Britain's Secret Rocket Base

today's video is sponsored by Reedley of whom more in a bit when we think of the Space Race I think we tend to think of it as a US Soviet thing the Soviets got an early Head Start The Americans Got To the Moon and then everyone sort of got bored with it what's less well known is that in the early days Britain also considered itself a contender and that's why I'm here on the aisle of white we're going to take a look at some of the remains of Britain's space program at high down the second world war had changed Britain it went into the war as a major world power with an Empire to back it up it came out with a housing shortage rationing and an austerity economy only kept afloat by loans from the USA the sun was finally setting on the British Empire but Britain was still a nation of technological innovation there was a sense that if they no no longer had the brawn at least they still had the brain and so in 1955 Britain gained the beginnings of a space program behind the optimistic concept of slipping The Surly Bonds of Earth and touching the Stars Etc was a much more Sinister reasoning the end of the second world war led to the beginning of the Cold War the development of atomic weapons showcased with devastating effect at Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to a new arms race initially Atomic weapons were delivered in the form of bombs but it was soon clear that the future lay in missiles Britain being stuck between the US and the USSR was determined not to be left behind and that was the true purpose of the rocket program to develop ballistic missiles now Britain already had something of a history with rockets a century and a half in fact the basic concept of rocket artillery had been copied from the kingdom of myau who had used Rockets against the British East India company's army during the Anglo Muran Wars of the 1780s and 90s William congreve developed a British version at the Royal Arsenal in the first decade of the 19th century these Rockets which were inevitably nicknamed congres were not especially accurate at long range but were useful for anything where you had a large Target that you wanted to set on fire a in ship say during the second world war Germany had made huge leaps forward in rocketry with the development of the terrifying V1 and V2 missile these represented the future of warfare and other nations took note following the war they scrambled to develop their own rocket programs in some cases even using the same German scientists on that uh somewhat ominous note I'm going to take a break for a couple of minutes to talk about this video's sponsor Reedley now as you may have gathered from past videos I'm a big fan of Reedley if you're traveling whether into space or just down to the shops readle is a great investment it's a magazine reading app which gives you access to literally thousands of magazines and newspapers on all sorts of subjects and in many languages there's even back issues if you find a title you really like and you want more catch up on the news from Earth read up on your in interests or even learn something new for instance here I'm learning about the planets if you're looking to save money say if you've just spent Millions on a rocket launch a single very reasonable monthly fee will give you unlimited access to all these titles no more taking up valuable payload space with stacks of magazines everything's accessible with a couple of clicks on whatever device you like personally I have the app on my phone so I can whip out a magazine iine any time I find myself with time to kill say waiting for a baths or waiting for a countdown to complete and I know what you aspiring astronauts are thinking that's all very well but what if I don't have internet access in space well readle allows you to download magazines so you can read them offline each readly account can be shared with up to five people perfect for if you should happen to make first contact with friendly aliens while you're up there or if the aliens are unfriendly you can throw your phone at them and continue to browse using a friend's device but here's the mission critical bit for all you Space Cadets if you sign up using my exclusive Link in the description below you can get two months completely free that's absolutely fantastic in fact you might say it's something something insert space pun here readly because sometimes you just need a break from exploring strange new worlds Britain's main law launch site was actually in Australia at WRA but most of the development work would be carried out in Britain so really what was needed was a test range that was actually in the UK it would be terribly embarrassing to ship everything Halfway Around The World Only to discover that some crucial error had been made High down on the aisle of white was considered to be as close as Britain could get to the conditions at wera it also had the advantage of being far from population centers it's a short distance up the coast from the popular attractions of Alan Bay and the needles but the layout of the coastline meant that the secret base would not be visible from there it also housed a disused coastal battery which would give the military a head start on the construction work needed the site was established in 1956 and completed the following year it covered an area of 35 Acres much of the facility recycled buildings constructed for the coastal battery turning old stor rooms and magazines into laborat atories and workshops vast tanks for Rocket Fuel an electrical substation and even a water reservoir were built of course there were firefighters because on a rocket base it's