The Black Arrow & Britain’s Rocket Program

What was the point of landing a man on the moon?

There was no singular "the" point. There were many. Everything from morale boosting, national pride, propaganda, tech demonstration and technology *development.* Apollo cost buckets of money, but unlike basically every other government program, the technological returns arguably paid for the program, and then some.

Some programs are worth it, if you stick with it. Space launch is one of them. If the US had stuck with a forward-moving space program, we'd be harvesting asteroids by now. All the rare-earths you could want. Money would be literally falling from the sky. Where would Britain be had she not given up on the future?
 
The morale boost of my 4th of July display probably isn't going to be very impressive if my neighbor is ten times wealthier than me and also inherited a fireworks factory.

No, it won't be terribly impressive. But how impressive will it be if you simply give up and have no fireworks display of your own?

Most of the things I've done have been done *far* better by other people. But I still take some pride in the piece of crap sci-fi stories I've written, the patents I earned, the sculpture and whatnot I've done. Imagine how impressed people would be with the tiny little nation of Englandistan if they actually powered through and launched their first Britnaut in, say, 1980, landed a Beefeater on the Moon in 1990, staked a claim on Mars in 2010? Sure, seen from the vantage point of 1970 or so such a set of goals would have seemed both difficult *and* likely to be far less impressive than what the US and USSR were likely to accomplish. But had the Brits actually gone through with it, they'd be the leaders in spaceflight today. And even if the US and USSR had gone full "2001," Britain would *still* be far ahead of where they wound up. And don't say they couldn't have done it: SpaceX seems able to pull it off with *far* less resources than the British Empire could have thrown at it.

So, yeah, your cheapass fireworks will pale compared to your Kardashian neighbors display. But it'll be *yours.* And honestly... will the fact they spent ten times as much give them ten times the pride in accomplishment?

The 'problem' is there isn't really a choice in this context since they literally can't 'power-through' to a valid conclusion. Worse it is pretty clear that "national pride" IS a very limited motivator and the price for NOT being first rapidly lowers what motivation may have been there from the start.

Black Arrow itself wasn't going to push Britain anywhere and that was obvious, and the satellite they could build was also going to be seriously behind everyone else so as I noted the 'choices' aren't really a 'choice' at all since neither is going anywhere. On the other hand it could be argued that some work going in 'other' directions would likely have had a larger effect but that was unlikely to be clear at the time.

SpaceX specifically since it's come up REQUIRED large investment by the government and contracts from the same to get to the Falcon 9/Heavy and as we're seeing needs government funds to build out Starship in any significant way. So essentially it still takes about the same level of input to make the same progress. Let me expand a bit, again using a post of yours as a springboard :)

Even taking the recent growth in the smallsat industry into account, for how many decades after 1970 would a smallsat launcher be essentially worthless?

Ummm... zero?

A launch vehicle is not an island unto itself. It can lead into other things. For example, the SpaceX Falcon 1 essentially failed. It was supposed to lead to the Falcon 5, and *that* failed. Then it led to the Falcon 9, which succeeded, and that led to the Falcon 9 Heavy, which has also succeeded, and is leading to the Starship/BFR, which hopefully will succeed. But Starship would have *never* existed had there not been a Falcon 1. What could the UK have produced had Black Arrow been simply the first step, rather than the last gasp?

In context Falcon 1 is (actually :) ) quite an analog to Black Arrow and while it did fail it was always a "learning experience" project. The Falcon 5 was the planned 'next' step in moving from the Black Arr... er that is Falcon 1 to a point near the 'bottom' area of the satellite launch market. Britain could have moved from the Black Arrow to a vastly improved version (SLAVE for example) but like the Falcon 5, (and was the reason it wasn't actually developed) it still is very low-quality compared to what the US and USSR were doing. In SpaceX's case it was made clear to SpaceX that market segment, (and specifically GOVERNMENT satellite contracts) of an Falcon 5 LV was going to be marginal at best and that either continuing to improve the Falcon 1, (already planned to be set aside) or developing a significantly larger (standard market comm satellite sized) LV which turned SpaceX towards the Falcon 9. (They straight up came out and said that at the time btw :) )

Britain didn't have the funding or government support to make that leap and not even Europe in concert was (at that point) going to be able to organize and deploy that, but they tried. So let's assume that Europa manages to be as success but we have to then take into account similar developments from the US and USSR at the same time and unfortunately that was a very bad time to try competing with the "Big Guys".

