The All New All New Groundspeak UK Pub Quiz

3k · May 6, 2009

Yes, you got the ding so you set he next question.

OK, here goes:

Name the first All-British sattelite (both names it was know by), the date it was launched, by what launch vehicle and from where.

Bonus point if you can tell me where the motors for the launch vehicle were tested and what fuel they used.

Bonus, bonus point if you can tell me the name of the company that carried out the testing of the motors.

If this is the level of questions they're asking in pub quizzes nowadays I'm glad I'm too tight to drink in a pub

Anybody in here drink in the Aerospace Arms??? :huh: :huh:

1.4k · May 6, 2009

I dunno all eight answers, but I do remember there being a Black Knight rocket in Edinburgh's Chamber Street museum. Seem to recall that the blurb said it was originally an ICBM for lofting the Blue Streak bucket of sunshine but was adapted to launch Procyon or Prospero into low earth orbit.

I guess they were still using German technology then, so the fuel would have been Hydrogen Peroxide. If so, there's trick in the question because only solid fuel propulsion systems are called "motors" in rocketry. Liquid fuelled fuelled system are called "engines", not "motors".

Who developed it? I seem to recall that A.V. Roe, aka Avro, was into that sort of thing in those days while they also did the pre-development design work on the simply brilliant Vulcan.

Date? Musta been well after Sputnik and after the Septics did their pathetic ketchup thing, so post-1953. Guess 1959.

May 6, 2009

Belfast George Best Airport is the only other I *think*

What about Robin Hood Airport? Though does a semi-mythological amalgamation of actual characters, events and folk lore count?

What was wrong with Finningley anyway? Great fun landing on the grass strip in the snow after 'dive-bombing' lorries on the A1 in a chipmunk whilst in the air cadets far too many years ago.

Oh, and to add - didn't they test the motors/engines at the Needles on the Isle of Wight? I vaguely recall from the info at that site that it might have been British Guyana where they launched tests.

Edited May 6, 2009 by Guanajuato

3.8k · May 6, 2009

I seem to remember there being a rocket launch site in Australia called Woomera (or something like that). Don't know if it was ever used to launch satellites, though.

May 6, 2009

Belfast George Best Airport is the only other I *think*

Oh, and to add - didn't they test the motors/engines at the Needles on the Isle of Wight? I vaguely recall from the info at that site that it might have been British Guyana where they launched tests.

You are all getting warmer.....keep going ;-)

8.6k · May 6, 2009

No idea without googling it, but I bet it was designed by Beverley Shenstone

Chris (MrB)

1.4k · May 6, 2009

Pharisee's right about Woomera. That's where all the Brit ICBM and space launches were carried out.

If Guanajuato is right, as probably they are, then the Isle of Wight testing would have been by Saunders-Roe, not Avro as I incorrectly guessed.

Don't think British Guyana is quite right, though the surrendermonkeys have a got a launch facility next door in their bit of tropical America.

So, of the 8 elements of the question, we've got:

Q1&Q2) Satellite names

A1?) Prospero? Was that the one they had to rename from Puck because people kept mis-hearing the word Puck?

Q3) Launch date

A3?) 1959?

Q4) Rocket name

A4?) Black Knight, possibly renamed Black Somethingelse when it was retasked from lobbing buckets of sunshine at Ivan to lofting a silly wee pointless satellite into orbit. What would come after Black Knight? Black Rook? Black Bishop?

Q5) Launch site?

A5) Woomera, pretty sure 'cos that was the only test site the Brits had. The Montebellos were a target, not a launch point.

Q6) "Motor"(sic) test site

A6?) Isle of Wight?

Q7) Fuel

A7?) Hydrogen Peroxide? Mebbe with some advanced additive called XXXX?

Q8) Engine testing Company

A8?) Saunders Roe?

Can you tell us which ones have been ticked please?

May 6, 2009

Q1&Q2) Satellite names

A1?) Prospero? Was that the one they had to rename from Puck because people kept mis-hearing the word Puck?

Prospero is one of the names I was looking for, Puck was suggested but discarded. It was also known by another name. A very short one.

Q3) Launch date
A3?) 1959?

Q4) Rocket name

A4?) Black Knight, possibly renamed Black Somethingelse when it was retasked from lobbing buckets of sunshine at Ivan to lofting a silly wee pointless satellite into orbit. What would come after Black Knight? Black Rook? Black Bishop?

Q5) Launch site?

A5) Woomera, pretty sure 'cos that was the only test site the Brits had. The Montebellos were a target, not a launch point.

Woomera is CORRECT.

Q6) "Motor"(sic) test site
A6?) Isle of Wight?

