Reggie The Rocket: What Goes Up Usually Comes Back Down

By Douglas, Anderson

The story of Reggie The Rocket closely tracks the history of the 1960s British Blue Streak rocket program. The author Douglas Anderson worked on the assembly and testing of the Rolls-Royce RZ2 engines powering the Blue Streak and was present in Woomera, Australia, for the launch of F3. Based on that experience, Douglas has assigned a personality to the rockets and has thus woven a whimsical element into an otherwise historical account of the Blue Streak Program. Reggie The Rocket is F3, the third in line to be launched, and Douglas was there to cheer him on. It is a sad reality that most heavy-lift booster rockets have been launched only to return to earth as scrap metal or to have disappeared into the ocean depths. Only now, fifty years after Blue Streak, are serious attempts being made to return booster rockets safely back to the launch pad under their own power so they can be reused. The days of 'throw away' rockets must surely come to an end if humans are to continue with orbital flights and deep space exploration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publication Consultants
• Release date: Apr 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781594335495

Douglas, Anderson

Douglas Anderson was born in Derbyshire, England. After his father passed away Douglas went to live on his Grandfather's farm. Never very interested in animal husbandry, Douglas leaned more toward the mechanical aspects of farming, maintaining machinery and the like. After an apprenticeship in the mechanical field, Douglas joined Rolls-Royce and began an interesting and diverse career. In ensuing years that career involved: aircraft jet engines, rocket engines and industrial gas turbines. Douglas immigrated to Canada in 1967, to Alaska, USA in 1977 and back to Canada in 2001. His years spent in Alaska, flying, hiking and prospecting and enjoying other outdoor adventures with his friend Hagen Gauss prompted him to start writing.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Blue Streak Family

During the ‘cold war’ years of the 1950s and 1960s there lived a family of large rockets named Blue Streak. The Blue Streaks were assembled in a factory near London, England. They were large rockets—the largest outside of the USA and Soviet Russia—and they had with two very powerful engines.

At first the Blue Streaks were kept very secret because they were designed to carry nuclear bombs and thus had to be hidden from public eyes most of the time. Unless they worked in the manufacturing of the rocket, most people were prevented from seeing them or even knowing what they could do.

In the early days the Blue Streaks were destined to live in special holes in the ground, called silos which had a very strong lid on top. It was believed the Blue Streaks would be both hidden and protected in there until people decided they needed to be launched. Then they would only be launched in response to a nuclear attack. People called them defensive.

The Blue Streaks were not very happy about being enclosed in a deep silo because it would take a long time to supply them with 60 tons of super cold liquid oxygen and 27 tons of kerosene they needed to feed their two powerful RZ2 rocket engines.

Blue Streaks had lots of energy and needed tons of fuel because they were designed to fly a great distance, deliver a nuclear warhead, and inflict a lot of damage on an enemy.

Important people in the British government were finally convinced the Blue Streaks would be useless as defensive weapons because it was taking too long to feed them. It would be better if the Blue Streaks could be kept above ground and then they would try to find some other use for them.

Now the Blue Streaks need not be kept so wrapped up in secrecy and people could finally marvel at the sleek lines of the awesome rocket. They were suitably impressed and could appreciate where their hard-earned tax money had been going.

There were many Blue Streaks already assembled so they were stored away in warehouses and left there while people decided what to do. People had given each rocket an identification number, starting at #1, so they could keep track of them all.

Blue Streak #3 became a special favorite of ours so we like to call him Reggie