Falcon 9 survived because it gained US government contracts enough to allow it to finish development and then begin improving. Meanwhile Europa would have been swamped by 'cheap' US ex-ICBMs and the emerging US LV systems. Pile on top of that the "Space Race" is running down and while it looks like the US is going to win the USSR is claiming, (and having no evidence to the contrary world opinion is fairly agreeing) they were never IN any race so there's about zero incentive for anyone else to push for a manned space program at all. And then the Shuttle came along and the Soviets started offering LV services. Europe is on life support.

What is going to happen at this point, (assuming everything else being equal) in our "time-line" is that the Shuttle, as a prerequisite of it's foundational concept and "selling" point is that it's going to be vastly more economical to use than any other option. (Sounds familiar doesn't it :) ) Arguably that case can be made as long as several (rather dodgy mind you, again sounds familiar) assumptions are "true" which was essentially a high flight rate AND a "large" (actually total but that's not clear unless you REALLY dig into the study, defense and follow on wording) segment of the LV launch market.

In practical terms at this point the US (and they are also trying to "strongly suggest" that other western nations wanting to launch anything follow along) is going all in on the Shuttle and making it quite cleat that there will be NO other LV OTHER than the Shuttle. Que most US LV makers getting the memo and ramping down production and development. Meanwhile the USSR isn't expanding it's offerings as of yet so ...

Opening! This is where Arianne got its foot into the door so arguably there would be an opening for an advanced Europe launcher. But you still really have no incentive for a manned program unless there are some serious delays in the Shuttle and even then 'purpose' isn't going to be clear.

With the circumstance given and the support available what we'd see is an more broadly "European" LV for the general satellite launch market but I don't see that leading to a manned program. I could hope but there's no real pathway to that outcome unless more than just England suddenly got a wild hair.

Randy
 
What was the point of landing a man on the moon?

There was no singular "the" point. There were many. Everything from morale boosting, national pride, propaganda, tech demonstration and technology *development.* Apollo cost buckets of money, but unlike basically every other government program, the technological returns arguably paid for the program, and then some.

Some programs are worth it, if you stick with it. Space launch is one of them. If the US had stuck with a forward-moving space program, we'd be harvesting asteroids by now. All the rare-earths you could want. Money would be literally falling from the sky. Where would Britain be had she not given up on the future?

The problem here is that from the beginning it was never about anything BUT a one-off "national pride" program. And so once it became clear the US was inarguably 'ahead' of the USSR the incentive went away, as did the budget and public and government support. Most of those 'points' (and specifically the tech development and demonstration) were afterthoughts at best. The only one that 'paid' off was really the only one with any staying power too, but it was never a major "point" until support started drying up.

That's the problem with such 'programs' in that they rarely have much 'staying power' because they are rushed and tightly focused. The Manhattan Project created the atomic bomb but within a few years it was falling apart and barely limping along. So too Apollo and the Lunar goal was achieved but at the cost of any long term viability and support. We've been struggling to simply get 'back' the point we were at in 1965 mostly because the way it was done left no infrastructure or fall back point short of having to 'learn' to get to orbit all over again.

Randy
 
The problem here is that from the beginning it was never about anything BUT a one-off "national pride" program.

Not to the vast majority of the people who worked on it. The politicians didn't give a damn, but the managers and engineers and astronauts assumed it would go on, wanted it to go on, planned for it to go on.
 
Worse it is pretty clear that "national pride" IS a very limited motivator ...

Perhaps. But the last few decades have shown clearly that losing national pride is a virtually unlimited demotivator. "This country is built on [insert horrible thing from centuries ago HERE]" can be used to stifle progress and inspire national suicide. Giving people something to look upon with pride and hope, small as it might be, is infinitely better than stomping on their hopes and dreams and tearing down their monuments. Black Arrow could have been a stepping stone to the stars.
 
