Black Arrow. And why Britain doesn't have a space program

Britain technically has a 'space program'. But it's one that can't launch anything, barely employs anyone and has a miniscule annual budget.
This has not always been the case.
This video is a technical deep dive into an unusual launch system that had a tragically short life: Black Arrow. 50 years later, we look back and imagine what could have been, had the UK government not cancelled the program. And we take a look at where UK spaceflight is today and how a revival of Black Arrow's legacy may be around the corner.
And yes, I know Black Arrow is 'officially' capitalized. But I don't want the title to appear like clickbait.
3D modelling by Artem Tatarchenko
Instagram: hedgehog.rave
(the lower quality renders without the watermark were done by me)
NASA video clips from NASA Image and Video Library
Black Arrow launch footage: IWM
Sources:
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/da6hsx...
00:00 Intro
00:50 system overview
12:37 the peroxide engine cycle
20:10 engine design
29:20 aerodynamic stability
34:47 launch history
36:44 politics
44:11 the next 50 years
56:21 present day
01:00:29 outro

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Corrections: I keep mispronouncing ‘Woomera’ throughout the video. Get a grip Alex. In the ‘engine cycle’ section I mixed up units for pressure. All the stated pressures are out by a factor of 10. Just imagine me saying ‘bar’ instead of ‘MPa’ every time I state a pressure to get the correct value. Thanks @ryanrising2237 for spotting my error. 10:57. I meant ‘apogee’ I also managed to put an extra ‘r’ in ‘perigee’ for some reason. (Thanks @Etropalker)

[@ferky123]

This should be pinned.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

@ferky123 There seems to be a weird bug or something where pinned comments unpin after a few hours without me doing anything. It usually goes away after a few ‘re-pins’ from me.

[@LungsMcGee]

I used to teach a subject that traditionally used bars. Then all of a sudden we had MPas. I used to love teaching in bars. Much better than in the classroom.

[@mb-3faze]

The cancellation of Black Arrow, the cancellation of the high speed train, the lack of development of Concord and the fact that almost all engineering graduates (including myself) ended up in military-based companies where the goal was blowing things up, were the main reasons why I packed up my engineering skills and legged it to Silicon Valley all those years ago :(

[@miscbits6399]

@@mb-3faze the USA was the primary beneficiary of British (and Canadian) high tech cancellations (except trains) as most engineers buggered off to where the jobs were American foreign policy has been at least as detrimental to its allies as its foes and accusations of treating them as vassals aren't far off the mark

[@user-otzlixr]

Being very familiar with British cars, I always figured Britain didn’t have a space program because they couldn’t figure out how to make rockets leak oil.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

As a former MG Midget owner, I can relate

[@mrrootytooty5797]

😂 didnt expect to be reminded of my rubber bumper 1500cc Midget on a video about the UK space program. (If you lifted up the driver's side floomat you could see the road going along underneath you, though i suspect this was partially a maintenance issue)

[@flags5765]

Britian is an enigma They go 1 step in a very good direction just to take 10 steps backwards

[@ianmangham4570]

😅Heard of the BRITISH EMPIRE 😅

[@q3st1on19]

There is a set of contradictory beliefs held in the British Psyche which can explain things like this. One: Britain is a grand country and world power by right. "We don't need to make a launch system or do anything, we're a grand power and everyone knows it already anyway" Two: because nothing is built in the UK, the UK can't build anything. "Why should we keep funding this clearly disastrous and unreliable rocket program, the American rockets will obviously be cheaper than anything British" These ideas lead to the country we know today. One where nothing is built, nothing is payed for everything is shit and if you don't like it then leave. It's the same ideas that lead to the cancellation of the APT (while it did have problems, they were resolved and the trainsets reintroduced to service only to be pulled for PR reasons and come back as the scaled down shittier intercity 225)

[@kaziu312]

The UK would move 10 steps backwards after 1971. Before that year, it took one step in a good direction and then 12 steps backwards. 😂

[@berretta9mm17]

@@ianmangham4570 Yes, oh yes - the subjugation of Native islanders and all other possibly exploitable, under-developed and under-armed peoples (like India, and all of the "heathen" countries that could in any way serve as slave labor to enrich The Crown), by British Monarchy-connected Corporations. It seems almost (no, actually real) Karma in action, that when it came time for the British Empire to do their OWN work, and produce their OWN homegrown innovations and space vehicles, the British people had lost the will and initiative to do anything but bemoan the loss of their slave empire and complain about the Imperialism of the U.S. - a pretty rich joke considering the history of the U.K. - including in America, as an economic pirate and a completely failed military power. Their only claim to "Victory" was the successful and "brilliant" defense of the Maldives near Argentina, fighting off an inferior Argentinian armed forces - and there were tears of joy, and cries of victory in Great Britain when they won. I believe the British people became so used (after hundreds of years of Empire) to being the "top dog," and having other people doing everything for them, to believe ANYONE could surpass them (let alone nations like INDIA!), too entitled to actually innovate, and very complacent about their place in the societal pecking order as the "Alpha Dog"). As for their belief that Privatized Space companies were the only ones worth having - I agree. The only catch is that it requires a country to be open to immigration, and geniuses with a vision beyond an orbital and interplanetary payload of a few pounds. Lack of imagination and vision by the populace and government, excessive regulation limiting testing and launching, a belief that they were simply too superior to NEED to compete to become a space-faring nation, lack of engineers with sufficient skills to build the launch engines (SpaceX's engines look incredibly SIMPLE and uncluttered compared to these engines - but are hundreds of times more powerful, because of Musk's insistence that "the best part is NO part"), and the complete lack of understanding on the part of the British people and their government of how CRITICALLY IMPORTANT becoming an independent rocket-producing nation, with the capability of both robotic and manned space missions would be to being an "Alpha Dog" national status n the 21st century, all contributed to Great Britain's sidelining as a Space Partner for other nations moving forward with great effort. A Space Program is "insignificant?" This Explains Great Britain's back-water status. No real criticism of Great Britain is meant by these comments - they are simply an accounting of its errors in judgment as it moved (and moves) into the future. Past victories and Empire are meaningless in an age that calls for fearless engineering and an assumption that there is NO automatic superiority in a field of competition as enormous as space itself.

[@womble321]

Money

[@Stormcrow180]

Both of my grandads worked on the engine development of Blue Steak and Black Knight. I really wish they were still here for me to show them this video.

[@miscbits6399]

One of my cow-orkers was at Woomera. According to him Whitehall ordered the in-transit rockets be scrapped, but the attitude at Woomera was "Bugger that, it's all paid for. Let's do it to prove we can"

[@spacechannelfiver]

My grandad worked on Blue Streak also, but not as an engineer. He mostly hit things with spanners.

[@spacechannelfiver]

Grandad is long since passed, but do remember going to the veterans club in Carlisle a bit as a kid back in the eighties / nineties and a lot of the squaddies from the Border Regiment that returned from WW2 ended up working at RAF Spadeadam on Blue Arrow, mostly security or panel beating type tasks.

[@sapper82]

Not part of the Dommett Clan are you?

[@Codysdab]

The university of Chichester has a Blue Streak engine in it's engineering department. It's quite impressive, although you can see how it was painstakingly built manually with all the various welds on it.

[@BPSspace]

One of my favorite channels on KZbin, great video! RIP Black Arrow :(

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Thanks! There will be more launch-system related videos coming up in the new year.

[@pseudotasuki]

Gonna go for an orbital launch after your first successful space shot?

[@nikisepps]

This is fun to watch. As a turbopump engineer for space engines, I have to admit, you did an excellent job explaining the simplified principles of how the whole mechanism works. Turbopumps are the beating heart of these engines (basically they drive the performance of the engine) and its very interesting to see the design challenges that arise when trying to meet performance targets for a particular engine. Sometimes we're trying to achieve life cycles and reusability that causes us to shift towards a design that is robust at the expense of performance (via weight penalties never sheer pumping head or mass flow as the inducers and impellers are rarely the point of concern for us). Other times its raw performance that is driving our design targets, so we go for an ultra light design spinning crazy fast that is on the edge of material technology. That's awesome to work on, but then the turbo pumps do basically tear themselves apart over the course of a flight. Either way, the old legacy soviet turbopumps are insane oxygen rich cycles that just are an insane world of difference to the western world designs that are fuel rich. Basically western design Philosophy was really concerned about oxygen fires so we ran fuel rich so we could in some abort modes, snuff out the engine easily and not detonate. In a way we denied ourselves exploring oxygen rich cycles because the thinking was that "you cant run ox rich, youll blow up". But the Soviets...those freaking soviets...they had limitations on what their factories and industries could produce. So they went all in on RP1 and Oxygen, as Hydrogen cooling and storage was just way too expensive for them for large first stage designs. And they made some truly insane designs. Designs that make me go: "That ought to just blow up." And yet lo and behold they figure out ways to make it work. Its a pity international affairs have soured the technical discussions and exchanges between East and West. There is a wealth of knowledge that we simply dont have access to because of politics and tragically war. Here's hoping for a more collaborative future. And an end to the vast majority of turbopumps going into weapons technology rather than civilian space exploration.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

It still amazes me that the Soviets were able to build oxidiser rich closed cycle engines in the 1960s. I may be wrong but I dont think the US has even got an oxidiser rich engine to space yet. That said, going down the fuel rich route gave the west the RS-25. It does make me a little sad that launch technology is still largely driven by international competition rather than collaboration.

[@Taygetea]

@@Alexander-the-ok the thing to watch for now is full flow staged combustion, it has both an oxidizer rich and fuel rich side, like the spacex raptor. has to solve both problems, and appears to do it quite well indeed.

[@nikisepps]

@Alexander-the-ok The Soviet Rocket science of the 1960s is impressive. I think you are right, the US has never domestically produced an oxidizier rich rocket engine. Though running RD180s for a while on the Atlas series of engines surely has to count for a bit of a risk tolerance to such engines. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a number of Eastern designs were brought here to the US for testing. And boy did they test well. Still reverse engineering soviet engines is an entirely different ball game.

[@Hype7media]

Politicians are idiot who for the most part only care about them selves not the job they were elected to do

[@annoloki]

From memory, part of the oxygen rich problem also comes down to corrosion of materials, and it was the materials science in the Soviet Union that was able to produce alloys capable of handling the ox-rich environment that turned out to be their secret to success, something that wasn't revealed until after the union was dissolved and archives were opened up.

[@solaris207]

Perhaps as a british aerospace student building a liquid rocket I'm in a small niche, but I genuinely believe this is the best piece of content on the platform

[@Alexander-the-ok]

What a compliment. I always get a bit nervous making videos on subjects like this where I'm only 'tangentially qualified' to talk about them.

[@LeonelEBD]

You might not be wrong. The 3d animation and the quantity/ quality of the narration puts it up there 😊

[@paulbriggs3072]

In the 1963 movie "The Mouse On The Moon", British news announced that they had a role in the recent space launch of an American moon rocket. One of the astronauts was wearing a British wristwatch. After describing the qualities of the watch, they state; "Let no one say Britain is falling behind!"

