A review of UK space activity and historiography, 1957-2007

In over 50 years the United Kingdom has designed, built, launched, operated or otherwise contributed to hundreds of spacecraft and space missions. Its scientists, engineers and officials have carved centres of astronautical excellence around the country, participated in a great number of international space programmes and missions and played a leading role in the establishment of the world's main pan-national space agency (ESA) and its two precursors, the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organization (ESRO). With its Skylark sounding rocket launch of November 1957 the UK was one of the first nations to gather new scientific data as part of the International Geophysical Year. Fifty years on, the UK is an enthusiastic supporter of the Global Exploration Strategy with major commitments to future missions to the moon and to the Mars that exploit the nation's expertise in small satellite and planetary robot technology. And while such mission involvement takes UK space technologies out into the solar system as never before the nation continues to excel in Earth orbit with its development and manufacture of large, increasingly powerful telecommunications satellites. The UK's space heritage and its ongoing and directed activities are rich and productive. And yet-the representation of UK space endeavour is all too often skewed-misleading and unduly pejorative: '…British space…more romance than reality.'1 Why does such partisan commentary occur and why has such an attitude prevailed for so long? This paper seeks some answers by reviewing UK space activity and its historiography in the wider and global context of astronautics between 1957 and 2007.