Blue Streak

November 15, 2025 - Partly to avoid political embarrassment from the cancellation, the UK government proposed that the rocket be used as the first stage of a civilian satellite launcher called Black Prince. As the cost was thought to be too great for the UK alone, international collaboration was sought. This led to the formation of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), with Blue Streak ...

Our charge is that they have persevered far too long, against every sort of advice and evidence, in sticking to a weapon which we now have to abandon, and which therefore is apt to become a total loss and a total waste of our defence effort, unless, for purely fortuitous reasons which have nothing to do with the original decision for Blue Streak, we can find a place for it in space research. The Government reply has not so far been very convincing. Mr. Sandys, the Minister of Aviation, complained that the Labour Government had not done much work on ballistic rockets in its time, but at least the V-bombers, which were set in hand in those days, are still effective as part of our independent British deterrent: and it is, and must be, the Party of the Government in power for the last nine years who must take the responsibility for this.

Eager not to let the technology go to waste, the British government explored ways to use Blue Streak to launch satellites. The European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) was a collaborative effort to create a European rocket called Europa to rival the US and Soviet Union.

(Reel 1) Blue Streak is launched, monitored by radar. The building of the rocket in England is shown: casings are constructed, and the rocket motors are put into place. A crane puts the half finished rocket onto a lorry, where it is driven through Manchester. Cut to the launch site at Woomera, Australia, where lift-off is seen again, then back to Britain, where other component parts of the rocket are driven through the streets (packed in a box marked HAWKER SIDDELEY DYNAMICS SPACE PROJECTS DIVISION - BLUE STREAK - STEVENAGE TO WOOMERA AUSTRALIA) then loaded onto a ship by a floating crane.

April 24, 2019 - She has a part-time job on the range and for her, and several hundred others involved in Blue Streak’s test, the weeks of preparation are almost over. Every working day, she joins other desert commuters on the trek to work, but for her, it’s more than a bus-ride away. Security is tight here. Blue Streak isn’t the only rocket on the stocks and many of the projects are still top secret.

Part 4: Attach the mylar streamer to your rocket using plastic packaging tape. Also see how to use carpenter's wood filler to seal the surface of the balsa wood fins. Part 5: The Blue Streak comes with a motor adapter that allows you to use smaller 13mm diameter motors in the kit as well as ...

Blue Streak could be used as the first stage of a projected all British three-stage satellite launcher known as Black Prince (another ‘rainbow’ codename –space rockets were Black in the scheme ). After some consideration this rocket was not built as it was decided instead to work in co-operation with other European countries. The European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO) was formed in the early 1960s as a partnership ...

In the 1950s, the British independent nuclear deterrent was provided by the V-bomber force, so called because its aircraft types were the Valiant, Vulcan, and Victor. But, in April 1957, the British government produced a White Paper on future defense policy [1] that essentially stated that ...

Nuclear Information Service is an independent, non-profit research organisation. We investigate the UK nuclear weapons programme and publish accurate and reliable information to stimulate informed debate on disarmament and related issues.

January 13, 2020 - Hopefully that film survived the war and I'll get to see it one of these days; but this public information film made twenty years later about Britain's short-lived contribution to the Space Race poignantly evokes a time long gone when nobody would then have worried about the carbon footprint left by the rocket launches we see based in Woomera and today even the Australian prime minister is being forced to consider the consequences of global warming as the bush blazes.

They might console themselves afterwards with thoughts of all the money they were saving; the Labor Party would crow, maybe, that they didn’t believe in the independent deterrent anyway; the advocates of interdependence in the hardware field would be permanently silenced, but they were primarily trying to sell British goods anyway; etc.

June 6, 2019 - Australia’s part will be to provide the launch site for the Europa rockets. Since the Blue Streak is the first stage, it makes sense to use the launchpad and other facilities already built at Woomera for ELDO’s launch operations. This makes us the only non-European member of ELDO.

September 23, 2025 - In that same month in early autumn, The Engineer filed a report on progress at Blue Streak’s site in Cumbria, which was more formally referred to as the Spadeadam Rocket Establishment.

An image of a British Blue Streak rocket, being transported on a large vehicle outside the assembly building. . . This photo belonged to Cyril Albert Knight, known to friends as Bill. Bill worked for W. Watson and Sons Ltd - based in Barnet in Hertfordshire, specialists in optical instruments. Wats

October 29, 2024 - The rocket was a 3 stage type that would have launches British, Australian and New Zealand space satellites if it had go ahead. The body consisted of Belgium, Britain, France, W. Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, with Australia as an associate ...

The propulsion part of Blue Streak , a British rocket built in the early 1970's, waits to be installed at the National Space Centre, Leicester.

January 4, 1992 - The US tried to sabotage Europe’s plans to develop its own satellite launcher, based on Britain’s Blue Streak rocket, according to the Cabinet minutes for 1961 which were released under the 30-year rule this week. Blue Streak had been cancelled as a military venture in 1960. The British government then tried to find European partners to help bear the cost of developing the rocket as the first stage in a satellite launcher, which was based at Woomera in Australia.

November 29, 2019 - One article I stumbled across makes reference to a small test site at Berry Hill (an area now occupied by the private company DNV GL) and a "Site H" just over a mile east-southeast of Greymare Hill. I could find no corroboration for either being part of the original Blue Streak rocket project.

American Thor and Atlas rockets were ready for testing by 1957. But progress in Britain was slower, with design for the Blue Streak still at an early stage. By 1959, Britain had not yet built a prototype. The cost of the programme compared to the original estimate had escalated by 600%. Blue Streaks were designed to be launched from underground silos, protecting them from attack.