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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 Ł140,000 (200,000 euro) behind him for the project. He estimated that the total cost of building, fuelling and firing a rocket would not exceed Ł1.7m (2.4m euro) and that he would charge around Ł3.4m (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 |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
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 |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
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 |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
"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. |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
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 |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
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 |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
"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 |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
"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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
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 |
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Secret plans for Irish spaceship revealed
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