[@brunol-p_g8800]

The astronauts landing on the moon wore Swiss Omega Moonwatches.

[@paulbriggs3072]

@@brunol-p_g8800 Let no one say the Swiss are falling behind!

[@liquidpatriot4480]

​@@paulbriggs3072👍🏼🤣🤣🤣

[@arturoeugster7228]

​@@paulbriggs3072 Nai, sicher, aber warum nöd.🇨🇭

[@43Jodo]

I've never heard the BLACK ARROW story in full, just that Britain is the only country to give up indigenous launch. Great content on this channel so far, looking forward to watching this.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Thanks. Honestly I don’t think most British people have even heard of Black Arrow.

[@Rachel_M_]

The last time I saw an in depth on many British projects was the best part of 35 years ago, when BBC did actual quality science documentaries and Sky was Still analogue..

[@Rachel_M_]

​​@@Alexander-the-okyou'd have to be a certain age like me to remember anything on Blue Streak, Black Arrow, TSR2....... "QED A guide to Armageddon" was an..... 🤔..... Interesting one..

[@Rachel_M_]

​@@Alexander-the-okps. I prefer yours for being more concise and substantially less paternalistic. The diagrams and animations are better too 👍

[@Codysdab]

I always felt it was a combination of weak politicians who had no vision and their wilful belief in US fibs about access to space. Thankfully it looks like the uk is getting back into it, without the government being in charge.

[@LANless]

I find it funny that my own country's infamous cancelled project is also an Arrow - the Avro Arrow.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Ah yes, the first aircraft ever flown with (analog) fly-by-wire. Highly relevant to my previous video!

[@user-ro1ed8rt7s]

Both cancelled to please the US. I see a pattern here

[@arturoeugster7228]

Oui au Canada on a coupé le chasseur enorme, c'est toujours la même chose: on construit, ça marche , et on abandone.

[@imogenwren]

I was at Starchaser 3s launch, as roughly a 6 or 7 year old. It misfired and crashed into the hillside. It clearly inspired me still, though due to the lack of a UK space program I had nothing to focus thay insperation, so I ended up going into broadcast engineering. When I found out about the private spaceflight development goin on in Scotland, I jumped at the chance to work for Skyrora for a couple of years with the payload specialist from that Starchaster 3 launch. I was a key member of the electronics team who helped build the test infrastructure for their Orbital engine, which was a dream come true for that 7 year old space enthusiast, though In the end my job there was untenable because they didnt pay living wages. It made it very hard to advocate for a future in STEM industries within the UK to others.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Thanks for sharing this, its really interesting to actually hear from someone that took inspiration from starchaser! My story is broadly similar but more boring. It took me until my first year of university to realise how terribly paid most engineers in the UK are. So I put my morals aside and got a job in oil and gas after graduating. Eventually my conscience caught up with me and I went though a lot of stress to change career into data science.

[@jackmorris303]

@@Alexander-the-ok I'm in this boat right now as an underpaid electronics engineer. I'm seriously considering some sort of career change. Either going to university again to qualify in electrical enngineering to sepcifically learn about power generation which could thread the needle of being specialist enough for a company in europe to sponsor a visa application without being so specialist that my only option would be academia. Or go work in defence / MOD / Police. Or just giving up as an engineer with any sort of design role and just going into Quality or Management and follow the money from there. I honestly don't know what to do. Good video though, I remember when Starchaser came to our school to put on a small rocket building workshop. It was great.

[@Boxghost102]

In 1905, the Royal Navy wanted to build a battleship of a revolutionary new design, with a propulsion system that had never been tried before in such ships. They paid the workers extra to get them to work overtime to get it done. It was launched in a hundred days, and complete in under a year. HMS Dreadnought made every other warship in the world obsolete at once, and she changed naval warfare forever. Once, the British Empire was at the front of innovation. Post-WW2 UK has no drive to innovate or even get their hands dirty in engineering and innovation. My theory; with the Empire gone and the UK in twilight, the UK is desperate to look backwards at their finest years, while clinging to every cent of budget to slow the decline. They'll never spend on doing something new because that would risk whatever budget they have. They've lost their balls.

[@OhNotThat]

There is a deeply entrenched conservativism at all levels of British society that has everything firmly looking BACKWARDS at glory and empire and never daring to look forwards, as that is out of their comfort zone. They much rather cling to certain but fading glory, than make any effort to achieve anything ever again. A whimsical world of Harry Potter and Cockney accents, over risking anything ever. There is an almost pathological drive for british people to find an excuse to give up as early as possible on grand british projects and cling to mediocrity.

[@DaFinkingOrk]

​Even recently, see HS2, amongst so many other things over time. I do wonder how much is due to foreign (USA) interest, obviously HS2 isn't, but the aviation things often stack exactly with when they decided to use US products instead - usually to save money but ended up spending far more money than doing it at home. On that topic, capital interests probably had a huge influence too, especially foreign ones. This general thing is still a plague to today. As you explained, nobody has the nuts to change anything and just stick with this stubbornly too meek to change anything or do anything independently. ​@@OhNotThat

[@m.streicher8286]

Everything you produce is a pleasure to watch.

[@terben7339]

I worked at Salisbury and Woomera in the late 60s/early 70s on both the ELDO and Black Arrow projects. I worked as part of a small team of chemists that provided analytical support for the test range. I can remember many late nights and early mornings in the Technical and Launch Areas at Woomera and especially remember the spectacular destruction of Black Arrow R0.

