The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), founded in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest existing space advocacy organisation in the world. Its aim is exclusively to support and promote

astronautics Astronautics (or cosmonautics) is the practice of sending spacecraft beyond atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere into outer space. Spaceflight is one of its main applications and space science is its overarching field. The term ''astronautics' ...

and

space exploration Space exploration is the process of utilizing astronomy and space technology to investigate outer space. While the exploration of space is currently carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration is conducted bo ...

Structure

It is a

non-profit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

with headquarters in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and is financed by members' contributions. It is situated on South Lambeth Road ( A203) near

Vauxhall station Vauxhall (, ) is a National Rail, London Underground and London Buses interchange station in south London. It is at the Vauxhall#Vauxhall Cross, Vauxhall Cross road junction opposite the southern approach to Vauxhall Bridge over the River Tha ...

History

The BIS was only preceded in astronautics by the American Interplanetary Society (founded 1930), the German VfR (founded 1927), and Soviet Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel (founded 1924), but unlike those it never became absorbed into a national industry. Thus it is now the world's oldest existing space advocacy body. When originally formed in October 1933, the BIS aimed not only to promote and raise the public profile of astronautics, but also to undertake practical experimentation into rocketry along similar lines to the organisations above. However, early in 1936 the society discovered that this ambition was thwarted by the Explosives Act of 1875, which prevented any private testing of liquid-fuel rockets in the United Kingdom.

Proposals for design of space vehicles

In the late 1930s, the group devised a project of landing people on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

by a

multistage rocket A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of another stage; a ''parallel'' stage is ...

, each stage of which would have many narrow

solid-fuel rocket A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses Rocket propellant#Solid chemical propellants, solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder. The incepti ...

s. Their lander was gumdrop-shaped but otherwise quite like the

Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed s ...

. As it was considered that the cabin would have to rotate, BIS member Ralph A. Smith, who helped re-establish the society post-WW2, invented the first instrument for space travel: the Coelostat, a

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...

mechanism that would ingeniously cancel out the rotating view. R.A. Smith and Harry Ross were the aerospace visionaries named on the original patent. Smith also authored and illustrated the 1947 book 'The Exploration of the Moon' showing the first ever conceptual 'orbital satellite' (text by Arthur C. Clarke), which is said to have inspired both John F. Kennedy and

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American filmmaker and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Stanley Kubrick filmography, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or sho ...

. In a November 1949 conference in the BIS, Harry Ross presented a paper on a concept of a Lunar spacesuit. In the paper, Ross had examined the problem of a 68 kg lunar space suit which could be worn for up to 12 hours, within the temperature range of +120 °C to -150 °C. In 1946, the BIS started a programme known as Megaroc. The purpose of the programme was to develop a

Sub-orbital spaceflight A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the primary (astronomy), gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital ...

that could provide crewed ascents to a maximum of 1 million feet (304 km). The craft was made by enlarging and re-designing a

V-2 rocket The V2 (), with the technical name ''Aggregat (rocket family), Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range missile guidance, guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the S ...

after it was noted by H.E. Ross in 1946 that the V-2 rocket was "nearly big enough to carry a man." The project was noted to be 10 years ahead of its time by NASA engineers who reviewed it. The same NASA engineers predicted the rocket would have been capable of first achieving a crewed suborbital flight between 1949 and 1951, and capable of sending people to space reliably by 1951.

Role in international space

During the second International Astronautical Congress, held in London in 1951, the BIS was one of 13 national space societies who together founded the International Astronautical Federation. The other founding members no longer exist as national societies, leaving only the BIS.

Nearest stars

In 1978, the society published a

starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for interstellar travel, traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1 ...

study called

Project Daedalus Project Daedalus (named after Daedalus, the Greek mythological designer who crafted wings for human flight) was a study conducted between 1973 and 1978 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a plausible uncrewed interstellar probe.Pr ...

, which was a detailed feasibility study for a simple uncrewed interstellar flyby mission to Barnard's Star using present-day technology and a reasonable extrapolation of near-future capabilities. Daedalus was to have used a pellet driven nuclear-pulse

fusion rocket A fusion rocket is a theoretical design for a rocket driven by nuclear fusion, fusion propulsion that could provide efficient and sustained Spacecraft propulsion, acceleration in space without the need to carry a large fuel supply. The design requ ...

to accelerate to 12 per cent of the

speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant exactly equal to ). It is exact because, by international agreement, a metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time i ...

Mars

The latest in this series of far-reaching studies produced the Project Boreas report, which designed a crewed station for the Martian North Pole. The report was short-listed for the 2007 Sir Arthur Clarke Awards in the category of Best Written Presentation.

Publications

The BIS publishes the academic journal '' Journal of the British Interplanetary Society'' and the monthly magazine ''

Spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such ...

''. In 2008, the BIS published ''Interplanetary'', a history of the society to date.

Awards given by the society

The science and science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke was a well-known former chairman of the British Interplanetary Society. The society was presented with the first Special Award, from the 2005 Sir Arthur Clarke Awards. This was a gift of Clarke's choice, independent of the judging panel. In 2008 the society's magazine, ''Spaceflight'', edited by Clive Simpson, was the winner of the award for Best Space Reporting. Charles Chilton joined the society before writing and producing the science-fiction radio trilogy '' Journey Into Space''.Interview with Charles Chilton, ''Round Midnight'',

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

, 1989 The Sir Patrick Moore Medal was made possible by long-time Fellow of the BIS, Sir

Patrick Moore Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore (; 4 March 1923 – 9 December 2012) was an English amateur astronomer who attained prominence in that field as a writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter. Moore's early interest in astro ...

, to recognise outstanding contributions to the society. The British Interplanetary Society UK-Born Astronaut Silver Pin Award was introduced in 2009, this BIS silver pin award recognises the achievement of UK-born individuals who have undertaken a spaceflight into full Earth orbit. The Rising Star Awards were founded in 2021 by BIS Fellows, Vix Southgate and Alan Bond and run by the BIS NextGen Network. In 2021, the RSA awards celebrated 'Women in Space', to coincided with the World Space Week theme of the same year. The five winners were presented with BIS Silver Comet Brooches and certificates.

Responsibilities

The British Interplanetary Society, collaborates and coordinates at a national and international level to promote space and astronautics. * Coordinator for the UK Selection for the International Astronautical Federation's IAC Student Paper Competition, in partnership with the

Institution of Engineering and Technology The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871,Engin ...

Technical Network. * Official UK National Coordinators for World Space Week, supporting and encouraging the creation of educational opportunities, activities, and events during 4–10 October.

Arms

Logo

In 2020, the British Interplanetary Society website was redesigned and updated with a new-look logo, with a streamlined sans-serif version of the original 'Stag' font and both the banner and medallion designs incorporating the BIS motto 'From Imagination To Reality'.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Scientific organizations established in 1993 Space programme of the United Kingdom Space advocacy organizations Space advocacy Space organizations 1933 establishments in England Clubs and societies in London History of the London Borough of Lambeth