Since the Kremer Prize rules were laid down in 1959, a dozen or more man-powered aircraft projects have evolved. Five single-seat aircraft have sustained flight following unassisted take-off, and the question is no longer “Can man fly?” but “How well can he fly?”. Although flights in excess of halt a mile have been achieved, the prize has remained tantalisingly just out of reach, but close enough to encourage the development of this type of flying machine.

The purpose of this prologue is to outline how I have approached the arrogant and impossible task of surveying an unborn century of law. I may also be able to illustrate that the nature and quality of the task is completely different from that attempted in the preceding papers.

In the whole paper I have done little more than infer repeatedly, in different ways

1. (a) that the shape of the future so far as law is concerned will be determined by the methods of communication adopted between sectors of the aerospace community and between the aerospace community and society at large, and

2. (b) that the search for effective methods of communication is urgent.

But my target is not the lawyers of our community—who I am not qualified to advise. I write for the other members of the Royal Aeronautical Society and I return to the task of persuading them that they have a role to play in evolving future laws for aerospace activities.

In 1962 and 1963, the two Telstar experimental satellites were launched demonstrating the feasibility of transmitting television pictures by satellite link. Since this time, the Early Bird satellite (launched in 1965) and, subsequently, the Intelsat II satellites have demonstrated that point-to-point relay of television using synchronous satellites is an economic and a practical proposition for operational use. Many satellite systems have also been considered for television distribution between continents or between countries in a continent, or even within a country. Such satellites are Intelsat III, Intelsat IV, CETS-ESRO satellites and the Franco-German Symphonie satellites. The use of satellites for television distribution in this way solves only one small part of the television distributors problems. The largest problem is that of ensuring a good ground coverage of the broadcasting signals so that the percentage of homes which can receive television without complex aerials or amplifying equipment approaches 100%.

The North Atlantic is increasingly developing into the main trade route of the age. Shipping, the pioneer along this highway of commerce, in the past decade has been joined by air traffic displaying a striking growth rate. Not only is the number of aircraft simultaneously plying the Atlantic routes constantly on the increase, but also the volume of passengers and freight transported on each flight. The question, whether such flow of traffic in the air and on water could be dealt with in future with the safety to which it is entitled, has led to world-wide discussions over the past few years concerning the necessity for an air traffic surveillance system for the North Atlantic area. A further question, whether one should not include also sea traffic in such a system suggested itself. The initiative for holding such discussions naturally proceeded less from air and shipping undertakings, but rather from those committees who are entrusted in supervising the safety in the conduct of man and merchandise.

The Missile and Space Division of the General Electric Company, under contract to NASA, is responsible for the following aspects of the NIMBUS Programme:

1. Integration and test of the sensor ring and the power and attitude control housing;

2. Design, fabrication and test of vehicle structure;

3. Design, fabrication and test of thermo-control, wiring harness, paddle unfold, and spacecraft separation sub-systems;

4. Ground station operations and maintenance at Valley Forge, Pa;

5. Technical support at the launch site;

6. Spacecraft operations at Goddard Space Flight Center during orbit;

7. Systems definition study for NIMBUS E and F.

Interest in meteorological research by means of artificial earth satellites began in the United States during the period of the IGY (1956-58) when two US experimenters, W. Stroud and V. Suomi, respectively developed experiments for elementary cloud photography and infra-red energy balance measurements to be orbited in IGY satellites.

The direct use of satellites is already beginning to have enormous influence on the development of civilisation in our world. An initial study of the benefits to be obtained for mankind by the use of satellites to survey the natural and man-made resources of the earth leads to the inescapable conclusion that this will undoubtedly be one of the major applications of satellite technology that will evolve in the next few years. It is only very few years ago that the real impact of this use of space became evident, but already in that period of time an extremely wide range of types of measurements and different use of such data has been examined and a considerable amount of experimental work been carried out both in earth terrestrial laboratory conditions and also using equipment orbiting in space. There is now a wealth of data on what is possible already and might be possible in this new field of endeavour. I shall attempt in this paper to summarise the main potentialities of different types of systems and try and relate some of the key elements of the satellites to the natural resources being observed.

This paper is a reaction paper, in the sense that the author has recently been concerned, both as an economist and a technological forecaster, with looking at the total economic consequences of space activity. I describe it as a reaction paper because, as a hopefully “professional” worker, I am not amused at the methods used to evaluate proposals in this particular field, and, if one is restricted solely to the normal, customary, accepted criteria of economic reasoning, it is impossible not to react violently to the near confusion of arguments and decision-taking mechanisms in this subject.

Although the past year cannot be classed as an outstanding one, nevertheless, there are some items which are worthy of noting and recording. The number of Fellows elected was the largest ever elected in one year, and the total number of members increased steadily if not spectacularly. It is of much concern to the Council that the number of Graduates and Students diminishes, and in the oncoming year efforts will be made to counteract this tendency.

A Joint Policy Committee has been formed with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Institution of Production Engineers to investigate all possibilities of cooperation in establishing joint policies and activities and even administration. At present, the Committee is investigating areas of such co-operation.

In the effort to develop a cheap power source for developing areas we have designed and constructed a 32-ft (9·75 m) diameter airscrew windmill. The airscrew designed by ourselves, incorporates the most recent aerodynamic theory. It comprises three blades manufactured under contract by a Canadian firm in fibre-glass reinforced epoxy resin. The manufacturing method is reasonably inexpensive and gives scope for local production in the developing countries at a later date. The shaft drive down the tower incorporates standard automobile and truck transmission components, which are available cheaply in many countries.

In recent years there has been an increasing need for data on the rates of fatigue crack propagation in alloys of interest to the aircraft industry. In general alloys in which cracks grow slowly, under given stress conditions, have an obvious advantage over those in which cracks grow faster; there is more time to detect a crack before failure. It is possible that, in the future, quantitative crack propagation data may be used to give better estimates of the safe life of a structure. There is, however, a need to rationalise the presentation of such data and to study the effect of such parameters as specimen geometry and stress level. Some experiments to investigate the effect of varying some of these parameters in one clad aluminium alloy, DTD 5070A are described. It is a summary of work contained in two RAE Technical Reports.