Episode 50: 26th March 2012: Manchester first Rocket Scientists

27th March 1937 - Foreground (left to right): Eric Burgess, Bill
Heeley, Trevor Cusack, Harry Turner (Picture – Philip Turner)
Robert Goddard in America , Sergei Korolev in the Soviet Union and
Herman Oberth in Germany are three names credit with the
development of rocket propulsion during the late 1920s and early
1930s. Each led a very small group with more dedication
then resources working on a shoestring budget usually in their own
time after work. Their collective work eventually lead to Sputnik,
the space race and one of mankind’s greatest technological
achievement - Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969. During the
inter war years, the northwest of England gave rise to
organisations that nurtured the science of rockets and space
travel. In 1933, Philip Cleater in Liverpool founded the British
Interplanetary Society (BIS) to promote spaceflight, an institution
which continues to exist to this day. A little known group
established in 1936, called the Manchester Interplanetary Society
(MIS) shared the lofty idea of space travel and had the ambition
and talent to design, build and test rockets that could help
to realise it. The MIS founded by an ambitious and gifted
sixteen year old Mancunian Eric Burgess in 1936.
 Initially, Burgess used his own home, 683 Aston New Road as
the headquarters but  moved to a founder member, Harry
Turner’s house in Lonsdale Place not far Manchester City centre in
the following year. Arthur C Clarke a member of both the science
and sci-fi communities visited Harry in Manchester several times
and promoted both. Clayton Vale, a stone’s throw from the velodrome
in East Manchester, is now a small picturesque park with the river
Medlock running through its length.  On Saturday 27th March
1937 it was more of a slag heap for the nearby coal mine and local
industry and a site used by the Manchester Interplanetary Society
(MIS) to test launch rockets made by its members. Following five
largely unsuccessful cardboard rocket launch attempts the sixth
constructed from aluminium exploded injuring three, one requiring
hospital attention.  The event was heavily featured in local
and national press. Malcolm Wade, the MIS secretary said in the
29th March 1937 edition of the Daily Herald “If only the crowds had
remained at a proper distance during Saturday's trials instead of
hustling around us, there would have been no accident.” Most of the
active members of the MIS received a summons to appear at the City
Police Court on May 14. The charge against Harry Turner was that he
"unlawfully did manufacture a certain explosive you not being
allowed by section 4 and 39 of the Explosives Act, 1875 to do so".
Harry like most of the members was not eighteen so his father Henry
is also named on the summons.  In the event, Eric Burgess
successfully argued that they were not manufacturing explosives but
conducting rocket propulsion experiments.  No one was found
guilty. They agreed not to use Clayton Vale but another site in
Glossop instead. Pioneer 10 Plaque - the original idea from Eric
Burgess After the war Eric Burgess emigrated to America and worked
for NASA and the space industry. He wrote many books including
one of the earliest dedicated to rocket propulsion. Perhaps
Burgess’s most remarkable achievement is the least well
known. Over dinner in November 1971 with Carl Sagan Burgess
proposed that a message from humanity should accompany the Pioneer
10 destined for Jupiter in the following spring. Pioneer 10 would
be the first man-made object to achieve solar system escape
velocity and head in to interstellar space.  The plaque was
designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake and successfully
incorporated in to the mission in a very short time.  Although
Burgess was informed about the plaque prior to launch, the image of
a naked man and woman was so controversial in the 1970’s
conservative America that NASA insisted on a news embargo until
after launch. Philip Turner A plaque on display at the Smithsonian
Institute in America recognises Eric Burgess's contribution to
space travel. In Manchester there is nothing to mark the unique
achievements of Eric Burgess, Harry Turner, Malcolm Wade and others
who were Manchester's very first rocket scientists. In this
interview Philip Turner's son, Philip talks about Harry but fist,
Harry’s widow Marion on how she first met Harry.