[@rdallas81]

Wonderful

[@dr4d1s]

Using the HTP+catalyst bed to spin the prop pumps was a hold-over technology that came from ze Germans. They used more or less the exact same system to spin their prop pumps in the V2. Instead of the silver catalyst bed they used sodium permanganate, which accomplished the same sort of decomposition in the HTP.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Yep, that's why the Redstone and X-15 had HTP driven turbopumps too.

[@pork_cake]

Should also note that the V2 used LOX oxidizer for the main engine; the HTP was in a small tank in an independent system simply to run the turbopump.

[@dr4d1s]

@@pork_cake yes. thank you for making that clarification.

[@arturoeugster7228]

In german and english, I can count down, und I am learning chinese says Wernherr von Braun, once ze rockets go up who cares where ze come down, zat's not my department, sais Wernherr von Braun. I have not had a course is ballistics at the ETH, Zürich.

[@dr4d1s]

@@arturoeugster7228 Yes, I too have heard that song before.

[@dr4d1s]

This is the best technical video I have ever watched on Black Arrow. Awesome job Alexander and thank you for making it. I really enjoy your videos. It's always a nice treat having a fellow engineer explain indepth systems like these.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Thanks. Honestly, I think the reason there are so few technical presentations on Black Arrow is because they whole project was promptly abandoned and everything sent straight to the national archives. That's where most of my info came from - it's never been digitised.

[@dr4d1s]

​@@Alexander-the-okYou are most welcome. I have always wondered why there wasn't much info out on the program; that definitely explains why.

[@TarmanYoloSwag]

@@Alexander-the-ok Thanks for digging it out the achive and making the video. It's refreshing to see historical english engineering that's not just WW2.

[@tommybronze3451]

Unfortunately I speak from experience: Britain = a country that post industrial revolution never failed to fail it's engineers.

[@TheRealNeill]

Great technical content. Subscribed. As an Australian, I feel it's a pity Britain stopped launching from Woomera. Who knows where that could have led and what mutual benefits there would have been? We had an opportunity to build a spaceport in Far North Queensland (very close to the equator) in the late 80s but the process was bungled by a dodgy Premier, there were environmental concerns and it was considered too expensive. Had they made it work, I'm sure it would have been very successful. There aren't too many stable countries with high-tech infrastructure who can launch so close to the equator.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

I agree, a joint UK/Australian space program in the 21st century could have been really interesting. International collaboration is always a good thing but I tend to feel the west is more and more competition driven (I may be wrong about that since I’m so jaded by Brexit). As I understand, and confirmed by your comment, an Australian space program faced similar political headwinds to those of the UK.

[@patricia1333]

Wish we had developed the polar orbit launch pad in Manitoba Canada too.

[@ganymedeix9511]

You've really no business being this capable a filmmaker and writer alongside all you other self-evident talents.

[@mirandahw]

guess I don't have anything going on for the next hour... 😛

[@Alexander-the-ok]

A bit like the UK Space Agency

[@mirandahw]

@@Alexander-the-ok fucking hell you didn't have to kill them like that!

[@m.streicher8286]

I highly recommend the book Ignition by John Clark, a former propulsion engineer. If you enjoyed this video.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Ha! I ordered a copy yesterday....it'll be coming up in a future video.

[@m.streicher8286]

​@@Alexander-the-okI have to get my hands on a physical copy!

[@dr4d1s]

It's such a good book and more humorous than one would think considering the subject matter.

[@bunger8658]

I watch all of your videos as soon as I can. The work you put in speaks for itself, thank you.

[@MrGeoffHilton]

This is brilliant, kept me glued to the screen for over an hour, the amount of research you have done is pretty awesome, the least I can do is subscribe.

[@flippedbit841]

Absolutely fantastic work as always. Truly refreshing content!

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

One of the many reasons HOTOL hasn't actually flown is simply the fact that it's trying to be a single stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicle. Rockets stage to ditch the dry mass of empty tanks they don't need, and to ditch engines that are optimized for atmospheric flight when they get to vacuum, so if you can't stage, you can't do that. Generally the solution by SSTO designers is magically light tanks made from carbon fiber, and aerospike engines that are very efficient both at sea level and in a vacuum, but neither technology is really proven, and SSTOs are neither easy to make reusable, nor the only way to make a reusable rocket. They are practical on bodies where it's easier to get into orbit than Earth, as you aren't nearly as close to the limit of what's possible with conventional rockets, but most rockets aren't launching from the Moon.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Absolutely. You’d think we’d have tried a few ‘nice normal rockets’ before jumping straight into a paradigm-shifting air breathing ssto spaceplane. But honestly, i question whether there was any intention to ever actually build hotol. It was quite possibly just another political football.

[@soleenzo893]

Thank you for this. i regularly visit family in london and make it a point to try and visit the science museum everytime. seeing black arrow hanging there is so frustrating each time. As a French/British binational i feel so sad when comparing the directions both space programs have taken over the years. Your video was simultaneousely very depressing and very hopeful. that spec of light at saxaavord, seen from orbit at the end, was heartwarming, and i hope we see Skyrora or orbex one day launch from there. i'd love to come and watch in person!

[@rh9909]

This is such a well composed and emotional video. I am so grateful to stumble upon this.

[@bmobert]

Best black arrow video I've ever seen. I learned a few things here I hadn't known from my own research on the subject. Well done! And thank you.

[@zityte1154]

It's really cool that you're bringing so detailed overviews of these really quite forgotten and overlooked pieces of technology Keep up the good work!

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Thanks. The next few videos will be 'forgotten tech' actually. I might do something a bit more current after that. Problem is, every time I research a video, I come across something else 'forgotten' that fascinates me and end up doing an entire video on it!

