BBC FOUR: Timeshift: How Britain Won the Space Race: The Story of Bernard Lovell and Jodrell Bank

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    Description

    The unlikely story of how one man with some ex-WWII army equipment eventually turned a muddy field in Cheshire into a key site in the space race. That man was Bernard Lovell, and his telescope at Jodrell Bank would be used at the height of the Cold War by both the Americans and the Russians to track their competing spacecraft. It also put Britain at the forefront of radio astronomy, a new science which transformed our knowledge of space and provided the key to understanding the most mind-bending theory of the beginnings of the universe - the Big Bang.

    Period9 Aug 2017

    Media contributions

    1

    Media contributions

    • TitleHow Britain Won the Space Race: The Story of Bernard Lovell and Jodrell Bank
      Media name/outletBBC Four
      Media typeTelevision
      Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
      Date9/08/17
      DescriptionThe unlikely story of how one man with some ex-WWII army equipment eventually turned a muddy field in Cheshire into a key site in the space race. That man was Bernard Lovell, and his telescope at Jodrell Bank would be used at the height of the Cold War by both the Americans and the Russians to track their competing spacecraft. It also put Britain at the forefront of radio astronomy, a new science which transformed our knowledge of space and provided the key to understanding the most mind-bending theory of the beginnings of the universe - the Big Bang.
      URLwww.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06pm5vf
      PersonsTimothy O'Brien

    Keywords

    • Jodrell Bank
    • Bernard Lovell
    • astronomy
    • the Space Race
    • University heritage