NASA's budget during the Apollo years was a full third of British GDP, in addition to the billions spent on ICBMs and the military spacecraft to support them.

Directly, Apollo alone cost more in total than the entire GDP of Britain in 1969 to put 12 men on the moon, and a few British civil servants yanked the stars away from us? This is melodrama to the point of absurdity.

Britain could have quite possibly built a rocket as easily as SpaceX. What it could not do was match the immeasurable economies of scale in trillions of dollars of military and civil space infrastructure that SpaceX benefits from even today.
 
Britain could have quite possibly built a rocket as easily as SpaceX. What it could not do was match the immeasurable economies of scale in trillions of dollars of military and civil space infrastructure that SpaceX benefits from even today.
Most of that infrastructure that was built for Apollo was lost long before SpaceX came on the scene. The most important parts of it were the people. Tribal knowledge is *gold.*

And it wasn't just British civil servants who yanked the future away. American ones did as well.
 
One alternative approach to straight cancellation would be the slow, minimal fund but with a long term commitment strategy. The Japanese 4S-5/Ohsumi (45kg ) made it into orbit a few months before Black Arrow /Prospero (145kg). JAXA slowly developed the more capable M-4S &3 (using Thor derived technology) family but initially these still had a similar payload in the 180kg class. As time went by this was steadily improved with development, improvement and strap on solids. The key was spreading the cost over many years as they launched at an average of less than one flight a year for the next thirty years. This is what we would today call the minimum viable product, and in the long term it kept them in the game. The result was the impressive H series launcher which is still relatively small but still secured significant commercial success...... But considering the Space X technology rampage who knows if it was all worth it.

With imagination, capability and commitment it’s surprising what can be done on only a little money.
 
One alternative approach to straight cancellation would be the slow, minimal fund but with a long term commitment strategy. The Japanese 4S-5/Ohsumi (45kg ) made it into orbit a few months before Black Arrow /Prospero (145kg). JAXA slowly developed the more capable M-4S &3 (using Thor derived technology) family but initially these still had a similar payload in the 180kg class. As time went by this was steadily improved with development, improvement and strap on solids. The key was spreading the cost over many years as they launched at an average of less than one flight a year for the next thirty years. This is what we would today call the minimum viable product, and in the long term it kept them in the game. The result was the impressive H series launcher which is still relatively small but still secured significant commercial success...... But considering the Space X technology rampage who knows if it was all worth it.

With imagination, capability and commitment it’s surprising what can be done on only a little money.
Still, due to that development, even if SpaceX leaves JAXA in the shade, launcher-wise - Japan will have the knowledge and infrastructure to support SpaceX-type craft.
 
The problem with Black Arrow is .....Black Arrow.
It comes down to the choice of rocket engines and had the large chamber Stentor been used instead.... Then things could have been different.

But practically it's the deeper failure of Blue Streak IRBM and it's use of LOx/ Kerosene.

Because had the IRBM used HTP/Kerosene then not only does it reduce the ready missile problem. It feeds into a Satellite Launcher program as well.

So 'as is' Black Arrow isn't the solution.
 
This. Exactly. There was, first, a larger combustion chamber that could have doubled Black Arrow thrust (I NEVER remember its name, sorry: Gamma 8 or Stentor... the Blue Steel LARGE chamber, not the SMALL one used in Black Arrow; whatever was the name of the resulting engine)

And then was David Andrews with what I called BLACK ARCHER in another thread - very much a keroxide IRBM instead of kerolox Blue Streak.

And of course, there is (behold !) The selene project


When there is a need, and a will... everything can happen !
 
Britain in the 1970s wasn't in a financial position where it could fund speculative projects. Black Arrow was cobbled together from various military projects, and abandoned when a cheaper alternative was found.
 
The problem here is that from the beginning it was never about anything BUT a one-off "national pride" program.

Not to the vast majority of the people who worked on it. The politicians didn't give a damn, but the managers and engineers and astronauts assumed it would go on, wanted it to go on, planned for it to go on.

