Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed

Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed

Secret plans to build and launch a spaceship in Ireland were put to
the Government by US astronauts, according to newly-released
classified documents.

A team of experienced scientists, including "at least one astronaut
who had walked on the moon" planned to use the Republic as its base
for the ground-breaking project.

The details are contained in Government papers released under the
30-year rule reveal. A letter setting out the proposals was sent to
the Irish Government of the day by the US-based Consulate General of
Ireland.

American scientist Dr Gary Hudson, who claimed to have worked for
Nasa, submitted his plans for the space flight project on behalf of an
alleged team including British astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle.

He had chosen Ireland because it was a neutral country and was not
affiliated to any other space programme. In a 16-page letter to the
Department of Foreign Affairs, vice consul Sean Farrell described the
plans to build a space station on Inishnabra, the middle island in the
Blaskets.

He detailed Dr Hudson's claims that Inishnabra had a number of
advantages including isolation but with a source of raw fuel at hand.
A launch from the Blaskets would not risk civilian lives, he said. Dr
Hudson said he had been taken to the island by the tourist board in
Kerry, which had been enthusiastic about the project.

Fears were expressed about the economic viability of the project,
particularly as the US space programme was "in ruins because of
escalating costs" and the joint European space venture had so far
failed due to enormous costs.

But Dr Hudson claimed to have £140,000 (200,000 euro) behind him for
the project. He estimated that the total cost of building, fuelling
and firing a rocket would not exceed £1.7m (2.4m euro) and that he
would charge around £3.4m (4.8m euro) per launching - starting in 1976
or 1977.

He proposed to lease the island from the Government. Almost all of the
necessary materials were to be purchased locally in Ireland, he said.
The project would have involved an initial work force of 1000.

Government sanctions were needed as the UN convention stated that the
country from which a rocket was launched had responsibility for any
damage caused. But any Irish hopes of making history were dashed when
a Government reply was sent back condemning the scheme as "science
fiction." It was suggested that the whole thing was a "gigantic
leg-pull".


Story filed: 08:23 Thursday 1st January 2004

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_851459.html

Rusty Barton wrote:

He detailed Dr Hudson's claims that Inishnabra had a number of
advantages including isolation but with a source of raw fuel at hand.

What? Coal? Peat? Whiskey?

Pat

Rusty Barton wrote in
:

Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed


Moon rocket from Ireland? Already been done!

http://www.rte.ie/tv/blizzardofodd/22102001/madein.html

Bryan

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Rusty Barton wrote:

He detailed Dr Hudson's claims that Inishnabra had a number of
advantages including isolation but with a source of raw fuel at hand.

What? Coal? Peat? Whiskey?

Guinness. It's got all three in there.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_851459.html

Even though I should know better, I am still surprised by the ability of
reporters (and apparently government officials) to turn an hour-long visit into
“ Secret Proposals� and “Plans.� Case in point is the preceding
article from Ananova news service. I realize they are not Aviation Week, but
good grief…

Just to set the record straight, yes, in 1973 I did inquire of the Industrial
Development Authority (IDA) of Ireland regarding the possibility of setting up
a launch firm in the country and launching a partly-expendable vehicle from
Inishnabro (misspelled in the article). I never visited the island as was
claimed, but did vacation in Kilarney for two days. I have pleasant memories
of the place, and drank a fair amount of excellent Guinness Stout. (But, even
so, I rather doubt that I told them that 1000 people would be working on
rockets – that’s not the path to cheap launch. They may have been hoping
for a sort of “multiplier effect� on local employment.) And I don’t
think that anyone who knows me would believe that I represented myself as
having worked for NASA! (This is symptomatic of the “Space Program� mythos
in general: one has to be promoted to “Dr.� and be from NASA in order to
speak on the subject. To be fair to them, however, this was all happening 30
years ago at the end of the Apollo program. The mythos was ascendant.)

The whole thing began when Prof. Fred Hoyle and I were having a cup of tea in
his Cambridge office the year before in England. Sir Fred had considered the
desirability of setting up a launch site on one of the Great Blasket islands,
and encouraged me to have a look. Since I had never visited Ireland, it
sounded like a good idea (even with the limited range of inclinations
available), and I went the next year. At the time, the IDA had a deal they
offered to outside investors. Build a plant in Ireland and all your export
sales were tax-free for twenty years. The purpose of my inquiry was to
determine if they would consider a launch as an export and they did. (We of the
emerging space business community have struggled for years to get tax breaks
for commercial space in the US and have largely failed. Here was a ready-made
opportunity.) Being a European company would have also opened up the European
launch market, this in the waning days of ELDO and before the real rise of the
Ariane program.

Of course, the idea was twenty years ahead of its time and investment was not
available. But even with money, in the end, of course, European (or US)
politics would have killed it anyway. At least I got to taste that Guinness
from the tap. (And no, the fuel was not going to be alcohol, but LOX-hydrogen!)

Gary C Hudson

fstops wrote:

Moon rocket from Ireland? Already been done!

http://www.rte.ie/tv/blizzardofodd/22102001/madein.html




I've seen that one...over on this side of the pond, the name was "Those
Fantastic Flying Fools" (to cash in on "Those Magnificent Men and Their
Flying Machines" and "Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies"-
which also had Terry-Thomas in it)
It's not a half bad movie, and has some quite funny stuff in it-
especially Smyth's car, which relies upon the theft of natural gas from
people's house lamps to fuel it.

Pat

"Neil Gerace" wrote in message . au...
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Rusty Barton wrote:

He detailed Dr Hudson's claims that Inishnabra had a number of
advantages including isolation but with a source of raw fuel at hand.

What? Coal? Peat? Whiskey?

Guinness. It's got all three in there.

Ah - Pure Genius

"Neil Gerace" writes:

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...

Rusty Barton wrote:

He detailed Dr Hudson's claims that Inishnabra had a number of
advantages including isolation but with a source of raw fuel at hand.

What? Coal? Peat? Whiskey?

Guinness. It's got all three in there.

Hadn't one of the mad geniuses in these parts estimated how many
potatoes were fermented to provide the oxygen used for a V-2 launch, and
followed it up for Redstones? I don't seem to have the magic needed for
digging them out of Google at the moment.

Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article , Joseph Nebus wrote:

Hadn't one of the mad geniuses in these parts estimated how many
potatoes were fermented to provide the oxygen used for a V-2 launch, and
followed it up for Redstones? I don't seem to have the magic needed for
digging them out of Google at the moment.

ea.ac.uk

sayeth ten tons.

--
-Andrew Gray

In article ,
(Joseph Nebus) writes:
"Neil Gerace" writes:

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...

Rusty Barton wrote:

He detailed Dr Hudson's claims that Inishnabra had a number of
advantages including isolation but with a source of raw fuel at hand.

What? Coal? Peat? Whiskey?

Guinness. It's got all three in there.

Hadn't one of the mad geniuses in these parts estimated how many
potatoes were fermented to provide the oxygen used for a V-2 launch, and
followed it up for Redstones? I don't seem to have the magic needed for
digging them out of Google at the moment.

I'd say that it's a fair bet that _no_ spuds died to make Oxygen for
V-2s, or Redstones, or, for that matter, Semyorkas.

Now, Ethanol, on the other hand... IIRC, the Soviets co-opted a
couple of years of Polish Potato crops to produce 198-proof Vodka for
rocket propulsion purposes.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster