Tag Archives: ariel

[April 28, 1967] Tempest in a Teacup (The Terrornauts)


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Next week will see the launch of third satellite in the British Ariel programme. Assuming this is successful, it will be significant for a couple of reasons.

UK3 Satellite, hoping to become Ariel 3 if it gets in orbit
UK3 Satellite, hoping to become Ariel 3 if it gets in orbit

Firstly, whilst it is being launched in partnership with NASA in California, it will be the first satellite to be entirely made and tested in Britain, whereas the first two were made in the US. In cooperation between the Royal Airforce, British Aircraft Corporation and General Electric Company, its success would help show that Britain can, if not exactly compete in the space race, at least get a nice chance at a bronze medal.

Secondly, it is carrying five different experiments for UK research facilities, from measuring electron density to atmospheric noise, all of which are going to be important for a more detailed understanding of our world.

One of the most interesting experiments to me is that Jodrell Bank is using it to study medium frequency waves that occur in space. As well as helping understand radio transmissions better this may also help better detect signals coming from extra-terrestrial intelligences. Which is what The Terrornauts is concerned with.

Mr. Brunner…We’re Needed!

The Wailing Asteroid

Back in the ancient days of 1960 our esteemed editor gave a rather damning review of the original novel. However, largely this was due to the prose and the story being dragged out and it was noted that “the premise is excellent”. As such, if a good team was assembled it might well make a good motion picture.

John Brunner

Step forward the first member of this team, John Brunner. One of Britain’s brightest SF authors. Whilst, to the best of my knowledge, he has not written a film script before, he is adept at producing both readable space operas and extremely literary works. He reportedly wanted to remove all the dated pulp era material to concentrate on core science fiction ideas and character work.

Montgomery Tully

Next up, a steady experienced hand of a director is needed, enter Montgomery Tully. Director of over 60 films across 4 decades, including last year’s excellent horror thriller Who Killed The Cat? Although not experienced in SF, many of the best productions of recent years have come from experienced directors outside the field. I will take a Godard or Kubrick experiments over another Irwin Allen or Ed Wood picture.

Amicus Posters

This production is from Amicus studios, the main rival to Hammer studios, with the enjoyable horror anthology Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, the middling Dalek films and…. whatever The Deadly Bees was. Whilst they do not have the budget of their competitor, they have had ambition to try to do interesting films. Could this be their next success?

Added to this an array of talented actors listed on the cast sheet and things seem setup for a great cinematic experience.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

As it turns out, a lot!

Working in the Lab

Let us start with the plot itself. It begins with people working in a field of current interest to many SF fans, attempting to use high powered radio telescopes in order to attempt to find intelligence life outside of our solar system. Dr. Burke’s team have been working on the project for 4 years but failed to produce any results, to the frustration of Dr. Shore, who is annoyed they are using the equipment on the project. Having just 3 months left to discover a sign of life, they receive a repeating signal from an asteroid.

Finding the Cube in an Archeological Dig

What is particularly surprising is it is the same signal Dr. Burke heard as a child. At an excavation with an archaeologist uncle, a mysterious black cube was uncovered. He was given it as present and inside he found strange black crystals that hummed. Falling asleep holding one, he had a dream of an alien world. On that world he heard the same sound. As you can probably tell, this is going to require you to accept a lot of coincidences.

Lab is Taken

After sending a signal back, a spaceship comes and takes the lab away (although not the control room or telescope it was sent from), along with Dr. Burke, his assistants Lund and Keller, and two comedy characters, the accountant Yellowlees and the tea lady Mrs. Jones.

We do have to talk about the odd comic turns. There's no problem with having some light comedy to emphasise the drama and the use of ordinary characters out of their depth is a common charming feature of Nigel Kneale’s SF plays or Hammer Horror films. The issue here is that it is played so broadly in contrast to the po-faced stance of the rest of the cast it sticks out. Charles Hawtrey is a regular member of the Carry-On cast and Patricia Hayes is probably best known for her regular appearances on the Benny Hill Show. I could not help but wonder at times if they had just walked off of those sets temporarily. Just toning down their performances and lightening the others would have done wonders.

ultrasonic hallucination monster
A terrifying ultrasonic hallucination as part of the tests.

Our five space farers find themselves in a structure on the asteroid and spend a lot of time wandering about and solving a series of logic puzzles to prove intelligence (likely inspired by a similar sequence in The Dalek Invasion of Earth), they are given a cube like Dr. Burke received as a child. It turns out to be a store of information on their mission. An ancient race explored the stars and encountered a race only known as “The Enemy” that want to eliminate other intelligent life by using rays that reduce intelligence. The signal from the base indicates The Enemy’s signals are approaching Earth and it is up to these five to use the base to defend humanity.

