Q:
FOR EXAMPLE:
THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1960,
Can Britain afford
•a place in space? A: Yes, but quickly!
JUST COMPARE...ITS COST WITH WHAT SHE SPENDS ON SUBSIDISING EGGS
BRITAIN'S SATELLITE LAUNCHER
by CHAPMAN PINCHER
SATELLITE
Second stage BLACK KNIGHT (rocket)
first stage BLUE STREAK (bonster)
THIS is a decisive time for Britain's future greatness as a pioneering nation. The Government must de- cide whether to invest à further £100 › million to salvage the Blue Streak missile and launch some all-British satellites, or scratch as a serious competitor in the space business for
ever.
It is a now-or-never decision, for if Britain withdraws, the immense facilities already built up for the Blue Streak weapon project in Britain and Australia will decay. The know-how will disappear and many of the rocket scientists will emigrate.
THE PRICE
I SAY that Britain's future greatness is at stake, not for any high-flown idea about being first on the moon or Mars, but because the commercial returns from investing in the space business are like- ly to be so great.
For an initial outlay of £20,000,000 a year for five years-about half the annual egg subsidy-there are near- satellites immediate applications for
for round-the-world communications. and navigation, as the drawings show,
High-flying satellites - as
niques.
Radio signal
LONDON
SYDNEY
Satellite No. 2
Satellite No 1
Satellite No. 3
FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Satellites serving as radio reflectors or relay stations could provide a world-wide radio and telephone service. Only three would be needed if orbiting 22,300 miles up; they would eircle earth every 24 hours, thus appearing stationary.. Because of high submarine-cable costs, satellites, which offer many more channels, are already almost economic.
proved by the existing U.S. the fringes of space is bound to satellite "Tiros" can send improve radio and radar tech back TV pictures of cloud-cover and massive weather systems enabling meteorologists to fore- cost on a grand scale.
THE UNKNOWN
SATELLITES could also give world-wide TV coverage on band-widths unsuitable for cable transmission. Scientifle informa tion yielded by satellites probing
1
Though £100
million is chicken-feed for defence, the it when scientists boggle at asked to advise whether
it
On top of all this and un- should be spent on space ex- doubtedly most important of all periments.
are the still unknown com-
They are fearful of being ae- mercial applications of satellites.
Though most Ministers and cused of recommending huge ex- their advising scientists appre- penditure on what looks like a ciate all this, and believe that sciomists' spree. Some think it Britain cannot really afford to would be more safely invested be out of the space business, the in down - 10 odds are stacked heavily against a decision to get into it. For three reasons:-
earth research, though there is no possibility that the Treasury will hand over the money for that purpose.
Is the hovercraft really the 'seabus' of the future? More and more people think so, and.......
DOVER PREPARES HER HOVERPORT
DOVER will build a port for hovercraft next year. Boulogne will build
Navigational satellite biceps position signals
FOR NAVIGATION: Because a satellite's location can be predicted in tables, it can be used to give exact positions. at sea. Big silver balloon-type satellites could be seen by eye and would also bleep recognition signals. Later types would broadcast exact latitude and longitude, so that only angle measurement would be needed by ship or airplane navigator.
London Express Service.
Signal warns target
Early warning satellite detects rocket launching
Enemy missile
DRAWING BY MICHAEL RAND, AS A WARNING SYSTEM: Satellites fitted with an infra- red device could detect an enemy rocket at launching, giving at least 12 minutes' warning to British defences compared with the four-minute warning of the radar. station to be bullt at Fylingdales Moor. This longer warning is vital since the British deterrent will be carried in bombers which must be away before the rocket arrives.