[@logantodd5943]

The slow slide of the British aerospace industry is truly disheartening. Thanks for sharing the full story of the black arrow

[@mumblbeebee6546]

Nice user name but this was way more than ok! So very well presented, both in script and in visuals! Thank you!

[@MrHichammohsen1]

Amazing documentary, and the animation is pure eye candy!

[@Milarz]

Excellent historical/technical video.

[@atypicalprogrammer5777]

Your videos keep getting better, they might not get as many views as the Ocangate video, but I really enjoyed this.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Thanks very much. The oceangate video just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It wasn’t even a good video. But I’m extremely grateful it gave me an audience. 1000 views on a well researched and well produced video is much more valuable to me than a video that just happened to go viral

[@AirZoo]

Congrats on another fantastic video!

[@alrightydave]

Well done! Something I feel strong about with the second part of the video too as someone from the uk that wants to make a difference in aerospace soon

[@solaris207]

Another absolutely amazing video, thanks for shining a light on one of Britain's best attempts at actually becoming an important player scientifically in the modern age. I bet there are many aspiring aerospace engineers who don't know all the details about black arrow.

[@ryanrising2237]

I really enjoyed this video! I don’t think I’ve seen as thorough a discussion of the rocket’s design decisions and tradeoffs elsewhere, though I’ve heard much about its history. My compulsion for pedantry, however, that I point out your chamber pressures for rocket engines at 13:35 are off by a factor of 10 or so. The relatively low pressure of the Gamma engines would have been around 5 MPa, and modern engine designs have been pushing up to or past 30 MPa, rather than the 50 and 300 stated.

[@amperzand9162]

Possibly a unit conversion issue between atmospheres and MPa?

[@Alexander-the-ok]

OOPS! I mixed up bar and MPa (again). I’ll double check and pin a correction. Thanks for pointing that out!

[@NielMalan]

All hail the algorithm! I wasn't expecting such an in-depth discussion. I'm much impressed.

[@tomduneofficial]

Good to see another brit covering the UK space industry. I feel there should be more of us and interest in what's happening right now. Good job on the history side of things mate

[@dmacpher]

Dang. Well researched and presented. The animations were stellar! Commenting for the algo

[@jedswift]

A most interesting technical history! Just a couple of technical nits: One does not always run a rocket engine "as close to stoichiometric as possible". With peroxide, this is the case as peroxide produces so much water that was correctly noted adds reaction mass, absorbs the thermal energy such that even at stoich the temperatures are manageable, and the water has a low(ish) molecular weight increasing the speed of sound in the exhaust making the nozzle more effective. With a more potent oxidizer it is beneficial to run fuel rich both to lower the temperatures and increase performance as the molecular weight of the exhaust products drops faster than the temperature. Note the lack of flames in the exhaust of the Black Arrow compared with similar rockets that use LOX. More energy could improve the performance of a peroxide engine; thermochemically the cycle is very responsive to metallization of the fuel. Adding powered aluminum, aluminum hydride, or magnesium aluminum hydride to the fuel could markedly increase the performance. Pressure does not directly increase the exhaust velocity in a supersonic de Laval nozzles. Exhaust velocity is set by the area ratio, the exit area divided by the throat area and the molecular weight and temperature of the exhaust products. Increasing the pressure in the combustion chamber just increases the excess pressure at the nozzle exit, not the velocity assuming that the nozzle was properly flowing to begin with.

[@doorhanger9317]

This video has a wealth of the technical information I was hungry for! Details are so hard to find that it wasn't till I took a trip to the London Science Museum and looked up the turbine exhausts on the back of the Black Arrow stages myself that I was 100% of the open cycle. I've never seen a diagram that shows the turbo-machinery before! Thank you for doing a real deep dive and finding this stuff. Now for some nerdery: Interestingly, dividing out the tank volumes and max prop. weights given on the diagram at 32:01, you get a density for the HTP (~1298, 1281kg/m3) that's indicative of closer to ~70 H2O2 concentration than the stated 85% conc. figure i can find in some places online. However, doing the same for the Kerosense gives us a figure (677.89kg/m3) that is also lower than expected, so it's likely that even at their maximum allowed fill level, the tanks still have some space left for weight and/or plumbing constraints. Oh well, would be nice to truly know the propellant charateristics. Overall I actually believe that if we had gone all in on peroxide initially instead of importing american kerolox tech with blue streak, and we had built the infrastructure to deliver larger amounts of higher conc. HTP, and maybe even close the cycle, then 'keroprox' could have been competitive for storable first stage boosters and orbital maneuvering systems alike, fitting somewhere inbetween cryogenic kerolox and toxic udmh/n2o4. Had Blue Streak gone with storable HTP, it might have been a feasible missile, and while i'm no fan of nuclear warheads, that may have kept the project alive, and may have eventually realised the goals of Europa substantially before the ESA would finally get there. We just happen to be in the timeline where keroprox never got over the hump to widespread adoption, and now offers little benefit vs the other highly developed technologies

[@darthrex354]

I just wanted to say I love the old British RAINBOW codename system

[@rdouthwaite]

The Saxavord Space port here in Shetland is edging toward it's first sub orbital launch sometime this year.

[@Rusty_Pig]

What a really great video, highly recommended, keep up the good work

[@Gantradies]

i heard about the story a few years back, and i have NEVER facepalmed as hard as i did when i learned that the UK government gave up a just-finished launch system- except, possibly, as i did when NASA/the USG -literally- went "i lied, deal's off", and the program WASN'T restarted >.