There is also a brief side trip where Lund trips on to a ‘Matter Transmitter’ and gets sent down to a planet full of green people in togas and shower caps who want to sacrifice her, but this seems largely to be a way to have a traditional pulp action sequence more than anything else. In fact, for such a short film, there is enormous amount of time being wasted. Most egregious is a sequence where they are trying to find a cube to help them and spend ages sampling them all, only to have the real cube presented to them by the unconvincing robot of the base.

Wobbly robots and very unconvincing moons
Wobbly robots and very unconvincing moons

Although looks are not everything it has to be said this film looks cheap. Yes, the budget was smaller than Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. or Thunderbirds Are Go, but it is at a comparable level to Island of Terror and The Projected Man, neither of which look as bad as this (despite their many other faults). Even BBC episodes of Doctor Who or Out of the Unknown, which work on less than 10% of the budget for similar runtimes, rarely resemble this level of shoddiness.

The Torch of Doom vs. the Flappy Base
The Torch of Doom vs. the Flappy Base

At the end it looked like we could have a tense and exciting space battle, but instead we have the attacking ship opening to reveal a red torch light and the fortress flailing about like a drunken Octopus.

Finally, the attacking fleet is destroyed but not before the final ship comes to crash into the base. The team manage to use the Matter Transmitter to escape and land in the same archaeological dig the black cube was found by Burke’s uncle. However, not having passports, they are arrested by a local police officer. Given how much The Terrornauts tends towards terrible cliché, it, of course, ends on a bad joke from Mrs. Jones:

I never did much like foreign parts

Hilarious…

Naut The Best Film

Mrs. Jones brings lab techs tea
Why not have a cup of tea and read a magazine instead?

As you can probably tell, this is a poor picture. Logic is consistently tenuous. There is barely enough plot to fill a Ferman vignette, instead being reduced to run-arounds. If I didn’t know its origins, I would have assumed this was a fan’s attempt at a Doctor Who script that was rejected by the production team.

But I think its worst sin is it is just incredibly dull. I don’t think this is due to lack of incident, but it is not about anything. There are no themes or interesting ideas I can tease out, it is just some people from Earth put into space to fight invaders, which they do via following recorded instructions.

Even this might have been salvaged if we had good character work but they all as thin as cigarette cards. Burke is the hero who is always right and can apparently do anything. Lund is his assistant who does whatever he says or randomly gets into trouble so she can be rescued. Keller is there for Burke to talk to. Yellowlees is the fussy and cowardly comic relief. And Jones is the ordinary person who does not quite understand what is going on, also for humour value.

They do not have any growth or go on a real quest. There is no significant difference I can see between the people when they leave Earth and arrive back.

In the end I cannot give this production more than one star.

Future Terrors

2001 Set photo
Kubrick and Clarke, on the set of what we all hope is not The Terrornauts Raid Again

Coming out very soon (we are continually promised) is 2001, the collaboration between another British SF author and experienced British director. Will this end up meeting the same fate? We shall see…





[Apr. 30, 1962] Common Practice Period (April Spaceflight Round-up)


by Gideon Marcus

The radio plays Classical music on the FM band now. 

The difference is palpable.  Bach and Mozart on the AM band were tinny and remote.  It was almost as though the centuries separating me and the composers had been attenuating the signal.  This new radio band (well, not so new, but newly utilized) allows transmissions as clear as any Hi-Fi record set could deliver. 

Don't get me wrong; I still listen to the latest pop hits by The Shirelles and The Ventures, but I find myself increasingly tuned into the local classics station.  The sound, and the selections, are just too good to ignore.  The last movement of Robert Schumann's Symphony #1, with its stirring accelerando is playing right now, and it is a fitting accompaniment for the article I am currently composing.

Time was I would write an article on a space mission about once a month.  This wouldn't be a wrap-up, but an article devoted to a single satellite.  But the pace of space launches has increased – there were two successful orbital flights in 1957, nine in 1958, 13 in 1959, 20 in 1960, 38 in 1961.  There were six flights just last week.  Either I'm going to have to start abbreviating my coverage, or I'll need to start a satellite (no pun intended) column. 

