Geoffrey Pardoe
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Geoffrey Keith Charles Pardoe
Early life
He attended Wanstead County High School, a co-educational grammar school in Wanstead, east London. He attended and gained a BScEng from Loughborough of College of Technology (the college's degree was awarded by the University of London). He later gained a PhD in Astronautics from Loughborough University in 1984.
Career
From 1949-1951 he was senior aerodynamicist at
De Havilland was given the Blue Streak ballistic missile project, and he was the project manager from 1956-60. In 1959 he proposed a scheme known as Black Prince[1] whereby a Blue Streak would be the main first stage, with the second stage a Black Knight, with a third stage a military solid rocket on top. It was also considered to have a Black Arrow as the second stage or third stage.[2][3]
On 13 April 1960 the Blue Streak project was abruptly cancelled. He argued in September 1959 that the space vehicle could be transformed into the first stage of a European rocket launcher. He spoke fluent French and German. He found it difficult to forgive the British government when it withdrew from the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) in 1968, with funding finishing in 1971. The government was paying £9 million a year to ELDO, which he argued was less than a few miles of motorway, and that leaving ELDO would keep Britain out of spaceflight forever, which was largely later proved correct (although work on satellites would continue). The French government would later massively support the Ariane project. By 1988 Ariane had around £2 billion worth of orders for flights. The earlier British rocket project was later referred to as the ill-fated Blue Streak, but it was only ill fated at the administrative level, not the technical.
De Havilland merged with Hawker Siddeley in 1960, and he was the chief engineer of
From 1993 until his death in 1996, he was director of the International Academy of Science. In 1986 he became chairman of the Watt Committee on Energy. From 1984 to 1985 he was president of the Royal Aeronautical Society. The RAeS has honoured him with the Geoffrey Pardoe Space Award.[4]
British Space Development Company
In 1960 the
The idea was flatly turned down by the British government on the grounds that such a system could not be envisaged in the next 20 years (1961–81). America then set up COMSAT in 1963, resulting in Intelsat, the world's largest fleet (52) of commercial satellites. The first of Intelsat's fleet, Intelsat I (Early Bird) was launched in April 1965. Intelsat has been commercially very successful.
Private finance would have been available for the project, but the project was scuppered by not receiving government approval. Later in the mid-1980s he campaigned for a British space agency, as Britain was the only main Western country not to have one, even though the Chairman of the European Space Agency, from 1984-7, was Britain's Dr (later Professor) Harry Atkinson. The BNSC was formed in 1985.
General Technology Systems
He founded the consultancy General Technology Systems in
The cost would be around £10,000 per kg. The company LittLEO Ltd was established. A first launch was planned for 1992. It would have been multi-staged with a solid fuel propellant.Broadcasting
During the
Personal life
He married Patricia Gutteridge in 1953. They had a son and a daughter. He died of a heart attack aged 67 on a business visit to attend meetings at the International Academy of Science in Kansas City, Missouri.
He was made OBE in 1988, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1968, and of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1988.
Publications
- The Future for Space Technology 17 May 1984, ISBN 0-86187-462-5
See also
References
- ^ "Black Prince 1959". Archived from the original on 18 March 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- ^ "Space Policy (Hansard, 30 March 1988)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- ^ "1978 | 1252 | Flight Archive". Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- ^ "Specialist Group Awards". Royal Aeronautical Society.
- ^ Information, Reed Business (21 January 1989). "New Scientist". Reed Business Information. Retrieved 18 August 2019 – via Google Books.
{{cite web}}:|first=has generic name (help)
External links
- Geoffrey Pardoe at IMDb
Video clips
- Discussing on BBC1 on YouTube with Michael Rodd the launch of STS-1on 12 April 1981
- Panorama 20 July 1969 - The Impact on Earth