 July 20th, 1969. Neil Armstrong has just become the first human to step foot on another celestial body marking the USA's first win of the space race and the start of a new era of space exploration. However, NASA and President Kennedy weren't the first to dream up a serious mission to the moon, and no, I'm not talking about the Soviets. The first thing that comes to your mind when you say the word Britain is most likely not related to the aerospace industry. It's probably one of our delicious delicacies, fish and chips, bang is a mash or a classic Sunday roast, maybe it's our Union flag or even the man that runs the country. That's risk. But there's more to us stereotypical cereal tea drinkers than all of that, and it does actually include a rather rich and interesting space program, which I'm often told in the comments section, I have no idea about. So join me for this three part series as we take a trip through the unknown history and exciting tomorrow that these islands have, starting with the first ever lunar space suit to be designed for a serious lunar mission. 1939. What a time to be alive. The world famous Golden Gate Bridge was concluding its second year of operation, and Auto Avio Construzioni, the preceding company of the worst strategists to evergrace Formula One, was founded by certain Enzo Ferrari. But over here in the UK we weren't focusing on big bridges that aren't the colours they're called, or creating the world's most famous car brand. A man by the name of Harry Ross was instead dreaming up the first viable mission to the moon. He also happened to be a member of the British Interplanetary Society, a society formed in 1933 with notable members such as Arthur C. Clarke, so a committee was formed and this society members got to work. Those of you who've attended at least one history class in your life will know however that 1939 was not actually the best of times to be alive, with Germany starting and eventually losing a second world war. Even though the BIS was disbanded whilst we were working on the war effort, Ross kept dreaming, eventually starting a scientific study on what kind of suit would be required for a human to survive on the unforgiving lunar surface. Twenty years before President Kennedy announced the United States' intention to go to the moon. Once the war had been won and we'd finished celebrating Ross and the other BIS members reconvened where Ralph Smith was hired by Ross to further his lunar spacesuit dream. Spoiler alert, by 1949 that was about as far as they got with the spacesuit. It was never iterated and it was never built. But drawings of the suit were published in a paper for the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society which were uncovered by the National Space Centre when researching for their Britain's space race exhibit. Let's head to Leicester. The BIS may have never gone further with their lunar spacesuit but a replica of the drawings has been made and he's quite a big fella. It was made by historical costume and model maker Steven Wisdom for the National Space Centre using the materials which were available at the time. It may not look like an Apollo suit but the way that the oxygen flows around the astronaut is very similar. It's just that back in the 40s they didn't have access to the materials that the Apollo team used to make those suits which then they actually used to go to the moon. The similarities with the Apollo suits end there as the rest of the design is pretty radical with every tiny detail being thought of. The big chest area? That's an airlock. The thinking was that an astronaut could bend over, pick up a moonrock, place it inside the airlock and then close the door. They'd then be able to retract their arms inside of the suit to inspect the moonrock. It'll be a bit tight especially trying to bend over with rigid joints and lunar regolith might have posed a problem but remember they were thinking this up in the 40s. We didn't know how bad the regolith was until we actually went to the moon 20 years later. The airlock also served a second purpose as it'd be able to hook up to a lunar base and then a sandwich could be passed through for the astronaut to eat. Name something more British than that. These mushroom looking things poking out of the body section of the suit that's part of the thermal system. Getting cold? Pull over this silver cape and the mushrooms will create a seal reflecting the heat back onto the astronaut. Getting hot? Just take it off. The rest of the suit is also incredibly shiny. This was the effort to try and reflect the sunlight. The Apollo engineers decided to go with white rather than silver as it would still reflect a large amount of light and I'd imagine that silver is not very friendly with the limited master orbit metric with a density of 10.49 grams per centimetre cubed. If your legs ever needed a rest this handy portable seat was available as well. Ross and Smith literally thought about everything an astronaut might need on the lunar surface. There was no stone unturned and from the knowledge of the moon and materials available at the time this design actually seems pretty reasonable but of course what's the point of having a lunar spacesuit without a lunar spaceship? A moonship if you will. No I wasn't thinking about this one the affectionate name for SpaceX's human landing system Starship Variant. I was actually thinking about this as I believe the BIS coined the term with a vehicle that could send three humans to the surface of the moon for two whole weeks. The current record was set by the final Apollo mission Apollo 17 which saw its lunar module on the lunar surface for a measly three days two hours 59 minutes and 39 seconds. The official name was the BIS lunar spaceship but just like with the HLS moonship just sounds better. This vehicle would have been capable of returning over half a metric ton of moonrock to Earth as well. In the 1939 journal 10 years before the space suit was officially unveiled the plans for the moon rocket were laid out as well. It'd be comprised of six stages all with the same cross section. Remember though that this is the 1940s we're talking about modern day lingo wasn't about yet so they called them tiers or steps instead of stages. The first five tiers would have housed up to 168 motors and those would have been responsible for getting the top tier housing the astronauts to near the moon. Think of them like the first three stages of the Saturn V. Those got the CSM command and service modules and the lunar module into Earth orbit through the trans lunar injection and on their way to the moon. The final stage which was the lunar lander had 45 motors and its job was to land on the moon launch off the moon and slow the vehicle down before the crew re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. If you haven't figured it out yet these would have been a direct ascent mission which has never been done before. For those of you unfamiliar with the term this means that the lander and the Earth return vehicle are the same. It was proposed for the Apollo program and for the Soviet lunar program but a separate lunar lander which rendezvoused with a mothership in lunar orbit was the preferred method for both nations. You may also have noticed I was quite vague with the term rocket motor and that's because I can't figure out if the BIS just started or never completed or completed and I can't find the findings of their propellant investigation. Smith designed a