But that's a decision for next year.  Right now, with a bit of musical texturing, let me tell you all about the exciting things that happened in spaceflight, April 1962:

Quartet in USAF Minor

Late last year, President Kennedy put a lid on all military space programs, classifying their details.  This was a break from Ike's policy, which was to publicize them (more or less accurately).  I think Eisenhower's idea was that any space shot was good for prestige.  Also, if we were upfront about military flights, maybe the Soviets would follow suit.

The current President has decided that discretion is the better path.  So even though I have it on good authority that four boosters took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (it being rather hard to hide a blast of that magnitude, and the papers are still reporting on them as best they can), I couldn't tell you exactly what was at the tips of those rockets.  It's a fair bet, however, that three of them were reconnaissance satellites, snapping photos of the USSR from orbit.  The last was probably a nuclear missile launch detector called MIDAS.  That's make it the 5th in the series. 

Quartet in USSR Minor

Meanwhile, the Russians, who had not reported any spaceflights since Comrade Titov's flight last summer, suddenly threw up four probes in about as many weeks.  The missions of "Kosmos" 1-4 were "to study weather, communications, and radiation effects during long space flights in preparation for an eventual manned landing."

That sounds good, but while the first three satellites are still up in orbit returning scientific data, the fourth, launched four days ago, landed three days later – after passing over the United States several times.  All we know about it was it was launched from "a secret base" and "valuable data [was] obtained."  Given that Kosmos 4's mission plan bore a striking resemblance to that of our Discoverer capsule-return spy sats, I suspect the first three Kosmos shots were a flimsy camouflage.  What's interesting here is that the Communists feel it necessary to construct a cover-up.  But the fact is, they just can't hide when they launch things into space, any more than we can. 

Solo for English Horn

The first UK satellite, Ariel 1, was successfully launched on April 26, 1962 atop an American Thor Delta booster.  The little probe will investigate the Earth's ionosphere.  You can read all about this mission in Ashley Pollard's recent article.

Mooncrash Sonata

It's two steps forward, one step back for NASA's ill-starred ("mooned?") Ranger program.  Thrice, the lunar probe failed to fly due to a balky Atlas Agena booster.  This time, Ranger 4, launched April 24, 1962, was hurled on a perfect course for the Earth's celestial companion.  The trajectory was so perfect that the craft didn't even require a mid-course correction.

Of course, it wouldn't have mattered if it had.  Upon leaving the Earth, it quickly became apparent that Ranger 4 was brain-dead.  It issued no telemetry, nor did it respond to commands.  NASA dispiritedly tracked the probe's 64-hour trip to the moon, which ended in its impact on the far side. 

Heart-breaking, but it is a sort of semi-victory: At least the rocket works now, and the United States as finally caught up with the Soviets in another aspect of the Space Race (just two-and-a-half years late…)

Saturn (fortissimo)

Speaking of successful rockets, the tremendous Saturn I had another successful test on April 25, 1962.  Like the first, the upper two stages were inert, filled with water for ballast.  This flight has a twist, however.  After the first stage had exhausted its fuel, the dummy stages were detonated and the ensuing watery explosion observed.  This "Operation Highwater" was designed to demonstrate how far the debris of a booster blast would travel.  I imagine it was also a lot of fun.

I have to wonder about the future of the Saturn I.  It has already been determined that the Apollo moon craft will be launched by the much more powerful and generally unrelated Saturn C-5 and Nova boosters.  It seems that the Saturn I is something of a technological dead end, though I'm sure they are at least perfecting their heavy booster launch techniques.

Prelude, Symphony #2

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is planning another Mercury one-person shot for next month.  It will be an exact duplicate of John Glenn's February flight, down to the three-orbit duration.  To be piloted by Navy aviator Scott Carpenter (the hunkiest of the Mercury 7), the main purpose of the mission is to make sure that the errors that plagued Glenn during his flight are fixed before the little spacecraft takes on longer journeys.  And, of course, then we will have caught up with the Russians in another way – we'll have had two men orbit the planet.

No doubt, Carpenter's flight will be the spaceflight highlight of next month; I have not seen any other missions announced.  Then again, the Reds might have a surprise that'll have us singing a different tune…

[April 22, 1962] “To ride on the curl'd clouds” (ARIEL ONE)


By Ashley R. Pollard

Looking back to October the 4th 1957 when Sputnik was launched, it’s hard to believe that only five years have passed since that fateful day when Russia beat Britain and America into space (perhaps my American readers will say that Britain had no realistic chance of getting into space first, which I would agree with, but for the Western nations to be beaten by the Russians – now that’s the thing.)

