Comments on: National Space Centre

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:09:48 +0000

Glad to have educated a few people on their homeland, and also to have reignited parochial rivalries :)

David:

Thanks, interesting!

By: Lester

Lester — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:37:51 +0000

We have a what now?

Blue Streak is beautiful.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:28:02 +0000

I want a T-shirt with that HSD nameplate on.

By: JDK

JDK — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:47:56 +0000

Sorry Chris, very mean of me. I'd claim it was a Rolls Royce thing, except I never even managed to get to the RR Heritage Centre in Derby either!

By: Chris Williams

Chris Williams — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:24:55 +0000

The Space Centre also has charred bits of Cluster (iteration #1) fresh from their high-speed trip to a South American swamp. Man, there were some long faces around the sciencey bits of Sheffield University that day, I can tell you. Given the subsequent fate of Beagle 2 (built where I work, with a control centre where I live), I worried that I was a space science Jonah, until Huygens got there in the end with an Open University team (newly poached from Kent. Hah!) leading the surface science.

I can see that it's hell for Nottinghamites to admit that there's something that Leicester can do better (save perhaps violent death), but comparing us to Derby, even favorably, is surely below the belt.

By: David Llewellyn

David Llewellyn — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:45:40 +0000

A fellow called Greg Mott was head of the British submarine building program, inc the Polaris subs and Trident. He went to Footscray Tech, and was from a fairly impoversihed single parent family. After FT he went to Melb Uni. Here is a little excerpt from a short bio:

'The nuclear submarine programme developed into a continuous programme of one submarine every 18 months and the Polaris Submarines were replaced by a larger class called Trident (12000 tons) which are now in service.

The works at Barrow that was in two parts in 1975, employing some 14000 personnel, was nationalised as British Shipbuilders. I became General Manager of the Engineering Works which was building the FH70 mobile 155 mm gun for the Army in conjunction with German and Italian companies. Later I was moved back to the Shipbuilding company as General Manager and later as Managing Director of the joint companies. In this position I was in charge of the launch of the nuclear submarine TIRELESS.

I was awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) at an Investiture at Buckingham Palace, for services to shipbuilding in 1979. I was sounded out for promotion to the national organisation to look after all warship construction on the retirement of Bill Richardson, but I declined interest as I saw it as a non-job.'

I can give you more info if you are interested.

By: JDK

JDK — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:54:03 +0000

I was aware of it (and living in Nottingham) but the absence of (charred bits of) the real things, lack of wings and airscrews, and the need to travel across the county border to Leicester was enough to prevent a visit. Clearly Chris has shown us all that Leicester has one (two with the pub) things worth encouraging a visit instead of a day trip to Derby.

By: Erik Lund

Erik Lund — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:41:53 +0000

"Now, let's burn the observatory, so this can never happen again!"
Sorry. I'm a child of my times, and my times were the Simpsons.

By: Alan Allport

Alan Allport — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:45:54 +0000

Some Britons I’ve spoken to claim to be unaware that their country has a National Space Centre. Count me in on that. But from now on, 'space exploration' and 'Leicester' will be synonymous in my mind.