[@brianletter3545]

Soooo interesting! I lived so much of what you describe. In 1968 I joined the team which 'won' the competition with BAE to build the UK5 X-ray satellite (It was so strongly hinted that we would get it, even if we proposed a Meccano build!). It was supposed to be a commercial job, the RAE did everything they could to rule on what was built, it was at least twice as big and heavy as it needed to be because they, RAE insisted we use RAE designed hardware. At the same time the technology satellite X-4 was up for bids. I think X-4 just faded away. My interest in your vid. is the detail of Black Arrow. X-4 must be designed for a Black Arrow launch or a Scout. The two were just about polar opposites, the stumpy Black Arrow had loads of volume available, Scout, really a highly developed 'sounding pencil' had none. I can't quite remember if payload mass was equally restricted. My real beef is the RAE Farnborough. RAE Farnborough was, at one time called the 'Royal Aircraft Factory. It built the Zeppelin lookalike R101 that crashed and burned on its maiden voyage killing 46 of the 54 on board, including Lord Thomson, Secretary of State for Air; Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation. It was horrible working on an RAE contract, the moment you pointed to a weakness in their hardware - they threatened to complain to your boss. PS UK-5 was a great success, meeting all requirements. The company engineers I joined were truly wonderful. Many of the managers could not, like the RAE people, escape from the post WWII 'cost plus' mentality. It didn't surprise me in the least when RAE brought Rolls-Royce to its knees with the RB-211. Read Stanley Stanley Hooker's book 'Not much of an engineer' if you don't know already!

[@matthewwylie4551]

Fantastic Video! I often wander into Liverpool and have visited the Black Knight hanging in the museum, I didn’t realise the links we had with europa! Another resonant point is being an engineer in the UK I can really relate to the experience growing up and studying! I was often considered strange for my career choice!

[@miscbits6399]

Mandarins in Whitehall (civil servants, largely apolitical) didn't believe there was a commercial case for spaceflight, so they didn't support it continuing As with TSR2, the USA was putting political pressure on Britain to cancel the program and NASA was offering free rides for British satellites as an incentive to discontinue the program Predictably, the free ride evaporated within months of the cancellation I spent 20 years working at Mullard Space lab - there's a Skylark standing in the foyer there

[@ToaArcan]

Fantastic documentary here. I've been casually into space stuff for most of my life, and I never knew we had achieved and then abandoned launch capability until I was already basically an adult. I stood under the Blue Streak at the National Space Centre and had no idea that it was actually ours, I thought it was another American donation, like the Thor-Able it's stood next to. Because _obviously_ if we had achieved the ability to launch stuff ourselves, we'd still be doing it, right? I didn't learn about Black Knight until I bought a book at the Kennedy Space Centre in 2013, that covered the whole history of space travel up to about the mid 2000s. Great book, very informative, one of my favourite reads, and it was only there that I got to see and read about our abandoned flying lipstick for the first time. The Americans talked about our attempts more than we do. I share the Beagle 2 pain. I stayed up longer than usual in the hopes of seeing it start to transmit, and nothing. And since then, the only acknowledgement it's had by anybody is an incredibly incorrect appearance in Michael Bay's Transformers movie.

[@felix_wiseman]

The ending was really cute, I liked that haha Amazing work, I'm in Canada and all I ever heard of Black Arrow was that it looked like a lipstick and the general impression it was so horrible that it got cancelled and that the UK never tried again because of how bad it was. Clearly this wasn't the case... I don't know why this is the vibe this project has here. I've recently taken thermodynamics at uni and it helped better understand a lot of the things brought up, to the point I want to bring it up to the prof that gave me the course. Anyway, good work!

[@Alexander-the-ok]

The countdown at the end was done by my wife actually. Its fascinating to hear of that ‘alternative narrative’. The only narrarive ive ever been given of black arrow is that no one ever cared about it.

[@potatoish629]

Great video! You've definitely earned my subscription.

[@danieltodd1288]

Lovely to see my picture from Wikipedia get referenced. Great video.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

No way! I almost didn't use it - I was in London a couple of days before I released this video but in the end, never had time to get to the Science Museum.

[@brendanacord]

Fantastic video, love the accessible technical descriptions and animations, thanks for sharing!

[@vaska00762]

I like the story of the TSR.2 for a few reasons. There was the politics of forcing all the British aerospace companies to merge into one entity. And there also the fact that at least the BAC engineers at least turned it into something good, Concorde. Though Concorde would have been stuck in its own development hell and never made if they never entered into collaboration with Aérospatiale, and eventually formed Airbus. I do like how every Airbus model can track its heritage of system design back to Concorde.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

The 1960s really were the peak of Anglo-French cooperation in engineering. You’re right about Concorde - i forgot the TSR2 was a testbed for the engine technology.

[@vaska00762]

@@Alexander-the-ok The TSR.2 also demonstrated that Supercruising was possible with an aircraft that big. Of course, the TSR.2 was not the first aircraft to use the Rolls Royce Olympus engines, that was actually the Avro Vulcan, a nuclear bomber that was rendered obsolete by the development of missile technology, but ultimately became legendary for its one use in the Falklands War. Between Concorde/Airbus and I suppose later projects like the Channel Tunnel, it's surprising to me how much collaboration is ultimately played down as a "British innovation", when these sorts of projects would have ultimately been cancelled if not for the diplomatic fallout that would have subsequently happened. Indeed, if not for a clause in the Concorde Treaty of 1962 which would have left the government which chose to pull out of the project with 100% of the development costs, party political opposition to such a "white elephant" project would have meant Concorde never existed. It's interesting that, the Airbus A320, the first airliner to implement Fly By Wire (as mentioned in the previous video), has a direct lineage of computerised flight controls from Concorde. It's increasingly ironic that many Americans considered the A320 to be "Die By Wire", given what eventually happened with the Boeing 737 MAX, and especially the origins of the technology.

