British Rocket Group

The British Rocket Group was the United Kingdom's space exploration organisation in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

History

Formation

After the war, the Group hired Heinrich Schumann, a German professor. He was (correctly) suspected of being a Nazi war criminal by his co-workers but was never charged. (AUDIO: Threshold) Other post-war staff included Professor Jeffrey Broderick, Professor Rachel Jensen, Allison Williams, and a man called Bernard. (AUDIO: Artificial Intelligence, TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) Philanthropist Sir Keith Kordel was heavily involved in funding their early days. (AUDIO: Rise and Shine)

During the 1950s and early 1960s, it was famous for its pioneering work on propulsion systems and rocket guidance arrays and for a serious of controversial orbital flights. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) In 1953, it sent an experimental three-man mission into space. Only one astronaut returned, infected with an extraterrestrial parasite. He mutated into an alien creature whom the director of the Rocket Group ended up defeating in London in front of BBC cameras; the broadcast was subsequently passed off as hyperrealistic science fiction to prevent mass panic.(PROSE: Background) One of the Group's scientists be made the scapegoat for the failure, jailed for negligence, and have his existence erased. (PROSE: The Analysis Bureau)

In 1955, the British Rocket Group would once again help thwart an alien invasion, this time at a refinery in Essex. (PROSE: Background)

In 1959 it collaborated with the United States of America on an experimental space plane, the Waverider; the project director was Edward Drakefell. The Waverider was destroyed in an encounter with a hostile parallel universe. (PROSE: Loving the Alien)

The Group was reduced to a skeleton crew by the 1960s. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

In 1963, the Intrusion Countermeasures Group drafted Jensen and Williams to help with the Shoreditch Incident. Jensen remarked that the British Rocket Group had problems. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)

In the mid 1960s, when the Group launched from Herefordshire, the Light Sleepers brainwashed Sir Keith into hijacking a satellite launch to send pathogens around the world. Countermeasures thwarted it but many staff were killed. (AUDIO: Rise and Shine)

During the Cyberman invasion, Britain did not have an available launch vehicle that could reach the moon. Only the Soviet Union and America were capable. (TV: The Invasion)

Mars Probes

When Professor Ralph Cornish took over, the Group was rejuvenated and renamed the British Space Centre. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

By one account, the secret use of Cyberman technology allowed it to jump to the forefront of the space race and by 1969 (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) it was running the Mars Probe series of spaceflights to Mars. (TV: The Ambassadors of Death) By another account, shortly before the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and before the Cyberman invasion, Cornish's team sent Mars Probe 5 in secret and Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart was unaware the Group existed at all. (PROSE: Moon Blink)

The British Space Centre lost contact with Mars Probe 7 after it landed on Mars. The ship was believed lost until it was spotted heading back to Earth and after seven months, the Centre sent up another ship, Recovery 7, to retrive the crew. The events were followed live across the world. (TV: The Ambassadors of Death)

By 1970, the name was Rocket Group again. Cornish was in overall charge of Britain's space programme and Professor Bernard Trainor ran the Group. It was instrumental in getting useful information about Neptune and Uranus from unmanned probes. Trainor was killed that year during the Waro attack. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune)

The Martian missions ended in the late 1970s after Mars Probe 13 was slaughtered by the Ice Warriors. As part of a peace deal with the Ice Warriors, lead astronaut Alexander Christian was framed for murder and Britain lied that Mars couldn't support life. (PROSE: The Dying Days)

By 1977, Liz Shaw was working for the Rocket Group. They were considering building a moonbase. (AUDIO: The Cloisters of Terror)

By 1997, the Science Minister Lord Edward Greyhaven pushed for a new Mars 97 manned mission as part of a conspiracy: to give an Ice Warrior faction an excuse to invade and occupy Britain. (PROSE: The Dying Days)

The 21st century

The British Rocket Group was either renamed or replaced by the BSP from 1997. (AUDIO: Dark Side of the Moon)

In 2006, Prime Minister Harriet Jones oversaw the launch of the Guinevere One satellite. This was launched by the British Rocket Group under Professor Daniel Llewellyn. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)

Britain's space programme had a reputation for amateurism in 2015. There was a tracking station in Buckinghamshire. (AUDIO: The Eight Truths)

In the early to mid 21st century, the space tourism billionaire Campbell Irons bought the Rocket Group and moved it to Devesham. (AUDIO: The Feast of Axos)

Alternate timelines

In a Parallel universe nicknamed 'the dark dimension', Edward Travers was part of the Rocket Group. The BRG managed a successful manned launch in 1952 and were publicly celebrated. (PROSE: The Analysis Bureau)

Behind the scenes

The British Rocket Group were the protagonists in the influential Quatermass sci-fi serials. The mention of the Group and "Bernard" (Quatermass' first name) was an Easter egg reference by Ben Aaronovitch. In Quatermass, they were originally called the British Experimental Rocket Group. Doctor Who Magazine would refer to the first two serials in text features, The Analysis Bureau would refer to the third, and Lance Parkin wrote Quatermass in The Dying Days as the pessimistic, paranoid version from the final serial, which had been set in the late 1990s.

Who Killed Kennedy states that their name was changed by Ralph Cornish, explaining why a different name was used in The Ambassadors of Death.

The Ambassadors of Death was written to be set in the future but due to the UNIT dating controversy, it can't take place far enough from 1970 to explain a series of British Mars ships. Who Killed Kennedy retconned that the Mars Probes are using post-invasion Cyberman technology to make vast leaps.

While the agency is unnamed in The Christmas Invasion, a "British Rocket Group" logo is visible in the background. The BBC created an in-universe tie-in website for the Guinevere One which included a Rocket Group history.

External links

• British Experimental Rocket Group website (promotional website for the 2005 The Quatermass Experiment remake)
• Guinevere One: "About the British Rocket Group" archive