The military and early United Kingdom space policy

Abstract

For nearly a decade after 1955, the UK military establishment struggled to reach consensus on the military value of space applications. Because of the pivotal role of military technology in all early space activity, and the virtual necessity for some form of military subsidy to go about it, military equivocation had very serious effects on the development of UK space policy as a whole. When, in the early 1960s, a measure of military consensus was achieved, economic straits encouraged alliance with civil interests and maximum co‐operation with the UK's allies.