B.12/36 and P.13/36 specs, RATO was considered and this was not dropped when it was raised that catapults were a ludicrous idea and from this came a HTP motor and experience of handling the stuff.
 
CNH said:
The only HTP motors we had in 1955 were very small, designed mainly for boosting aircraft. We licensed a lox design from North American Aviation. I would think the largest HTP motor in the UK at that time was probably around 5000lb thrust, whereas the North American Aviation motor was 135000lb - 27 times bigger!

The problem we had with Blue Streak was the weight of the warhead. The UK was struggling to get a megaton warhead at less than one ton weight. This meant a very large rocket.
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What I learned only recently is that, between 1953 and 1955 the United States somewhat "offloaded" IRBM work to Great Britain, to concentrate on ICBMs. Which made some sense.
Then from 1955 that deal was scrapped and US IRBM programs were started or accelerated (Thor, Jupiter); and then, Project Emily - Thor in Great Britain. Yet Blue Streak carried on as a national, prestige project, including in 1960 when it was recycled into a civilian, european launcher.
 
I remember as a school child in Australia listening on the radio from the ABC the live telecast of the Blue Streak launch from Woomera. The announcer was quite tense and when the second stage failed to launch, he was quite quiet for a few moments and then the teacher turned the radio off. It was quite a day in the schoolroom. I knew I had witnessed the death of a rocket system.
 
Spark said:
sealordlawrence said:
Does anybody know whether there were plans for storable propellent to be used in Blue Streak? Surely there must have been some research in this direction?
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Ian Smith said that that Rolls Royce were working on such at the time of the cancellation. there was a newspaper article that said the same circa 1961/62
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I wish I could know more about this ! It makes so much sense... a Titan I to Titan II paradigm shift. Perfectly doable on technical grounds.
 
There is absolutely no evidence in official or company records of storable propellants being proposed for Blue Streak.

The only viable storable propellants would be HTP/kerosene (and that one's been argued to death) or some combination of hydrazine and nitrogen dioxide. To my knowledge, no work was ever done in the UK on hydrazine and nitrogen dioxide except in what was called "packaged propellants". These were intended for possible use in small missiles, and ended up being used for the Chevaline programme.
 
Arch #139: US:UK IC/IRBM. It wasn't really a logical, planned division of labour, but was due to US Inter-Service infighting.

(to be) Atlas ICBM, then at Study stage, was rated DX (Highest of the high) 14/5/54 and assigned to USAF/Air R&D Cmnd. 1/7/54, with “total authority” through IOC. They contracted Convair et al 14/1/55. Navy and Army wanted ballistic missiles, too, resulting in SecDef funding Army/Navy transportable Jupiter IRBM, 8/11/55; USAF only stopped arguing when he funded Thor, 23/12/55 - to include as much Atlas technology as possible. Navy was to mount Jupiter on surface vessels, Army to co-locate with Hvy Arty/Corporal. USAF would create a Strategic Missile Force in SAC and put Thor wherever SAC had B-47 Forward Operating Bases: all this: Project Encircle to, ah, encircle USSR. If SecDef had denied Army an IRBM, USAF would not have wanted one.

UK Minister of Supply Sandys had inherited some US GW data (Burns/Templer Agt. 27/2/50): Ike authorised more (Sandys/Wilson MoU 30/7/54), inc. from the Atlas Study: Sandys mooted to him that UK might wish to do a 1,500n.m device, then extracted £ in Churchill's final days as PM to put DH Props/RR on the case, 4/55. Ike was not overjoyed to duplicate Allied rocketscience - preferring NATO Member States just to reach out their paws to have and hold this kit, as they were very happy to do for all the rest - but he had worked with Monty and knew how (some) Brits obsessed about Independence.

Ike then wondered why GIs were doing all the spending for most of the dying, so evolved during 1957 a notion of a Common NATO (AW) Stockpile. He agreed 23/3/57 to place IRBMs in UK, manning procedures to be arranged. Shocked by 4/10/57 Sputnik he embarked on Overkill and ordered 4x15 Sqdns each, Thor+(now USAF-only) Jupiter (USN had Polaris onway, Army confined <600n.m). He settled all Thors on UK, 12/57; 30xJupiter were accepted by Italy 26/3/59, 15 Turkey 28/10/59. Efforts to place them in France and Greece failed.

(Hefty background: E-books: Official Histories, US JCOS: B.R.Fairchild/H.S.Poole, JCOS & Ntnl.Policy VII, USGPO, 1986; S.L.Rearden, Council of War, USGPO,2012).
 
This site has a couple of documents which show an exercise view of NATO and Warsaw Pact nuclear strikes

Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP) - 1965 War Game: Introduction

The Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP, the former Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact), provides new scholarly perspectives on contemporary international history by collecting, publishing, and interpreting formerly secret governmental documents. A...
www.php.isn.ethz.ch www.php.isn.ethz.ch
 

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Rickshaw said:
I remember as a school child in Australia listening on the radio from the ABC the live telecast of the Blue Streak launch from Woomera. The announcer was quite tense and when the second stage failed to launch, he was quite quiet for a few moments and then the teacher turned the radio off. It was quite a day in the schoolroom. I knew I had witnessed the death of a rocket system.
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Perhaps the announcer was confused. The sorry history of the ELDO upper stages did not include a second stage failure.

