Hawker Siddeley late 1960's STS?

[PMN1]

In Volume 59 Supplement 2, 2006 of BIS’s Space Chronicles – UK Spaceplanes, there is mention on Page 107 of a R. H Francis from Hawker Siddeley presenting a paper

‘believed to be in Virginia around the late 1960’s, where he showed a configuration identical to that of the US Space Shuttle, i.e., a winged, returnable Orbiter, two solid parachute recoverable SRBs and the expendable fuel tank.’

Does anyone have any other information on this – expected size, weights etc?

 

[starviking]

In Volume 59 Supplement 2, 2006 of BIS’s Space Chronicles – UK Spaceplanes, there is mention on Page 107 of a R. H Francis from Hawker Siddeley presenting a paper

‘believed to be in Virginia around the late 1960’s, where he showed a configuration identical to that of the US Space Shuttle, i.e., a winged, returnable Orbiter, two solid parachute recoverable SRBs and the expendable fuel tank.’

Does anyone have any other information on this – expected size, weights etc?

I have a feeling that perhaps the report might be wrong about the date. If you consider the early 70's then Hawker Siddeley engineers are working with McDD on the Phase B and later Phase C/D shuttles. You can see the McDD final Shuttle design in my post here:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1928.msg33417.html#msg33417

After Rockwell was selected the British Government refused to support British industrial participation in the Space Shuttle - so it's possible an R. H. Francis was working on the McDD Shuttle and giving presentations in the early 70's.

As an aside, I've found references to R. H. Francis here:
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1965/1965%20-%201311.html - referring to a Blue Steel paper.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1959/1959%20-%200914.html - identifies him as Chief Engineer of the AVRO Weapons Division

According to Hill's "A Vertical Empire" he previously worked at RAE. He also seems responsible for quite a few spacecraft patents, and seems pretty active in Space Shuttle studies in the late 60's and early 70's - according to Google Scholar.

Starviking