THIS IS a venture we must device to detect rocket exhausts The Americans certainly can- The Government is in red- carrying out a "joint programme" tape difficulty because no with the US, or, failing this, not be expected to shore findings finance for ourselves. The cost at launching could give. Bettans which are commercially pro- could be shared between the up to 12 minutes' warning of Office, the Aviation incoming H-bomb warheads --- Ministry seems willing to shoul- with Europe.
fitable. The US, business 'men Post der the burden of providing the
Government has will not allow it and the U.S. Ministry, the Admiralty, and the compared with the four minutes is to be given by the giant radar Yet the money. The Science Ministry is
a charitable Transport Ministry, which responsible but has negligible aleady learned the hard woy Exchequer is not
responsible for shipping. There station in Yorkshire. co-operate institution. funds. What does it matter what that the Americans
is every reason too why the De-
So let the scientists take when they have
fence Ministry should bear its courage and advise the Ministers Ministry's account book bears it fully only
share. The possibility of using to go ahead. And let the Maik- They withheld all information
satellites as rocket-alarms is when it comes, out of the tax- something big to learn from us. payer, anyway?
until we on atomic weapons
As for the Europeans let us enough to warrant a big effort tens Bght the Treasury to give proved we could make them
for sell them space in our satellites. in view of Britain's precarious The Saine will hold
contribution to a position. satellites. Let us show them that Their we can get results on our own joint, project will be negligible initiative and they will cut us in compared with their delayed in- on their know-how,
COMPROMISE ?-
The Government may selte for a compromise and scrap Blue Streak on the pretext of
A
WARRANTED
terference.
As the drawing shows, orbiting satellites Atted with an infra-red-
the taxpayer a worthwhile stake in the space business which will otherwise be monopolised by the U.S. and Russia.
--{London Express Service).
ONE THING WRECKED THE OLIVIERS' MARRIAGE:
New York.
T last this looks like the end of the most cele- brated marriage in show business. For the partnership of Sir Laurence and Lady Olivier was more, much more, than merely another husband- and-wife team acting to- gether on the stage and then going cosily home at night and eating
bacon and egg in front
of the fire.
They were the first knight
and the leading lady of acting
one in 1962, and Calais and Folkestone will follow suit soon after. By 1963 Flying Saucers carrying 10 cars or 50 passengers will ply regularly between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare and take holiday-on both sides of the Atlantic, makers from Liverpool to the Lake District.
This is not selence fiction. It is fact. For the hovercraft is here to stay as a unique form of transport, ranking with the ship and the airplane.
Mr Marples and many of his Government colleagues are con- vinced of this. So are Britain's ship, air and car giants - the people now gearing themselves to produce hundreds of Saucers of many kinds.
Putting in cash
Cockerell's
Mr Christopher Invention is going to be one of this country's biggest money- spinners of all time,
I have mentioned only the
certainties. For in the
minds
of many, hovercraft-as depict-
ed by the tiny SRN1-are still
Ramps for
embarking passengers and cars
Hoverplane
resting an shallow landing pool
in the realm of fancy. These open tracts and up forest-bound
people ask for proof.
Australia has already
.rivers.
told
Britain what types of Saucer They could cross the Channel.
But en effective service-will-not she needs. Norway is about to
begin until the day of the 100- place a big order.
France wants to go into the tonner. For technical reasons, size by in business, and British firms are Saucers Increase already putting much private multiples of five,
I believe the 100-tonner will cash into the venture. All the
un its air-cushion by experts have scrutinised the be up facts and given the green light. 1066. Design studies have al
varied ready started.
Would all
these interests be devoting such effort
unless they were sure?
1
Not so noisy
It takes between two and five years to design and build a new But a plan for a hovercraft airplane. So it is not easy to "monorail system from London prédict exactly the timing of Airport to the centre of London": hovercraft events after 1983. By is being seriously studied. So is then we shall have several the idea of "hover-lorries," weighing 25 tons.
As Mr Cockerell explained: "One of our hardest jobs isto
On-its-cushion get the gubles out at the idea
Ramps for disembarking
passengers and cars
artist's the
hord of impression
hovercraft will operate.
The World of Science
by Peter
Fairley
but the over
AT HOME they will go into that hovercraft will look or be field. And the markets of the Bervice as ferries across the anywhere near as noisy as SRNI, world are wide open. Severn and Morecambe Bay, That is just a flying leg-bed"
and probably across the Solent, Sketches of the next batch It would be tragic if such
ABROAD where the biggest cannot yet be released for com- brilliant opportunity were lost market for the 25-tonner exists mercial security reasons. For for lack of public vision.
-{London Express Bervice), w they will skim across huge Britain is a year ahead of the
retting styles, precedents, per- forming values which elevated them to the level of a myth.
of
of
What has caused this marriage to end after so long? It is not simply another woman. It is rather the strains the tensions success and being on top. Their last appear- ance together was three years "Titus ago in Shakespeare's Andronicus" and I went with
what was them then on become a royal and triumphal tour of Europe.