[@alexandredevert4935]

I had no idea that the Black Arrow engine was so neat, it was such an elegant design

[@H4PPYx337]

Great video on the topic. You treated the political aspect very well by not getting too bogged down in it but covering the important details. As usual the engineering breakdown was unmatched.

[@BuckeyeStormsProductions]

I haven't finished yet, but I want to say this is a very well written and presented video.

[@stekra3159]

This is great

[@scarw9853]

KZbin`s algorithms just brought this video to me, so this is my first time on your channel. I`m interested in space and rocketry, in reality, I`m even an engineer (aero-hydrodynamics) as you. Man, that part about UK space program left me, mentally, in ruins...it is so sad, that UK has achieved much, may achieve much more, but politicians threw all away. It is even more sad, when you recall memories about Britain's might and impact, caused by Britain for technology and another areas. Hope, UK successfully re-jumps in space-train by government re-thinks they mistakes, or private sector catches up. Hope to see UK in space as other countries.

[@malcolmking752]

yet another fantastic video.

[@abigaillilac1370]

In the US, it seems like our politicians only want to fund the space program if it'll develop better weapons. It can, but there's so much more that can be done and we're just missing out.

[@hygri]

"... will not have to face the depressing headwind of ambivalence that has plagued the sector for decades". Spot on Alex. Nuff said.

[@glenmcgillivray4707]

The waste processes Oxidiser can be shuttled to vents and be used for steering and roll management. So you COULD try sending it to the engine. Or exploit free steering and stabilisation.

[@fppenque]

excellent video. Thank you...

[@rince2020uk]

Your son's colouring in pencils are of an exceptionally high quality!

[@timestampterrysassistant7638]

Legendary channel

[@rogeratygc7895]

After Beagle 2, Professor Pillinger was a very sick man, slowly dying. As he was the driving force behind the project, there was no-one pushing for a Beagle 3. I attended a public lecture he gave in Sheffield in his last days. The effort it took him to appear was sad evidence that he could not undertake another project.

[@andygoldensixties4201]

congratulations. an outstanding video

[@hashmagandy2012]

Great video Alex. Most interesting engine cycle described from 14 mins, didn’t even see that one on Tim Dodd’s mammoth documentary on rocket engine designs. @EverydayAstronaut

[@martingarrish4082]

Really excellent technical detail in the video. My father worked on Blue Streak, and my uncle worked on Black Arrow. I for one am proud that Skyrora is picking up where Black Arrow left off, and the Ukrainian connection is fantastic. Sergei Korolev was from the Ukraine - brilliant engineers.

[@TennoSkoom]

Great video! I honestly never ever heard of this rocket and didn't know UK even had a space program. A sad story for sure, especially considering the unusual engine design working on peroxide. One small correction regarding the animation at the beginning. Not sure if anyone else in the comments pointed this out, but the exhaust for the gas generator cycle should be on the other side of the turbine. A radial turbine is basically a radial compressor working in reverse, so the exhaust of a turbine is situated in the same place as an intake of a compressor (or a pump in this case), that is at the narrower end of the "funnel" shape of the rotor blades. Furthermore, judging by the schematic you give at 20:25 it seems this engine had an axial turbine design instead of a radial one. On 24:56 on the first stage schematic the shape of the exhaust pipe also suggests the turbine is axial. This is a small kinda nitpick, not really crucial for anything in this video anyway, as it already does a great job at explaining how the plumbing in a liquid engine works overall. I just wanted to point this out.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

I was hoping no one would notice the turbine exhaust error. Considering I’m about to reuse that animation in my next video you’ve done me a favour reminding me - I’d best go fix it now. Thanks!

[@neutronium9542]

I'm curious, how did you calculate the CP for the stability calculations? There's some hobby rocketry software, RASAero, that is capable of accurate simulations up to around Mach 5. It might be interesting to see what it calculates the CP to be at various Mach numbers.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Oh i just did a rough estimate for Cp at low subsonic speed using the old ‘balance a card model’ trick. I was tempted to simulate it for the full flight regime but decided not to expend that much energy on what was a pretty brief section. The position of the Cp on the 3D render is initially my estimate static value but then moves based off a graph i found for the Cp on the Saturn V first stage flight. Saturn V was kind of a similar shape….like I said, a rough estimate.

[@leuk2389]

Okay just randomly create some of the best space content on KZbin out of nowhere then. Didn't think we'd see more after your video on Virgin Galactic but very happy to be proven wrong! Keep up the good work, that specific video is still on my mind a lot.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Ha thanks. There are most certainly more space videos coming up the the future.

[@jozsefizsak]

This was very good. It's particularly satisfying to me that you didn't bemoan the lack of money in the nation or criticize the Black Arrow engineers for being insufficiently frugal. It's a wonder that so few people ever stop to question how an invention of man with no intrinsic value can be in gravely short supply one minute while being as abundant as logic would dictate that it should be in the very next. I well remember my parents refusing to buy me a toy sword because we could not afford it and then looking at some coins and bills which I concluded were undoubtedly not very challenging to produce. The accepted explanation that the majority willingly embrace is that they are simply too stupid to grasp the complexities of monetary policy and economics overall but the experts are managing things for the rest of us. Money is a wonderful invention that has been effectively weaponized such that democracy is subverted and a great many people die, collateral damage in the quest for additional riches and power by those who should probably be confined to mental hospitals. Thank goodness that we do see amazing science and technology projects that can excite and inspire us but there could be so very much more. And at the same time, so much less misery.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Thanks. Yes, bemoaning the lack of money would be futile since the UK has been in 'a financial crisis' for my entire adult life. I never like to publicly complain about it since so many of my viewers are from less wealthy countries so it would make me look like a spoilt brat. But, I think it's the inequality that's the real issue here. As you so excellently put it, in another universe, the attributes we see in many of our leaders (both political and financial) would absolutely be considered symptoms of mental illness.