NASA, (arguably NACA before) had a very long range, very methodical "plan" to proceed in Space Exploration for the very reason that "nobody gave a damn" in general for space exploration. Politicians and the public "gave a damn" for a very short period of time before, (as most of the "old timers" at NASA expected and tried to plan for) again "not giving a damn" but as the Lunar goal allowed no time for anything but an ultra-focused, single goal program all that went by the wayside and NASA spent the next 50 years (mostly) trying to "recreate" a national-level "panic" mode of national pride which itself only lasted a couple of years in the first place.

The "vast majority" of people who worked at NASA for Apollo had gotten used to unlimited budgets and support and falsely believed that was actually how things should and would always be. The 'minority' actually understood that such support was always going to be transitory and that a lower more sustainable level was actually the natural level of support and that NASA and the US space program should aim for a program that could be supported by that lower support level.

The "vast majority" view was of course the one NASA went with and they (and the US space program) suffered for it. The 'vast majority' assumed and planned wrong and then when confronted by the reality simply refused to accept that reality and tried to carry on anyway. We know the result.

Worse it is pretty clear that "national pride" IS a very limited motivator ...

Perhaps. But the last few decades have shown clearly that losing national pride is a virtually unlimited demotivator. "This country is built on [insert horrible thing from centuries ago HERE]" can be used to stifle progress and inspire national suicide. Giving people something to look upon with pride and hope, small as it might be, is infinitely better than stomping on their hopes and dreams and tearing down their monuments. Black Arrow could have been a stepping stone to the stars.

No "perhaps" about it, we know and can show that basing any long term goal solely on "National Pride" loses support sooner rather than later because high level "national pride" isn't sustainable as a singular motivator. We also know that failing to acknowledge the past is a major demotivator in and of itself because it is a wound that never heals. We can clearly show that pride will provide spikes in motivation but that it does not last and people will not always 'believe' at anything more than a general level. You need more to sustain things.

Black Arrow actually DID give the British a boost in pride but it was too little, to late and quite obviously not sustainable. But by the time it flew it was already past the point where it could be a stepping stone, as it was. (Key point)

Britain couldn't afford a program to fully exploit a viable Black Arrow, (aka the large chamber Stentor model) it COULD afford the Black Arrow they had and something like the Prospero satellites. (It technically couldn't afford both which is where the whole 'decision path' issue came from) My opinion is that there was a plausible 'third' path, (four I suppose if you count a more robust Europa program as a separate possibility) but in the end all this had to fit into budgetary and public (and therefore government) supportable levels and frankly that's questionable.

In the end that's likely the most obvious requirement, (and if anyone thinks SpaceX is any different you haven't been paying attention to who is actually funding development and production :) ) in that the public (and again therefore the government) support has to be there to push things forward in the first place rather than coming afterwards. Yes you can build upon it once it's there, (again we have a modern example of this with increased public 'support' in US space flight leading to increased government support and bolstered by ongoing, very public space 'events' to keep the interest) but something has to be there in the first place to build upon and that was a problem with the British Empire post-WWII.

Britain could have quite possibly built a rocket as easily as SpaceX. What it could not do was match the immeasurable economies of scale in trillions of dollars of military and civil space infrastructure that SpaceX benefits from even today.
Most of that infrastructure that was built for Apollo was lost long before SpaceX came on the scene. The most important parts of it were the people. Tribal knowledge is *gold.*

And it wasn't just British civil servants who yanked the future away. American ones did as well.

Informatively SpaceX specifically mostly did NOT avail themselves deeply in that "tribal knowledge" which is why Falcon 1 had so many problems. They assumed they 'knew better' (and that trend continues as we see going on) mostly because they, like you, assumed it was those 'unimaginative and hidebound' engineers and civil servants that were holding things back. While holding a grain of truth, (because by their general nature engineers, bureaucrats and civil servants are more 'conservative' than not) and more specifically with a government run and funded program political decision making and direction is what holds progress back. (The whole "Progress/Congress" meme in a nutshell :) )

SpaceX has vastly benefited from the amount of infrastructure and industry that is inherent in the US launch industry, they wouldn't exist without it and would not have even gotten the Falcon 1 off the ground without it existing.
Trying to compare what they have accomplished with all that in the background versus what Black Arrow, (and for that matter Apollo or the Soviet Space program) had to build from scratch along with an LV program is simply false. SpaceX has only had to devote a budget to build the development and production systems specifically for the launch vehicles they make. The vast majority of the support, operational and launch infrastructure was and is already in place with them having only to build a couple of very 'bare bones' (and low utility) launch sites and rebuild others to suit their needs. Britain (and America and the USSR) had to build the entire industry and the industry to build that industry, from scratch. then develop the support, tracking and launch systems and then the development and production industries as well.

