British National Committee for Space Research

Short description: Committee of the Royal Society

British National Committee for Space ResearchAbbreviation| BNCSR

|

Formation| 18 December 1958
Purpose| Space exploration research in the UK

Region served

| UK

Membership

| Space scientists, physicists

Chairman

| Sir Harrie Massey

Parent organization

| Royal Society
Affiliations| Committee on Space Research

The British National Committee for Space Research (BNCSR) was a Royal Society committee formed in December 1958. It was formed primarily to be Britain's interface with the newly formed Committee on Space Research (COSPAR).

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Subcommittees
* 3 See also
* 4 Notes
* 5 References

## History

In October 1958, the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) proposed to form a committee for space research. The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) was the result of the proposal and first met in November 1958.[1] Britain desired a new committee to interface with COSPAR and to organise British spaceflight activities after the International Geophysical Year (IGY).[1][2] The Royal Society consolidated the Gassiot Committee's rocket and the National IGY Committee's artificial satellite subcommittees into the newly formed British National Committee for Space Research (BNCSR).[3] The BNCSR was officially formed on 18 December 1958 and selected its members 12 February 1959.[3][4] The 28-person committee was chaired by Harrie Massey and had W. V. D. Hodge as the physical secretary.[4][5] The subcommittees that were to be incorporated into BNCSR submitted their final reports during the committee's first meeting on 4 March 1959 and were officially dissolved.[6]

## Subcommittees

The BNCSR formed three subcommittees: Tracking Analysis and Data Recovery (TADREC, chaired by J. A. Ratcliffe),[7] Design for Experiments (DOE, chaired by Massey), and another to coordinate with the World Data Centre at Radio Research Station (RRS) at Slough (chaired by E. Bullard).[8][6]

TADREC took over the work National IGY Committee's artificial satellite subcommittee.[9]

DOE continued the work of the National IGY Committee's artificial satellite subcommittee.[9] The new subcommittee had two initials tasks: to find artificial satellites to launch on and to consider if it was worth providing attitude control to Skylark for better scientific results.[8]

## See also

* List of astronomical societies

## Notes

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Massie & Robins 1986, p. 59.
2. ↑ Millard 2005, p. 9.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Massie & Robins 1986, p. 62.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Pounds 2010, p. S69.
5. ↑ Godwin 2007, p. 62.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Massie & Robins 1986, p. 63.
7. ↑ King-Hele 2005, p. 71.
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Pounds 2010, p. S70.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Massie & Robins 1986, p. 64.

## References

* Godwin, Matthew (2007). The Skylark Rocket: British Space Science and the European Space Research Organisation, 1957–1972. Editions Beauchesne. ISBN 9782701015118.
* Massie, Harrie; Robins, M. O. (1986). History of British Space Science. Cambridge University Press. pp. 106–108. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511898075. ISBN 9780511898075.
* King-Hele, D. (2005). A Tapestry of Orbits. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521017329.
* Millard, Douglas (April 2005). "An Overview of United Kingdom Space Activity 1957–1987". Esa History Study Reports (The Netherlands: ESA). HSR-36. ISSN 1683-4704. https://www.esa.int/esapub/hsr/HSR_36.pdf.
* Pounds, Ken (14 July 2010). "The Royal Society's formative role in UK space research". Notes and Records of the Royal Society 64: S65–S76. doi:10.1098/rsnr.2010.0039. ISSN 1743-0178. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2010.0039.

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British National Committee for Space Research. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Organization:British_National_Committee_for_Space_Research&oldid=735403"