TWO

November 1969

At the Chronicle it was back to normal service for me. After a particularly dull assignment reporting on the first woman to be allowed to underwrite at Lloyds (but only through an agent), I decided it was time for a change. Handing in my piece to mark the sixth anniversary of JFK's death (the ghost of jfk - how his death still haunts us), I proposed an idea for an exciting new series of articles to the features editor. I was desperate to get away from the chief reporter, and a shift upstairs to Features seemed like the perfect solution. Plus it would pave my way from the daily grind of newspapers to the more sedate and better-paid world of magazine journalism.

Britain had been at the forefront in many areas of scientific research for decades, particularly medicine and aeronautics. But in the last five years the nation seemed to have achieved a massive leap forward in the field of microchip technology, which was having a positive overlap into other areas like space exploration.

The British Space Centre had suddenly leapt ahead of the Soviet Union and America in the space race, thanks to the rapid advances in computer technology brought by the microchip. A new launching in the Mars Probe series of flights was due in the next few months and I was determined to get the scoop on what it could mean for Britain. It seemed perverse that such a small and increasingly irrelevant nation on the world stage should be sending men to Mars when most homes only had a black-and-white television set and some still had an outhouse.

I proposed calling the series of features 'Frontier Science', to make the link between glamorous scientific pursuits like the Mars Probe and other, more conventional fields like the search for renewable energy resources and the rapid expansion of research into genetic and psychological engineering programmes. The series got a typically enthusiastic go-ahead from the features editor, Michael Dobbyn.

My first call was at the newly established Ministry of Science, to get the official Government line on this research explosion. There had been much talk from politicians about the white heat of technology, so what would they call this new interest in the sciences? As with all Government departments, getting an interview with anyone significant proved difficult. I built up a lot of good contacts that would prove useful later, but getting anyone to say anything for the record was another matter. Finally some severe string-pulling get me an appointment with the Right Honourable Frederick Masters, Permanent Under-Secretary for the Minister of Science - in two weeks time. I decided to use the delay fruitfully, getting on with my other interviews for the series.

I began with a trip to the British Space Centre in Hertfordshire. According to the Chronicle's archives, the centre had grown out of the old British Rocket Group. After a series of controversial orbital flights in the 1950s, many of its staff had moved on to other projects while others had taken early retirement. A skeleton staff remained until the recent arrival of Professor Ralph Cornish.

By all reports he brought a new enthusiasm to the BRG. He had it renamed the British Space Centre to bring its moniker in line with its new function, making Britain a force in the space race. Few believed it was possible with the limited resources and budget available but Cornish refused to accept defeat. He badgered politicians, put up a bravura performance before a fundings select committee in Parliament and begged or borrowed the equipment he needed.

The breakthrough for turning Cornish's vision into a reality came with the collapse of International Electromatics. IE and its charismatic founder Tobias Vaughn appeared from nowhere in the mid-1960s to claim eighty per cent of the global electronics market in just three years with its revolutionary new microchip technology.

But tragedy struck when Vaughn died in an explosion at his IE factory just outside London. Without his guidance IE collapsed and it was Ralph Cornish who stepped in to help Vaughn's associate Ashley Chapel sort out the mess. In return he got access to much of the cutting-edge technology Vaughn was still developing at the time of his death. With this new edge, the British Space Centre was truly revitalized.

Now the BSC was on countdown to another launch. It had just signed a precedent-setting contract with the BBC, granting the corporation exclusive broadcast rights to all future space flights. It was believed that the BBC hoped to launch its third television channel with full colour coverage of the next Mars flight.

Thanks to a drive for new funding to set up a space recovery programme, Cornish was willing to grant a few, selected interviews. I made sure I was among those invited. So I came to be driven through the security gates at the centre on a chilly November morning. After a series of elaborate security checks I was finally ushered into an office empty of everything, bar one desk, two chairs and a filing cabinet. The desk drawers were empty and the filing cabinet was locked - I know, I tried them all.

'Welcome to the British Space Centre. How can I help you, Mr...?'

PHOTO FILES

I swivelled to look at the person addressing me. I recognized the tall, rangy man standing in the doorway as Cornish from the photos we held on file at the Chronicle. He was dressed in a smart, single-breasted grey suit with highly polished black leather shoes and a crisply knotted tie over his white shirt. His hair was immaculately groomed and his eyes were slate grey, but not too cold. His appearance was clean, upright and direct. Only a slight weariness about the eyes hinted at the almost legendary long hours he worked here. I stood up to shake his hand.

'Stevens, James Stevens. I'm from the Daily Chronicle. Perhaps you can start by telling me about the problems with Mars Probe 7.'

Cornish moved around the desk and sat opposite me. He explained for what must have been the thousandth time how Mars Probe 7 had landed safely on Mars but then communications links were lost. Shortly afterwards, the craft had lifted off from the surface of Mars manually and was now on its slow return journey to Earth.