And lets keep in mind that SpaceX ONLY developed one LV at at time whereas everyone else, (since they were in a hurry and didn't actually know what they needed or wanted) had multiple programs going at once.

At a minimum if you want to 'compare' SpaceX then at least acknowledge they would have needed at least twice the budget they actually spent, (actually more once you remove government funding) to accomplish anything with the Falcon 1. More so probably given an equal starting point as the "tribal knowledge" they DID use (iin development of the Merlin engine for example) would not have existed for them to do what little tapping they did :)

Randy
 
One alternative approach to straight cancellation would be the slow, minimal fund but with a long term commitment strategy. The Japanese 4S-5/Ohsumi (45kg ) made it into orbit a few months before Black Arrow /Prospero (145kg). JAXA slowly developed the more capable M-4S &3 (using Thor derived technology) family but initially these still had a similar payload in the 180kg class. As time went by this was steadily improved with development, improvement and strap on solids. The key was spreading the cost over many years as they launched at an average of less than one flight a year for the next thirty years. This is what we would today call the minimum viable product, and in the long term it kept them in the game. The result was the impressive H series launcher which is still relatively small but still secured significant commercial success...... But considering the Space X technology rampage who knows if it was all worth it.

With imagination, capability and commitment it’s surprising what can be done on only a little money.

Britain could have easily built American rocket engines under license like Japan.

A rocket is merely a tool to launch things into space.

In the past, these things were largely products of the real and perceived strategic imperatives of superpowers or relatively minor basic research.

Unlike Japan, Britain wasn't able to produce enough basic research satellites to justify even Black Arrow, and the strategic imperatives of a superpower were certainly out of its reach.

I don't share the pessimism of some that this was a lost opportunity to radically transform man's future.

Economic demands (particularly for more and more information bandwidth) have created competition and lowered the barriers to accessing space considerably. College classes are now able to build spacecraft. Multiple private companies are developing reusable spacecraft.

Penny was right to recommend concentrating on satellites. This would have created things to launch into space and a demand for launch vehicles.

Black Arrow is what happens when you put hopes and dreams first and actual reasons a distant second.
 
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This. Exactly. There was, first, a larger combustion chamber that could have doubled Black Arrow thrust (I NEVER remember its name, sorry: Gamma 8 or Stentor... the Blue Steel LARGE chamber, not the SMALL one used in Black Arrow; whatever was the name of the resulting engine)

And then was David Andrews with what I called BLACK ARCHER in another thread - very much a keroxide IRBM instead of kerolox Blue Streak.

And of course, there is (behold !) The selene project


When there is a need, and a will... everything can happen !

Yep the "Stentor" was the overall (both large and small) engine with the smaller chamber engines being clustered in the Gamma. SLAVE and a proposed Black Arrow alternate used the larger Stentor engines as would have the "Black Archer" (hey I like the name :) ) IRBM but...

It was the initial size of the Black Knight test vehicle (yep, see: http://www.spaceuk.org/hill.pdf) that dictated the "Gamma" engines IIRC so you really have to step back some to get a change. And as the pdf notes you're then faced with the conundrum that in fact the Black Knight (and therefore the Gamma engine system) was fantastically cheap and effective so the rational to actually change is less clear. Black Knight itself is really to small for anything other than a test vehicle, (even as a second or upper stage) so (obviously) you needed a bigger version, hence Black Arrow. But in context the Gamma series engines offered some pretty good performance and operations whereas jumping up to the larger Stentor held a lot of unknowns (bad idea in a test program where the LV is explicitly NOT what you are testing) and would arguably have rapidly reached a point of diminishing returns in a LV the size of Black Knight.
(As the cited paper argues however, there was a possibility if Britain had been sufficiently motivated to spend the money and effort a Black Knight derived satellite technology demonstrator could have been launched in the early 60s. Given the issues with British electronic technology however it's likely and arguably not worth the effort which is what we see happen)

