Dr Bob Parkinson of the Stevenage company Astrium and father of HOTOL (the mothballed British Space Shuttle) explained: "Reconnaissance in those days meant cameras and photographic film, not electronics and so forth.

"About that time there was some thinking that in order to do that what you needed was a vehicle that flew into space and came back again, bringing the film back. So it wasn't as much a satellite as a spaceplane."

The dream lives on in Ariane

The Ariane launcher awaits lift-off

Advances in technology and political changes meant the spaceplane dream and the Brancaster spaceport were never to reach fruition.

Today you can still visit the site, where golfers and rare birds take the place of the rockets and towers. Meantime the descendent of the British rocket programme, the European Ariane launcher, thunders into the skies from the slightly warmer climate of Kouro in South America.

Internet links:
Ariane 5: Space.com
Brancaster: National Trust
British spaceplane

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