REMINISCENCES OF THE MULLARD SPACE SCIENCE LABORATORY TO 1991 DR E. B. DORLING i ii PROLOGUE “There is properly no history - only biography” - Emerson On the 4th of December 1954 the SS Queen Mary left Pier 90 in the New York docks for Southampton carrying a full complement of passengers, most of whom, I imagine, were looking forward to being home for Christmas. Amongst them my wife, Clare, and I were glad to be on the last leg of our way back from a less-than-satisfactory stay of fifteen months in Vancouver, British Columbia. What awaited us in the New Year was still unsure. I was already thirty. I had come out of the Army in Germany in 1947 to go to Bristol to read physics. After six years there, and without a clear idea of what to do next, I had felt that to travel was better than to arrive, and had taken a research fellowship at the university in Vancouver. I quickly realised my mistake. For my wife, a qualified teacher, Vancouver was not in welcoming mood—it had too many teachers. Try as she might she could find no work. As an experimentalist I had been expecting as a matter of course to join a group with some on-going research effort, but the “group” consisted of one member of staff— no research in progress, one large, empty, underground laboratory, one small annexe. I was free to do what I wished, but with few resources. I made the best of a bad job, found some apparatus for the development of infrared detectors that had been abandoned by an earlier visiting Englishman, and did what I could. Vancouver, in the mid-1950s, had no indigenous light-engineering industry, nothing in the electronics field. The economy was centred on timber, agriculture, and various ores mined up the coast or in the interior. Scientific equipment—if there was money with which to buy it—came from the UK or from the States. In either case it took months to arrive. I stayed for as long as seemed proper under the circumstances and then came home. University posts in this country were hard to come by, and badly paid. At Keele, the first new post-war university, I was offered an assistant lectureship at £650p.a. Had I taken it, my wife and I would have been required to live on the campus in staff quarters for which the rent was, I seem to remember, £500p.a. At Nottingham I asked for a lectureship, but that was not on offer either. Whilst my search went on I taught physics at a small evangelical public school, and in many ways enjoyed the experience. The headmaster was keen to have me stay on, but the head of physics was less encouraging. I was not there to teach physics, he explained, but to use physics or any other subject as a medium for supplying the boys with a Christian education. It would have meant a radical change of heart on my part. An advertisement caught my eye—the Civil Service Commission was inviting applications from physicists no older than 31 for entry into established posts. With my 31st birthday only months away I saw one of the largest employers of physicists soon to close its doors on me. I applied, and in July was appointed as a senior scientific officer. Once appointed, it was a matter of finding a home, one with a suitable vacancy. To me the obvious place was the Radar Research Establishment at Malvern with research interests closest to mine, particularly in the infrared field, but I was politely turned away; I had no electronics experience. Next it was Farnborough, the Royal Aircraft Establishment, and in particular the Guided Weapons Department. I met the head of the Guidance Division, but again the problem was my lack of electronics experience. I was about to take my leave when M.O. Robins, the head of Control Division, looked in for a quick word and was introduced to me. Did he have any suitable vacancy, he was asked. He couldn‟t think of one and left. I believe I was on my way to the door, resigned to having drawn a blank yet again, when Robins reappeared. „The Gassiot rocket project that we are about to start on—we shall need someone to liaise with the universities. Would that interest you?‟ I had read a Royal Society announcement in the newspapers a day or so before describing the plans for a high-altitude rocket programme, so it was fresh in my mind. I seized the offer. On September 12th 1955 therefore I became a member of Robins‟ Control Division, one of a small team in it newly headed by J.F. Hazell, charged with the task of designing and building the so-called Gassiot rocket. I knew nothing of the field and had a great deal to learn, but it looked most interesting. As it turned out, I was to spend the whole of my working life in it, mostly in a way I could not possibly foresee. i ii CONTENTS 1. THE BEGINNINGS OF SPACE SCIENCE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM ........................................................... 1 THE BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 1 PLANNING THE RESEARCH PROGRAMME ...................................................................................................................................................... 2 SKYLARK ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3 US ROCKET DEVELOPMENTS ............................................................................................................................................................................. 5 2. THE START OF SPACE SCIENCE AT UCL ......................................................................................................... 9 RESEARCH USING SKYLARK .............................................................................................................................................................................. 9 COOPERATION WITH NASA .............................................................................................................................................................................. 12 3. ARIEL 1 .................................................................................................................................................................. 15 4. THE MOVE TO HOLMBURY ST MARY ........................................................................................................... 25 FINDING A HOME ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 25 HOLMBURY HOUSE ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 25 I JOIN UCL .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 26 CONVERSIONS & ADAPTIONS .......................................................................................................................................................................... 26 A FINANCIAL CRISIS ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 28 WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE ...................................................................................................................................................................... 30 THE FIRST NOEL ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 31 BUILDING WORKS BEGIN .................................................................................................................................................................................. 31 THE FIRST FIRE ALARM ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 32 WATER AGAIN ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 32 THE FINAL MOVES FROM GOWER STREET .................................................................................................................................................. 33 THE OPENING ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 34 WORKSHOP ORGANISATION ............................................................................................................................................................................ 35 COMPUTING ARRANGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................................................................ 35 WE GET A CLEAN ROOM .................................................................................................................................................................................... 38 THE DIFFICULTY OF FORECASTING THE FUTURE