Arguably once a decision was made to 'upgrade' to something the size of Black Arrow it might have been plausible to convert to the larger and more powerful Stentor engines but as we see it apparently wasn't a convincing argument. And to be fair the majority of the argument was from a rocket engine engineer perspective which has it's own bias and assumptions which conflicted at the time with fiscal reality among other things.

But... :)

If you go back a bit to the Blue Streak development decisions and the "competing" (really it was a pamphlet proposal so really not a lot to actually compete :) ) keroxide IRBM design, it might be plausible to 'coax' a change of mind given the right circumstances and that then lead to, if not a Black Arrow satellite LV a "alternate Blue Steak" satellite LV. Bear with me a moment here :)

Blue Steak as a kerolox based design has performance advantages right off the bat, add in that it was to be based on American work on the Atlas ICBM add value in research and development that Britain doesn't have to do so the reasons for going that route are understandable. Part of the 'issues' though, (and arguably a very small part of the overall financial, development, and operational issues overall) was the operational issues with a cryogenic LOX propellant missile in 'long-term' storage and launching situations. As a deterrent a kerolox missile isn't really 'reactive' enough so that you can prepare and launch it either 'on-warning' (a strategy with issues all its own) or on confirmation at the likely engagement time available to Britain. So it had to be a 'second' or retaliation strike weapon able to ride out an initial attack and survive to launch once that passed. Again there are issues with this due to Britain being Britain, but even with later work the preparation and launch time factor wasn't really conducive to the deterrent needs and a factor in the cancelation as a weapon system. (I know I'm not telling anyone here anything they don't already know just ticking off the boxes it you will :) )

Now on the keroxide side of thing not only is the performance slight worse than kerolox it's even MORE of a pain to story since peroxide slowly degrades in storage and from an operational perspective issues were already cropping up with storing peroxides for the SHORT term in the Blue Steel stand off weapons. (Though that was more a case of not knowing things you needed to know for materials compatibility more than anything else your peroxides STILL slowly decomposed just sitting there) The purer the peroxide the slower it decomposes but the more difficult it is to handle operationally but all factors being equal the UK was arguably the best peroxide technicians and handlers in the world at the time so one could make the case that a keroxide missile on 'standby' had a vastly higher response time than a kerolox missile did.

So bit (a bit?) long winded but what if you had a way to ensure your peroxide in fact never had a decomposition issue and could therefore be stored in a ready state or any operationally effective period? An IRBM with almost solid-motor operational performance but liquid propellant working performance able to be launched at a moments notice with almost no 'preparation' time? That changes some of the decision factors I'd think.

But you can't do that can you? Turns out you can and it took till the mid-70s for someone to stumble upon the technique in industrial peroxide storage but it could have happened sooner had anyone been looking hard enough. See peroxide actually does NOT decompose at all if kept at a temperature of around 40f/5c which while cool is only 'air conditioning' rather than cryogenic temperatures. Zilch, zero, nada decomposition and perfectly stable.
Suddenly you have a missile that you can put the propellant into and keep at launch ready for an unlimited amount of time with only a water cooling blanket running. You have a serious reason to develop the Stentor IRBM and then a compelling reason to base a satellite launcher on that engine system.. You have a credible shot at putting together a British (if they can't get the rest of Europe to buy in) satellite launcher that could plausibly launch the kind of satellites that Britain could reasonably build. And you arguably have something that can be built upon in the future.

Maybe? :)

Randy
 
Well if there is a Black Arrow and a Black Knight (Monty Python vibes: tis but a scratch ) then the obvious intermediate name is: Black Archer. I just stuck with the Middleage theme ROTFL.
 
