The British Interplanetary Society and Cultures of Outer Space, 1930
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The British Interplanetary Society and Cultures of Outer Space, 1930 - 1970 Oliver Dunnett, BA(Hons), MA Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2011 Abstract This thesis explores the institutional and cultural development of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) and its influence in wider cultures of ‘British outer space’ in the mid-twentieth century. The Society was founded in 1933 in Liverpool by P E Cleator, and having attracted a small group of enthusiastic members before the outbreak of the Second World War, successfully re-grouped after the conflict and grew to become one of the most influential of all the space flight societies by the 1960s. The thesis starts by examining the ways in which the discipline of geography has recently started to re-engage with outer space as a field of enquiry, and suggests that geopolitical and cultural approaches to studying outer space would be a productive academic pursuit. The empirical chapters start by looking at the institutional cultures of the BIS, and explore the relationship between the Society and the production of interplanetary knowledge. The Society’s global connections and internationalist stance are also brought into focus, with contrasting accounts identified before and after the war raising questions about the geopolitics of British outer space. The empirical chapters go on to study how the BIS became connected to the wider world of popular culture in Britain, examining imaginative and amateur representations and performances. This section includes analyses of certain science fiction texts, including the selected novels of Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C Clarke and C S Lewis, and also considers Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare space adventure comics and the long-running television series The Sky at Night, whilst maintaining an empirical connection to the BIS throughout. The thesis closes with a discussion of what it means to bring together materials from both institutional and popular cultures, in the context of the emerging research area of the geographies of outer space. 1 Acknowledgements This thesis has benefited from the guidance and assistance of staff and colleagues at the University of Nottingham School of Geography, in particular my supervisors David Matless and Mike Heffernan. Others who have contributed to the supportive environment in which the thesis was produced include fellow postgraduates and tea-drinkers Lauren Gough, Chris Parker, Ruth Craggs, Kate Lynch, Lucy Veale, Pantelis Arvanitis, Amber Martin and Stacey Coppock, as well as the helpful support staff both from the School of Geography and the Hallward Library at Nottingham. I am also appreciative towards those who have assisted my research from the British Interplanetary Society, in particular Mary Todd and Bob Parkinson MBE. Furthermore, those who have answered various unsolicited obscure questions have been extremely helpful along the way, including John Liffen and Doug Millard of the Science Museum, Jeff Walden and Paul Vanezis from the BBC, and not forgetting Sir Patrick Moore for his valuable time. 2 Contents Abstract......................................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................2 List of Illustrations.....................................................................................................................5 Chapter 1 - Introduction............................................................................................................8 The British Interplanetary Society and its key members...............................................9 Existing studies............................................................................................................15 Structure of the thesis.................................................................................................18 Chapter 2 - Ways of Understanding British Outer Space.......................................................20 How and why geographers have started to engage with outer space........................21 Exploration and internationalism in the twentieth century........................................36 Approaching cultures of science.................................................................................44 Understanding British outer space .............................................................................58 Chapter 3 - Researching a Cultural Geography of British Outer Space..................................60 Chapter 4 - Emergent Discourses of British Outer Space.......................................................79 Philip Cleator and the founding of the British Interplanetary Society........................80 The expansion of the BIS, 1934 - 1936........................................................................86 The BIS in London, 1936 - 1939.................................................................................100 Post-war BIS: Amalgamation, professionalisation and historicisation......................114 3 Chapter 5 - The Geopolitics of British Outer Space..............................................................125 Pre-war international networks of knowledge.........................................................125 An international British outer space.........................................................................131 European and Commonwealth approaches to British outer space..........................150 Chapter 6 - Popularising the Science of British Outer Space...............................................160 Popular science and the role of the amateur in the pre-war period.........................161 Astronomy and the mediation of British outer space in the post-war period..........181 Chapter 7 - Imaginative Representations of British Outer Space........................................204 Arthur C Clarke’s Space Trilogy and his influences in the BIS....................................204 Olaf Stapledon’s Interplanetary Man........................................................................221 The Clarke - Lewis encounter and Lewis’ Romantic protest......................................226 Identity, landscape and mobility in Eagle.................................................................237 Chapter 8 - Conclusions.........................................................................................................256 Chapter 9 - Bibliography........................................................................................................264 Attributed sources.....................................................................................................264 Unattributed sources................................................................................................287 Archival material.......................................................................................................291 Correspondence and interviews...............................................................................293 4 List of Illustrations Figure 1 - Dan Dare memorabilia at the Science Museum.......................................................62 Figure 2 - The BIS in Smoke magazine......................................................................................64 Figure 3 - The BIS Library..........................................................................................................66 Figure 4 - The BIS archive.........................................................................................................69 Figure 5 - ‘P E Cleator’ box file in the BIS archive.....................................................................71 Figure 6 - Press photograph of Philip Cleator in his laboratory................................................84 Figure 7 - JBIS 1(1) [Jan 1934]...................................................................................................87 Figure 8 - Advertisement for Rockets Through Space appearing in 1936................................93 Figure 9 - Table showing Liverpool-era BIS membership.........................................................95 Figure 10 - Press photograph of BIS members taken at the Hamilton Café, Liverpool...........97 Figure 11 - BIS locations timeline.............................................................................................98 Figure 12 - The inaugural BIS London meeting, 1936.............................................................102 Figure 13 - Two photographs (‘A’ and ‘B’) that make up the photomontage........................103 Figure 14 - Photograph of BIS members outside the house of R A Smith..............................108 Figure 15 - Cover of JBIS featuring the ‘Lunar Spaceship’......................................................110 Figure 16 - Table showing post-war BIS membership numbers from 1946 to 1970..............116 Figure 17 - Graph showing BIS membership numbers from 1946 to 1970............................116 Figure 18 - Hawker Siddeley advertisement in 1960..............................................................118 5 Figure 19 - Cover of Society for Space Research pamphlet of the 1951 IAC..........................147 Figure 20 - Last page of Society for Space Research pamphlet of the 1951 IAC....................147 Figure 21 - Practical Mechanics 1(1) [Oct 1933]....................................................................163 Figure 22