basic test stand for this purpose but that's about all I've been able to find out sadly. During that time where the BIS weren't up to much, Germany was thinking up new ways to try and win World War II. The V2 missile was being developed for military purposes becoming the world's first long range guided ballistic missile. Once the Allies had won the war however V2 technology was no longer stuck in Germany. You may know that the Americans took the legendary engineer Werner von Braun and his team to work on their space program but Ross was thinking a little differently. He observed that the V2 was and I quote nearly big enough to carry a man. With some modifications he wanted to put someone on top of that missile. Heard of that one before perhaps? Behold Megarock an enlarged and strengthened V2 rocket. The same motor was retained powered by a watered down ethanol and liquid oxygen mix but the field tanks were expanded and the walls were strengthened which would have been enough to allow the motor to burn for 110 seconds at full thrust and then extra 38 seconds at a constant acceleration. The warhead was removed for obvious reasons and in its place a pressurized cabin would have filled the gap. The nose cone also would have become jettisonable leaving the cabin free falling by itself. There would have been two large hatches for access into the cabin as well as observation during the suborbital flight of up to 304 kilometers. A periscope would have also been included allowing the pilot of the vehicle to look backwards towards the spent V2 stage. It was essentially the start of the design for the US Mercury capsule two decades before the Mercury capsule was designed. 304 kilometers is quite a long way for a first attempt which is why it wouldn't have been the first attempt. Many flights would have been performed gradually raising the Apoapsis every launch until that 304 kilometer goal was reached. Some differences though were still there such as the seat for the person inside. Inside Mercury it was in a fixed position. Inside of Megarock it would have rotated with the Earth's orientation. The Megarock missions also would have been a bit less demanding reaching only 3G instead of 9. This meant that, unlike Mercury, no heat shield or retro rockets would have been required. Instead Megarock used a reefing parachute and compressed air for constant drag through the atmosphere. Megarock also would have been capable of either a land or water landing with a crumple skirt fitted absorbing some of the shock. Aerodynamic fins were also removed for the Megarock saving 320 kilos. And for the most amazing part of this vehicle to me the fuel controls and in turn the throttle would have been manually controlled by the person flying inside. It would have been their job to keep the G meter reading at 3G as they ascended through the atmosphere. But don't worry the BIS had thought this through as well. In the event that their grip on the controls would have weakened the rocket would have automatically switched over to being controlled via radio from the ground. It was human control with computers as a backup. That's just baffling to me considering all the vehicles we've seen go to space are controlled by computers with human overrides. It would have also been the pilot's job to separate the cabin from the V2 hull. That wasn't controlled by a computer either. Something that was automated however would have been the jettison of the nose cone. That would have been controlled by a pressure operated release mechanism so when the air density outside was near zero it would pop off. Just like with the moon mission sadly Megarock never took off. But Harry Ross and Ralph Smith didn't end there. They were dreaming up the space faring future which we'd all love to live. After you've designed a suborbital crew vehicle, a lunar spaceship and a lunar space suit a space station is next of course. The BIS took inspiration from a 1928 design by Sloven Herman Pratocnik who was writing under the pseudonym of Austrian H&L Dung as a bit of a template to start off with. Herman's station featured a rank of living quarters with a diameter of 30 meters. This habitat would feature two galleries each with living spaces, workshops and laboratories. It would have span around with a full rotation every seven seconds which means that even back then artificial gravity was being thought of. The only thing is it would have resulted in a feeling of 2.4G to anyone on board so I feel like maybe 5.5 rotations per minute would have been a bit more comfortable. To power the station and keep it warm a giant 60 meter diameter parabolic dish would have been pointed at the sun being able to make just under 1,000 kilowatts of solar energy useful. This energy would have been used to heat water or mercury which would have then been sent to turbo generators which were on the living quarters providing the crew on board with some wonderful electricity. Hydrogen peroxide would have been stored on board which would have been used to create a pure oxygen atmosphere inside and for drinking water. For comparison, the modern-day International Space Station uses a 79% nitrogen, 21% oxygen mix. Behind the dish on this drawing by Ross and Smith you can see that there is a truss structure. This would have been stationary with a gimbling radio antenna on one end. On the other end, there would have been a two-deck cylinder with an airlock on each end where astronauts could go outside and perform an EVA. Because this was on the non-rotating truss structure there would also be microgravity allowing zero-g experiments to be performed inside of a safe space. Just like with the moonship and the space suit it might not have been the most realistic machine in today's world but for the pre-space exploration times of the 1940s this was a well-thought-out idea. In conclusion, although the Americans were the first to land someone on the moon they weren't the first to seriously think of it just like how we, the British, created their country and invented their language. The BIS also conceptualized not only a suborbital human launch vehicle but also a human moon mission and the space suit they'd wear for an EVA. We've always been taught that the Soviets were the first to put a person into space and the Americans were the first to put a person on the moon but no one ever talks about how they weren't the first to come up with the idea. That's something I don't understand, especially as someone who's just gone through the modern-day UK state school system. We're taught we won World War I, we won World War II and something about King Henry VIII probably but we're never told that we could have won the space race a good decade earlier. Thanks Paul and everyone at the National Space Centre for letting me come here, film, have a fun day out. If you're ever in the area in Leicester I definitely recommend you come and give it a look. You won't be disappointed. Again, thank you to everyone here. This wouldn't have been possible without them. Hopefully you've learned a bit about the start of Britain's space program. I certainly did produce this first episode. Make sure to stick around for part two though as next time the world is going to get a little bit colder and we actually make some rocket hardware. If you're watching in the future then I'll be on your screen in a second but if you're watching this before part two is published then you know how to make sure you don't miss it. Thanks for watching and goodbye.