Regarding costs, one of the sad elements of the Black Arrow cancellation was that shortly after between 70 and 80 Stentor rocket engines where scrapped with the withdrawal of the Blue Steel missile. This would have represented a massive cost saving to any follow on program. Between 1970 and 2010 the U.K. built and had somebody else launch about 16 light weight research satellites, (about two thirds of that of Japan in roughly the same period). All of these could have ridden a Stentor powered Black Arrow without needing to manufacture a single new first stage motor.

About six of these surplus Stentor engines escaped the “must be shredded” order in the disposal contract and showed up in a scrap yard maybe just ten years ago. At least two were sold on eBay. These were complete with their catalyse packs;- the very item that had to be removed or emptied from all other Stentors on public display due to security concerns.

On a happier note one of these scrap Stentors had its turbo pump used as a pattern for the Bloodhound land speed record car, where it pumps HTP into the hybrid motor.
 
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I think its fair to say Britain never really took rocketry seriously. Yes they put a lot of investment into HTP from submarine powerplants and aircraft/missile propulsion, but probably not an appreciably larger effort than was spent on ramjets and solid motors for missiles during the same period and certainly conventional liquid-fuelled rocket engines were much lower on the R&D priority list.

Blue Streak was an anomaly, propped up by US know-how, it would have been simpler to have asked the US for a few Atlas and cut out the middle man. There doesn't seem to have been a long-term plan beyond Blue Streak, and clearly there was wavering official support and the fact the whole LOX issue was bigged up to kill it speaks volumes about how essential it was really seen as. It should have been a 'bloody paralyser of a missile' to paraphrase Captain Murray Sueter, the crown in the national deterrent. Instead we tossed it aside and bumbled around hoping a few V-Bombers could scramble off in time with a few stand-off missiles that with poor reliability made any knock-out blow extremely unlikely.
In contrast, Polaris was done and dusted without dithering, approved, cash released, subs built, warheads made, on budget and on time and nobody ever made a fuss again (until later when Chevaline costs leaked out, and Trident successor selection and even then the noise was less than the Tomahawk basing furore at the same time).

Its hard to see how a technical base could be built on a one-shot wonder like Blue Streak. Yes it worked, with so much proven US-technology it couldn't realistically fail, but what then? What's next? The Black Arrow was a cheap job, impressive for its research purposes but not really going anywhere for bigger payloads and none of the multi-stage Blue Streaks with Black bits on top seemed impressive enough in payload to orbit to make any of them worthwhile. It was like trying to build a jet fighter cobbled out of Spitfire parts (Supermarine tried that and flopped).

Australia was not ideal for a launching pad. I suppose we could have done what the Italians did, use a floating pad off Kenya to launch a few Black Arrows (Ariel 5 was launched from the San Marco platform in 1974 atop an Italian-fired US-provided Scout B-1).

In 1960-61 you have the MoA effectively killing off the BAC GW team at Stevenage and telling them there isn't enough work for the HSA and BAC teams and unable to throw them any bones and tossing Blue Streak and Blue Water under a passing Stevenage Corporation bus. Numerous GW projects and plans had died (ironically the private ventures like Vigilant and Sea Cat thrived). So its hard to imagine how any critical mass could be built up without a lot of clean sheet thinking and investment.
 
Regarding costs, one of the sad elements of the Black Arrow cancellation was that shortly after between 70 and 80 Stentor rocket engines where scrapped with the withdrawal of the Blue Steel missile. This would have represented a massive cost saving to any follow on program. Between 1970 and 2010 the U.K. built and had somebody else launch about 16 light weight research satellites, (about two thirds of that of Japan in roughly the same period). All of these could have ridden a Stentor powered Black Arrow without needing to manufacture a single new engine.

About six of these surplus Stentor engines escaped the shred order in the disposal contract and showed up in the yard maybe just ten years ago. At least two were sold on eBay. These were complete with their catalyse pack which has been removed or emptied from other Stentors on public display.

On a happier note one of these scrap Stentors had its turbo pump used as a pattern for the Bloodhound land speed record car, where it pumps HTP into the hybrid motor.

Very interesting. Never heard about this but it makes a lot of sense - Polaris subs and Chevaline send the V-bombers and their missiles to the ash heap of history in the late 60's. Quick Google search delivered this
The last Blue Steel mission was flown on 21 December 1970
Black Arrow was canned less than a year later, October 1971. Damn, the dates converge to 1972.