[@arturoeugster7228]

Superb, tres detailé.

[@johnhayles7958]

I live a couple of miles from the rocket engine test site on the Isle of Wight, the concrete bunkers and where the rockets were bolted down are still there.

[@Yaivenov]

Mmm, Fluorine. My favorite horror show of an engine is a tripropellant deal using liquid Hydrogen, liquid Fluorine, and molten Lithium.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Funnily enough, I’m in the early stages of researching a potential video on that project.

[@Yaivenov]

@@Alexander-the-ok I forget the specific impulse for that bloke. Wasn't it something like 480 on HF and 530 with the lithium added?

[@jonsen2k]

I'm getting the feeling that you've played Kerbal Space Program before, judging by 32:35. Funny thing is that when you started talking about Cg and Cp, I got that exact picture in my mind before it appeared. Also, super interesting video by the way. Just as all the others I've seen from you so far. 👍

[@jonskowitz]

I always thought the cancellation of Black Arrow was bizarre, not to mention what happened with Beagle 2.

[@adamnoakes2550]

36:06 Our revels now are ended: These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind: we are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. - The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1

[@Taygetea]

ouch

[@skylongskylong1982]

Everyone has bad things to say about the French, but they understood British politics. Before the Concorde program started they made sure that it would take 3 times more money for Britain to pull out of the project. Tony Benn tried twice to pull out of the project, and due to French making the Concorde air tight legally, he failed. So if it was not for the French understanding British Politics mentality, Concorde might not have flown.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

The French seem to understand British politics better than the British. It's pretty hilarious tbh.

[@causewaykayak]

Tony Benn was a national disgrace on 2 legs. That he could be elected to anything is testament to the political ineptitude of the UK electorate.

[@ChookyChuck]

Very good video

[@ABrit-bt6ce]

The Science Museum in london is quite good. Getting back stage into the storage areas is so, so much more fun.

[@todaystarr]

Well done.

[@thomashuang5053]

love your vids, love the accent even more. hello from canada!

[@aarongreen1654]

Britain 'technically' does have a space program. It's called the European Space Agency, of which it is still a member and still provides funding to despite having formally left the EU.

[@martinheid9103]

ESA is more of a technical procurement and science agency. It does not own or operate space program with the exception of some science and exploration mssions. The major european satellite systems are owned and operated by the EU and complimented by national projects and government to government joint-ventures and in many cases access to and coordination of national systems is shared through EU frameworks, for example in the case of ISR constellations- Arianespace for example is a franco-german JV with contributions by Italy and a couple others. The "european" space port in French Guyana is owned and run by CNES with support from ESA and national agencies like DLR. The first thing that happen as Brexit went through was that the UK was locked out of all the EU systems procurement and access structures and the EU space agency was relaunched as EUSPA with extended responsibilities and remit...

[@LeonAust]

I worked at Hawker de havilland Australia now Boeing Australia and around my apprenticeship days we had many British/Australians who worked on the TSR 2 in Britain only to get the arse and immigrate to Australia also Anglo/Australians who worked at Woomera South Australia on many different weapons systems. As they used to tell me that the weapons developed at Woomera in the 1950s 1960s out performed the American equivalents but we had gutless politicians who failed them. They did not back them up with a self belief like the Americans had and thus they cancelled many projects with nothing to gain for it. One can place Canada in a similar predicament.

[@willamcars1]

Hearing about the peroxide oxidizer used makes me for some reason remember that NASA (very briefly) considered using chlorine tetrafloride as an oxidizer. You know, that thing that can get litteral ash to burn.

[@robinwells8879]

I touched the carapace of the beagle 2 probe in its machining stage. I love knowing that something I have touched is on another planet. ❤

[@pseudotasuki]

HOTOL's design didn't use jet engines in the traditional sense. Rather, it had unique air-breathing rocket engines which could use densified air (cooled by its absurdly cold hydrogen fuel) as an oxidizer, then transition to onboard liquid oxygen as the atmosphere thinned.

[@ripper132212]

what a beautifully written intro.

[@ffenixfubuki]

the history of UK engineering (space, military, aero, everything...) can be summed up with a pretty popular saying "talented engineers, incompetent politicians". handley page victor, nimrod MRA4, warrior csp etc etc... and even the space progarm. its just sad to see.

[@alt5494]

Understand the disappointment. The USA cancellation of the X-33 only to over fund SLS for practically no return is extremely depressing.

[@kargaroc386]

Also: the UK may be metric "officially", but most people that you'd find off-the-street probably use imperial units on a daily basis, and even if not, they at least know them.

[@kipkipper-lg9vl]

only if your fucking 40 and over lol, the young folk use metric when it comes to actually important stuff

[@jeebusk]

nice recap, I've heard mention of these but never a detailed explanation.

[@RobSchofield]

Excellent! Well researched and presented. Looking forward to your Blue Streak appraisal. Can highly recommend "A Vertical Empire" by Hill about the UK space development efforts.

[@Alexander-the-ok]

Thanks, yep I read that as part of the research for this. I’ll be referring to it more extensively in the Blue Streak video which will happen sometime next year.

[@iitzfizz]

Awesome vid! I hope we get a space program at some point in the future...We're the only country to develop an orbital rocket and then give it up.

[@non-human3072]

WOW bro the red lipstick rocket, my favorite... thank you