The cheers
10
Two, ambassadors came meet them, Heads of State went backstage, audiences in Belgrade and Warsaw cheered them for 40 minutes on end after each performance.
They came home to face, a vital turning point in their careers. The plan was to km "Macbeth" together and sud- denly the unthinkable happen-
Bnance H.
by
SUCCESS
DAVID LEWIN
She said to me: "What look
loneliness. without Larry,
TO WHOM a while to get used to was the
But
VIVIEN my friends have been marvellous
and have gathered around. I
LEIGH GAVE do not know what I shall do
now. There is not much for me
FIRST NEWS to come back to In London. My
home at Notley has gone and OF HER DIVORCE
not face the flat. I have just heard that Larry's play 'Rhino- ceros is to transfer to another theatre, so I doubt if he could Come over here in June to talk things over with me.
The emotions
"But at some time we shall
But this burst of activity left him little time for his wife. When he was in London she was on tour. When she was in the West End he was in America. She made a bit in "Look After have to meet and decide coolly Lulu" by Noel Coward but what to do next."
in Maybe, after all, Olivier was not around
Now she has Ecored the bubbling, emotions, the highs greatest success of her American and lows of acting, what is most career in "Duel of Angels" and important is not love and mat- it bas been done without
riage but a career spelled in Olivier's support.
capitals. On her first night on Broad-
By coincidence, in New York way amid the flowers and the there is Laurence Harvey, who champagne one thing was
the
ed. No one could be found to miesing————☎ word from Olivier is married to Margaret Leighlen. In mid-June-MrHarvey is When a letter did come it was finishing his current film and to propose a divorce..
returning to London to make another. That means that for about two months this year he will be with his wife.
"It was humiliating to go eapbt-hand asking for money," sald Olivier. "I decided to take stock of my career."
He was 50. What that stock- taking led to was a deliberate flurry of commercial, purely box-office work. He joined with Burt Lancaster and 'Kirk Doug las to star in the film "The Devil's Disciple
The offers
Separation in canters means
If married men who catch the separation in romance. Ironical- ly, it has also brought them in eight o'clock train up in the dividually greater success. Vivien morning and the six o'clock Leigh has offers for an across back at night to be with their America tour of her play. She wives find this an odd arrange- is twited to star on TV, and to ment; listen to Mr. Harvey ex- return to films. One night I plain the philosophy of his walked out of the theatre with marriage:-
He appeared as a broker down vaudeville song-and danice men in "The Eritertainer" her and a crowd on the kerb-Margaret and I decided at and met Joan Plowright for the side applauded her can beauty the beginning, three years ago, as she stepped into a car. that we would put our profes- first time. L
He came to New York for Success of Broadway is sions frat. television, for vast sums of signalled by the table you get at his way, I law, we spend money. He went into a holy Sardia, the theatrical retrat bout-two-months together each wood Roman epic, "Spartacus," and the number of people who year, but during those two and just to show what he could come over "able-hopping just months we are, more like lovers still do in the classics he gave so they can be seen talking to tain a married couple, ja teh
42 don't get much, home, life, 1. a towering majcetic perform the reigning star. On these ance at Stratford-on-Avon in terms Vivien Leigh has the best but I am used to living out of sültcare and at the moment the Coriolanus part
of everything" Except.
I remember a theatre producer in London telling me: "If the O's (they are often known as the O's) could have held out until Larry was 70 all would have been well,"
But Vivien Leigh said 20 yeɛrs is too long to wall. The glamour my suitcase is the most exp is still there. The magic that sive and the best leather that makes them individually great can be bought. The thing to artists and excites audiences remember in acting is that when remains. But the end of the love and marriage is over what
is left is a career. The career is romance has ended the myth,
There will never, I believe, the thing"
be another couple like the Oll- For the Oliviers there is viers again. On either side of certainly a career but no longer the Atlantic. companionship.
-London Exprezz Service).
"Your writers better, get on the ball When you said last night that you were not seeking the Presidency, they simost made it sound like you were not,"
Doody
he wauls her that bad, be man have.