Blue Streak was cancelled as a weapon in April 1960. To salvage something from the £60-80 million already spent and minimise political embarrassment it was proposed to use the rocket as the first stage of a satellite launching system called Black Prince, which used Blue Streak as the first stage and Black Knight as the second. A dribble of funding was provided to keep the project alive but the two rockets did not form an ideal combination, which together with the cost of Black Prince, gave the British Government second thoughts and led them to propose a European collaborative project instead. This led to the formation of the European Launcher Development Organisation, ELDO, and the Europa Launch System which comprised Blue Streak as the first stage carrying ‘Coralie’, which was a French second stage; ‘Astris’, which was a German third stage; and, initially, Italian satellites. Activity increased greatly with ELDO funding to a peak in 1964 but there was progressive falling out between the partners over development policy and authority coupled with total lack of enthusiasm among British politicians and civil servants. In that year the new Labour government of Harold Wilson set up the Department of Economic Affairs to counterbalance the Treasury and the DEA was opposed to space engineering activity in any form. Just one DEA quote combines ignorance and prejudice beautifully. “There may possibly be a long-term interest in TV transmission by satellite but this is never likely to be economic”! A period of delay, underfunding, bad advice and desultory activity would follow before complete failure of political will in the UK led to withdrawal from ELDO. The Europa programme was abandoned on 27 April 1973. Blue Streak had already made its last flight in 1971.

Blue Streak flight history is worth summarising.

F1 was fired from WRE Woomera on 5 June 1964. The flight was faultless for 145 seconds of the 154 second planned burn time. At that point residual fuel sloshing in the tanks became so severe that the control system limits were exceeded and the vehicle tumbled out of control shutting off the engines through fuel starvation. The problem had been anticipated but left unresolved so that the flight would provide adequate data to make the necessary increase in autopilot sensitivity. This was done successfully and the fault did not recur.

F2 was fired on 20 October 1964 and was completely successful.
F3 was fired on 22 March 1965 and was completely successful.
F4 was fired successfully on 24 May1966 carrying dummy upper stages.
F5 was fired successfully on15 November 1966 carrying dummy upper stages.
F6 was fired successfully on 4 August1967 with a live second stage
F7/1 was fired successfully on 5 December 1967 with a live second stage.
F7/2 was fired successfully on 30 November 1968. All stages live. Third stage (German) exploded.
F8 was fired successfully on 31 July 1969. All stages live. Third stage exploded.
F9 was fired successfully on 11 June 1970 All stages live. Fairings (Italian) did not separate.
F10 was not fired for budgetary reasons. (The money ran out!)
F11 was fired from Kourou in French Guyana on 5November 1971 in an attempted satellite launch. Static discharges caused by friction with the air caused the third stage guidance system to fail after separation. The vehicle went out of control and broke up. Blue Streak performance was once again faultless.

Once the autopilot sensitivity that F1 had shown to be necessary was incorporated, every subsequent Blue Streak performance, that is to say in ten flights out of the eleven, was faultless.

Rickshaw did not witness the death of a rocket system. It had alreadybeen sentenced to a lingering death in Whitehall years before.
 
I suppose France gets the last word

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I wonder, wouldn't the space-based pre-launched warheads be more suitable for United Kingdom?... Just push them on low earth orbit when the crisis started, so they could rotate here, ready to strike (albeit due to orbital period the targeting would be... more complex). If the crisis safely resolved, re-enter the warheads in, say, Australia, land them with parachute systems & re-use.

Of course, it would demand orbital stage with retro engines for each warhead, and parachute added in case we need to safely de-orbit them. But if the goal is more deterrence than actual warfighting...
 
Something like an Agena ? and with such a stage on its "shoulders" the Blue Streak could lift 1 metric ton to Earth orbit...
 
Dilandu said:
I wonder, wouldn't the space-based pre-launched warheads be more suitable for United Kingdom?... Just push them on low earth orbit when the crisis started, so they could rotate here, ready to strike (albeit due to orbital period the targeting would be... more complex). If the crisis safely resolved, re-enter the warheads in, say, Australia, land them with parachute systems & re-use.

Of course, it would demand orbital stage with retro engines for each warhead, and parachute added in case we need to safely de-orbit them. But if the goal is more deterrence than actual warfighting...
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I think the British did study Bomb satellites and the like back in the '50s and '60s.
 
The book and film of 2001 a Space Odyssey show orbital weapons platforms belonging to Germany, the US and China at the beginning of the Earth space section
.
The deployment of such weapons was banned in one of the few successful 1960s Arms Control agreements.
 

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