With Sputnik, humanity transitioned from flying through the air to moving through the vacuum of space, where no living animal can survive without a pressure suit. The only other time that I can think of when a paradigm shift of this nature took place would be back when the first hot-air balloons were invented. This provoked the discussion, at the time, that this was the invention of travelling through the air.

As I read the history of hot-air balloons, the idea of travelling through air as an invention seems odd to me. But as language evolves over time, so do concepts like invention, which has moved from the original Latin meaning of discovery to the more modern meaning of a process or device. Though by modern I should clarify that I mean "from the fifteenth century," which is not surprising given the changes that arose from the Renaissance, and everything that came out of rediscovery of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks.

For those who look back on the past with rose-tinted glasses I will remind my readers that the times I’m writing about were surrounded by their own troubles. The Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, for example, which led to a westward exodus of Greek scholars that fuelled the rediscovery of ancient thinking. One can argue that today’s troubles, with West and East facing off against each other, is just part of the story of humanity's struggle between its biological drives versus its intellectual aspirations.

Almost equidistant (physically, though not ideologically) from the Free and Communist worlds, Britain is about to become Earth's third nation to practice the "invention" of travelling through space. Admittedly this puts us behind America and Russia, but as the Yanks are wont to say, this still makes us a contender. We are calling our satellite Ariel One, more prosaically referred to as UK-1 or S-55. This program grew out of proposal by the British National Committee on Space Research to NASA that came from a discussion at a meeting of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) to study the Earth’s ionosphere.

What is the ionosphere? It is that layer high up in the Earth's atmosphere where the sun's energy strips the thin air of its electrons, creating a charged barrier to radio waves. It is this layer that allows British and American "Hams" to talk to each other across thousands of miles of ocean. Understanding how the ionosphere works not only has practical implications for engineers, but is also vital to modelling the atmosphere as a whole. The rewards to science will be tremendous.

I must confess that while Ariel One may be a British satellite, it was made in America for us by the NASA Goddard Flight Center. Our satellite will launched atop a Thor-Delta rocket aka Delta DM-19, which is a variant of the Thor-Able booster that launched some of America's first satellites, and is due to be launched on the 26th of April from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Launch Complex 17A.

The Thor rockets were designed for the United States Air Force as intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM), which became redundant for purpose after the introduction of the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). So arguably this is a case of swords being turned into plowshares for science. The Thor-Delta uses a Delta rocket as its upper stage, which has the new AJ10-118 engine, and the upper stage also has cold gas attitude control jets. This allows rockets to be stabilized, and the motors can also be stopped and restarted for more precise orbital insertions than were previously possible.

The Ariel One satellite has six experiments onboard, five of which will examine the relationship between two types of solar radiation and changes in the Earth's ionosphere, and the other cosmic rays. University College London has two ionospheric experiments aboard Ariel; a Langmuir probe for measuring of electron temperature and density; and a spherical probe for measurement of ion mass composition and temperature. The University of Birmingham has a plasma dielectric constant measurement of ionospheric electron density device, which uses a different method to measure electron density that complements the Langmuir probe.

In addition, University College London has two solar radiation experiments; one will measure Lyman-Alpha ultra-violet emissions; the other will measure X-Ray emissions from the Sun in the 3 to 12A band. The sixth experiment, provided Imperial College London, is a Cerenkov detector, which will measure primary cosmic ray energy spectrum, and the impact of interplanetary magnetic field modulation on this spectrum.

You may be thinking, "These experiments sound familiar. I know that NASA's Orbiting Solar Observatory, for example has similar detectors. Why do we need another satellite that does the same thing?"

That's an excellent question. There are three answers:

1) Just as more eyewitnesses create a stronger legal case or journalistic report, so do multiple satellites give a broader, mutually verifiable view of the same phenomena;

2) Different laboratories create subtly different experiment types. Thus, Ariel will look at the Sun with slightly different eyes than OSO;

3) Ariel represents an important first step in British space science, one that lays the foundation for future successes.

To finish this months article I must comment on the name Ariel, which is an interesting choice. Ariel is a Hebrew word found in the Bible. I understand it means either the Lion of God or Hearth of God, depending on interpretation. It is also the name of one of the moons of Uranus (recently visited by other members of the Journey).

But, one can’t help but think of Milton’s Paradise Lost or Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and my guess would be that it’s an allusion to the latter because Ariel was the servant of Prospero – and I have the highest hopes that Ariel One shall be successful in serving British science equally well.