basically guaranteed that something's going to catch fire when it shouldn't there were other support services such as a barracks and a canteen and as you might expect for a secret base there was a police post to prevent any hikers or people claiming to be hikers from wandering in neither Dan dare nor Professor Quatman are recorded as having ever been present but then it was a secret base the actual rocket test site was not for the launching of rockets apart from anything else it would be rather difficult to get them back from the middle of the sea rather the Rockets were held in place on gantries which would also provide support equipment fuel lines maintenance platforms firefighting hoses and hoists the weather here could be to put it lightly in Clement so the gantries were also important for making sure that the Rockets you know didn't get blown off the cliff or anything each Gantry was approximately 62 ft tall or 19 M and the base was 20 ft by 16 ft or 6 M by 4.9 M an awful lot of different organizations were involved in the rocket program the main government organizations were the Royal aircraft establishment and the atomic weapons research establishment then there were a number of commercial Enterprises Bristol sidley were in charge of the engines Saunders row dealt with overall design and construction and they also had a factory on the aisle of white at East cows dehaviland propellers limited provided expert Personnel for wera at high down the different components would be brought together for comprehensive testing an early success was the Black Knight rocket the first test at high down was carried out in April 1957 3 months after the bases completion the aim of this was to get up into orbit then launch different types of head back into the atmosphere to see which was best suited for re-entry as you might have guessed the ultimate aim was to launch Warheads but also decoys to make defense against missiles more difficult the Rockets were propelled by a mix of kerosene and hydrogen peroxide which was somewhat easier to control than for instance liquid oxygen this fuel mix generated huge clouds of steam which must have missed ified tourists at alen Bay the Black Knight proved to be a great success with zero failures somewhat less successful was the Blue Streak Britain's first attempt at an intermediate range ballistic missile the engines were tested at high down and development of the missile was completed in 1957 but it had its flaws most obviously it was very expensive it was also considered vulnerable to a surprise attack and development had been slow in 1960 the program was cancelled however the actual rocket part of it was to use a technical term pretty decent the engines developed for the Black Knight and Blue Streak would ultimately lead to The Black Arrow a rocket intended for civilian use in 1971 The Black Arrow would successfully place the satellite Prospero in orbit it was the British space program's greatest Victory but it would prove to be a hollow victory Prospero was released on the 28th of October but on the 29th of July The Black Arrow program had been cancelled rather than being celebrated as a Triumph of British engineering it was an embarrassment to the government of the day although I do rather think they only have themselves to blame for that overall the rocketry program should be considered a success for what the engineering team were working with the Black Knight and Black Arrow Rockets were not showy Vehicles they were small vessels built on a low budget they weren't massive propaganda pieces that would put men on the moon perhaps it was this lack of Glamour that contributed to their unpopularity with the chaps in Westminster but from an engineering standpoint they were efficient technologically sound and wellb built especially given the low budget their teams had for Development and Construction for all their hard work and Ingenuity half the team behind The Black Arrow were made redundant with the cancellation of the program the final unused rocket would be put in the science museum in London as a monument to the only nation to simultaneously succeed and fail at a satellite launch program from now on the plan was that Britain would use American Technology both for defense and commercial space travel Britain is still involved in space exploration but as a relatively minor player as for high down well without a rocket program the British government didn't really need it anymore most of the equipment was removed and a lot of the old buildings were demolished in 1971 the site was inherited by Saunders row who thanks to a lot of corporate mergers and reorganizations were now part of the British hovercraft Corporation who had even less use for a rocket testing site despite trying to hire it out to other companies who might like an isolated scientif pafic base they eventually gave up the site was closed in 1974 and sold to the National Trust in 1975 High down is no longer a secret in fact it's now a tourist attraction a memorial to Britain's attempt to be a contender in the Space Race well I hope you enjoyed today's video if so please do leave a like and consider subscribing for more I would like to thank my donors on Kofi and patreon for your generous support you are the hydrogen peroxide to my kerosene thanks also to Reedley for sponsoring today's video click on the link in the description below to take advantage of their offer and I will see you all again very soon cheerio for

Channel: Jago Hazzard

Views: 56,612

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Id: 8KKOXs0wtZw

Length: 12min 54sec (774 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2023