Precious information then ! 75 Stentor engines is 150 small and large chambers, of equal interest for me. I will integrate this gem into my alt-history !

By some strange irony, at the same moment in the USA,a handful of Atlas E/F and all the Titan I (80 of them) were ran over by a bulldozer at an AFB in California (Norton AFB for the Atlas - and Mira Loma for the Titan 1)

Another precious "asset" related to Black Arrow was engineer David Andrew. In 1990 he penned a landmark summary of British HTP rocketry experience. The report caught the eye of Mitchel Burnside Clapp and later, of Andrew Beal. Also the hybrid-rocket world. End result ? Black Horse, DreamChaser, and BA-2.
 
Teflon so good it even keeps our arteries from clogging.
 



But you can't do that can you? Turns out you can and it took till the mid-70s for someone to stumble upon the technique in industrial peroxide storage but it could have happened sooner had anyone been looking hard enough. See peroxide actually does NOT decompose at all if kept at a temperature of around 40f/5c which while cool is only 'air conditioning' rather than cryogenic temperatures. Zilch, zero, nada decomposition and perfectly stable.
Suddenly you have a missile that you can put the propellant into and keep at launch ready for an unlimited amount of time with only a water cooling blanket running. You have a serious reason to develop the Stentor IRBM and then a compelling reason to base a satellite launcher on that engine system.. You have a credible shot at putting together a British (if they can't get the rest of Europe to buy in) satellite launcher that could plausibly launch the kind of satellites that Britain could reasonably build. And you arguably have something that can be built upon in the future.

Maybe? :)

Randy

Is there more information on how it was discovered that keeping peroxide at 40f/5c resulted in zero decomposition?
 
There is an article by Mark Hempsell and Alan Bond on Black Arrow in the August JBIS edition titled 'A Technical Reappraisal of Black Arrow'...interesting reading.
 
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The UK decided rightly that it could get the US or later on the Europeans to launch its satellites. So it focussed on the satellites with pretty good results.
Lots of Brits moved to the States and Europe and became part of those programmes.
As for Dan Dare well I guess he is to blame for a certain Richard Branson.
 



But you can't do that can you? Turns out you can and it took till the mid-70s for someone to stumble upon the technique in industrial peroxide storage but it could have happened sooner had anyone been looking hard enough. See peroxide actually does NOT decompose at all if kept at a temperature of around 40f/5c which while cool is only 'air conditioning' rather than cryogenic temperatures. Zilch, zero, nada decomposition and perfectly stable.
Suddenly you have a missile that you can put the propellant into and keep at launch ready for an unlimited amount of time with only a water cooling blanket running. You have a serious reason to develop the Stentor IRBM and then a compelling reason to base a satellite launcher on that engine system.. You have a credible shot at putting together a British (if they can't get the rest of Europe to buy in) satellite launcher that could plausibly launch the kind of satellites that Britain could reasonably build. And you arguably have something that can be built upon in the future.

Maybe? :)

Randy

Is there more information on how it was discovered that keeping peroxide at 40f/5c resulted in zero decomposition?

The paper, relevant section is XI. 17 years, zero degradation :)

One thing I'd have like to see the Black Arrow research (highly unlikely of course :) ) was recovery. As can be seen here the first stage actually landed 'somewhat' intact anyway :)
1628739586949.png
 
Black Arrow always reminded me of this...
 

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There is a special anniversary edition of the BIS Space Chronicle out in September on the Black Arrow program.

View attachment 662481


Wonder if what we have talked about on this board will turn up in the nuclear Arrow article?

Or it could be similar to what Mark Hempsell and Alan Bond talked about in the August JBIS.
 
So very, very clean.

Good for visual monitoring the engine compartment? If I had a lot of money, I might use the propellant choices to test a lot of different engines…maybe see something that flame and smoke conceals.

Maybe have a RENE collar…keep opaque exhaust away from the engines as much as possible.

Would the big Beal booster have looked similar? Ablative nozzles would have muddied the exhaust I suppose..
 

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