Post by lordroel on Mar 26, 2019 16:37:42 GMT
What if: Megaroc - How Britain Almost Won the Space Race
In the summer of 1945, with the war in Europe over, Allied forces rushed to unravel the secrets of Nazi V2 rockets. These terror weapons, built by slave labourers, did little to affect the outcome of the war – but they had the potential to change the world.
The leader of Hitler’s Vengeance weapon program, Wernher von Braun, surrendered to American forces in May 1945 and was quietly spirited away to the United States. In the same month the Russians captured Von Braun’s research and test facilities at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast. The French, meanwhile, gathered some 40 German rocket scientists and engineers and the British assembled rockets for a series of test flights.
Comparison of the different manned versions of the V-2.
Known as Operation Backfire, the British program involved firing V2 rockets from the Netherlands to the edge of space before they splashed down in the North Sea. The experiment proved successful, with the missiles reportedly descending within three miles of their targets – more accurately than the Germans managed during the war.
Engineers overseeing the tests realized that von Braun had solved fundamental problems in rocketry: he had designed a sizeable engine, an advanced pump to get fuel in fast enough and a sophisticated guidance system.
Observing from space
Engineers at the British Interplanetary Society in London decided this technology could help them realise their dream of building a spaceship, a dream that had been considered fanciful only five years earlier. In 1946, society member, designer and artist Ralph Smith put forward a detailed proposal to adapt the V2 missile into a “man-carrying rocket.”
Smith’s Megaroc design involved enlarging and strengthening the V2’s hull, increasing the amount of fuel and replacing the one-tonne warhead with a man-carrying capsule. The rocket would not have been powerful enough to carry a person into orbit. Instead, the spaceman (and only a man was considered) would have been launched on a parabolic trajectory some 300,000 metres above the Earth.
YouTube clip about the Megaroc
Launched at an angle of two degrees, once in space the rocket would drop away and the segmented nose-cone would peel back to expose the capsule. Smith provided two windows in his design and suggested the space pioneer, kitted out in a high-altitude flying suit, might use his few minutes in space to carry out observations of the Earth, atmosphere and Sun. With the West squaring up to the Soviet Union, Megaroc would also have been ideal for spying on enemy territory.
After five minutes or so of weightlessness the capsule would fall back to Earth, its heatshield protecting the spaceman from harm. Parachutes would be deployed and it would float slowly to the ground. There was even a separate parachute for the rocket, intended to make the whole spacecraft reusable.
Smith worked out everything – from the exact dimensions of the rocket to the thrust of the engines and g-forces the astronaut would experience.
A drawing of the Megaroc
“The design was totally practical all the technology existed and it could have been achieved within three to five years.” By 1951 Britain could have been routinely putting people into space on a ballistic trajectory.”
Nuclear, not rockets
Smith submitted his spacecraft design to the British government’s Ministry of Supply in December 1946 but a few months later it was rejected. Smith abandoned the project, moving on to design spaceplanes and giant orbiting space stations.
Despite its head start with Operation Backfire, Britain decided to abandon V2 tech and focus its limited research resources instead on aviation and nuclear technology.
“Britain had spent all its money on saving the free world,” “it was bankrupt.”
“The proposal caught the country in the worst of all possible times” . “In 1946 and ’47, the country was in no condition.”
On the other side of the Atlantic, the story was very different. The US military gave Von Braun whatever resources he needed to develop the V2 into a next generation rocket. The result was the Mercury-Redstone, which blasted America’s first astronaut, Alan Shepard, into space in 1961.
America’s first manned spacecraft was remarkably similar to Smith’s design. “Redstone was a stretched V2”. “There were no real new technologies on it but it got Alan Shepard into space.”
Alternate reality
In an alternate reality, where the Ministry of Supply had said yes, the world’s first astronaut could have been British.
“Britain had been 10 years ahead of the Americans”. “Megaroc was essentially the Mercury-Redstone.”
In the summer of 1945, with the war in Europe over, Allied forces rushed to unravel the secrets of Nazi V2 rockets. These terror weapons, built by slave labourers, did little to affect the outcome of the war – but they had the potential to change the world.
The leader of Hitler’s Vengeance weapon program, Wernher von Braun, surrendered to American forces in May 1945 and was quietly spirited away to the United States. In the same month the Russians captured Von Braun’s research and test facilities at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast. The French, meanwhile, gathered some 40 German rocket scientists and engineers and the British assembled rockets for a series of test flights.
Comparison of the different manned versions of the V-2.
Known as Operation Backfire, the British program involved firing V2 rockets from the Netherlands to the edge of space before they splashed down in the North Sea. The experiment proved successful, with the missiles reportedly descending within three miles of their targets – more accurately than the Germans managed during the war.
Engineers overseeing the tests realized that von Braun had solved fundamental problems in rocketry: he had designed a sizeable engine, an advanced pump to get fuel in fast enough and a sophisticated guidance system.
Observing from space
Engineers at the British Interplanetary Society in London decided this technology could help them realise their dream of building a spaceship, a dream that had been considered fanciful only five years earlier. In 1946, society member, designer and artist Ralph Smith put forward a detailed proposal to adapt the V2 missile into a “man-carrying rocket.”
Smith’s Megaroc design involved enlarging and strengthening the V2’s hull, increasing the amount of fuel and replacing the one-tonne warhead with a man-carrying capsule. The rocket would not have been powerful enough to carry a person into orbit. Instead, the spaceman (and only a man was considered) would have been launched on a parabolic trajectory some 300,000 metres above the Earth.
YouTube clip about the Megaroc
Launched at an angle of two degrees, once in space the rocket would drop away and the segmented nose-cone would peel back to expose the capsule. Smith provided two windows in his design and suggested the space pioneer, kitted out in a high-altitude flying suit, might use his few minutes in space to carry out observations of the Earth, atmosphere and Sun. With the West squaring up to the Soviet Union, Megaroc would also have been ideal for spying on enemy territory.
After five minutes or so of weightlessness the capsule would fall back to Earth, its heatshield protecting the spaceman from harm. Parachutes would be deployed and it would float slowly to the ground. There was even a separate parachute for the rocket, intended to make the whole spacecraft reusable.
Smith worked out everything – from the exact dimensions of the rocket to the thrust of the engines and g-forces the astronaut would experience.
A drawing of the Megaroc
“The design was totally practical all the technology existed and it could have been achieved within three to five years.” By 1951 Britain could have been routinely putting people into space on a ballistic trajectory.”
Nuclear, not rockets
Smith submitted his spacecraft design to the British government’s Ministry of Supply in December 1946 but a few months later it was rejected. Smith abandoned the project, moving on to design spaceplanes and giant orbiting space stations.
Despite its head start with Operation Backfire, Britain decided to abandon V2 tech and focus its limited research resources instead on aviation and nuclear technology.
“Britain had spent all its money on saving the free world,” “it was bankrupt.”
“The proposal caught the country in the worst of all possible times” . “In 1946 and ’47, the country was in no condition.”
On the other side of the Atlantic, the story was very different. The US military gave Von Braun whatever resources he needed to develop the V2 into a next generation rocket. The result was the Mercury-Redstone, which blasted America’s first astronaut, Alan Shepard, into space in 1961.
America’s first manned spacecraft was remarkably similar to Smith’s design. “Redstone was a stretched V2”. “There were no real new technologies on it but it got Alan Shepard into space.”
Alternate reality
In an alternate reality, where the Ministry of Supply had said yes, the world’s first astronaut could have been British.
“Britain had been 10 years ahead of the Americans”. “Megaroc was essentially the Mercury-Redstone.”