When Britain Had the Right Stuff

Richard Hollingham uncovers the forgotten history of Britons in space and asks why - after decades of indifference - the British government is now supporting space flight.

When Tim Peake flies to the International Space Station, he will become Britain's first official astronaut. But he won't be the first Briton in space. At the end of the Second World War, Britain had the skills to develop its own human space flight programme. But the government decided to invest in satellite technology.

Drawing on little-heard radio and television archive from the 1950s, Richard Hollingham discovers that, despite government indifference, there was a widely-held belief that Britain would soon have its own astronauts.

Richard tells the forgotten story of two servicemen, Nigel Wood and Richard Farrimond, who joined the Space Shuttle programme as satellite payload specialists. Their flight was cancelled after the Challenger explosion in January 1986. In 1991, Helen Sharman became Britain's first cosmonaut when she spent eight days on the Russian spaceship Mir. In new interviews, Richard talks to them about their contributions to the history of British space flight.

Presenter: Richard Hollingham
Producer: John Watkins
A Boffin Media production for BBC Radio 4.