CORRECT, but where?

Q7) Fuel
A7?) Hydrogen Peroxide? Mebbe with some advanced additive called XXXX?

Partialy CORRECT. More details required ;-)

Q8) Engine testing Company
A8?) Saunders Roe?

Saunders-Roe is CORRECT I would have accepted Westland too.

Keep going.....almost there

6.2k · May 6, 2009

This was featured on the BBC's Coast programme. The test site was a natural arc of land around the corner and a few hundred metres ESE of the Needles on the Isle of Wight. It used to be where three big guns used to keep Mr Hitler only kidding were kept, but it was a good spot to test the rockets as the wind would carry the toxic fumes out to sea. The satellite, still in orbit and working, was only called Prospero on the programme.

3k · May 6, 2009

Q1&Q2) Satellite names

A1?) Prospero? Was that the one they had to rename from Puck because people kept mis-hearing the word Puck?

Prospero is one of the names I was looking for, Puck was suggested but discarded. It was also known by another name. A very short one.

But Prospero wasn't launched until the early 70's ??

The first entirely British satellite was almost a decade earlier...... even though it was launched by the Americans

Name the first All-British sattelite

6.2k · May 6, 2009

My 'Big Book of Space' tells me it was October 1971, it was also known as X3 and the launch vehicle was a Black Arrow, an example of which can still be seen at the Science Museum.

7.2k · May 7, 2009

I think to keep this more fun, you should not ask so many questions so it would be easier to move to the next person.

May 7, 2009

Come on guys.. pub quiz level please. Not rocket science.

May 7, 2009

My 'Big Book of Space' tells me it was October 1971, it was also known as X3 and the launch vehicle was a Black Arrow, an example of which can still be seen at the Science Museum.

DING!, DING!, DING!

The exact date was the 28th of October 1971 at 04:09 GMT, launched using a Black Arrow rocket from launch pad 5B at Woomera Australia.

The fuel used was a mix of HTP (a high concentrate of Hydrogen Peroxide [98%] and Parafin/Kerosense). However the rocket used engines powered by this in only two of it's stages the third was powered by a solid rocket motor instead.

The Science Museum in London has the last Black Arrow rocket. The first stage engines were tested by Saunders-Roe (later part of Westland) and were tested at the Highdown facility at the Needles on the Isle of Wight.

This was the first All-British satellite, as not only was the satellite British made but so was the rocket.

The amusing fact was that Prospero (aka X-3) was actually launched after the Black Arrow project was cancelled. It seems that someone forgot to tell the staff at Woomera until after Prospero was successfully launched and placed in low orbit. The result of this was that an MP was so enraged that it had been launched after the project was cancelled that he demanded that all the staff were sacked; in the end about half of them were indeed sacked; which isn't amusing, just a sign of an MP throwing his weight around.

Over to you Simply Paul...

Edited May 7, 2009 by talkytoaster

6.2k · May 7, 2009

To be fair to The Forester I think he'd got enough for the Ding, so I'll pass the honours on to him. To echo mtn-man, it'd be good not to have to turn to a 480 page book for the answers! When he launched the original Pub Quiz The Golem was pretty clear on the rules; no online searches (unless the setter oks them for thier question alone) and the sort of question you might hear at a... you know the rest

May 7, 2009

To be fair to The Forester I think he'd got enough for the Ding, so I'll pass the honours on to him. To echo mtn-man, it'd be good not to have to turn to a 480 page book for the answers! When he launched the original Pub Quiz The Golem was pretty clear on the rules; no online searches (unless the setter oks them for thier question alone) and the sort of question you might hear at a... you know the rest

Consider me suitably chastised, I won't do it again. :blink:

In mitigation I'd like to mention that this was my first time in this particular forum thread, I don't go to pubs as a rule; have never taken part in a pub quiz, ever, but tend to watch various quiz and history/science shows on TV such as Eggheads, Weakest Link, Mastermind, Discovery Channel, Time Team and read lots of history and technical books, I may have got a little carried away.

Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Regards,

Martin

May 7, 2009

Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Regards,

Martin

Too smart for your own good. :blink:

May 7, 2009

... but tend to watch various quiz and history/science shows on TV such as Eggheads, Weakest Link, Mastermind, Discovery Channel, Time Team and read lots of history and technical books...

Heck, you don't have time to go down to the pub............

May 7, 2009

... but tend to watch various quiz and history/science shows on TV such as Eggheads, Weakest Link, Mastermind, Discovery Channel, Time Team and read lots of history and technical books...

Heck, you don't have time to go down to the pub............

No I don't, I also work 45-60 hours a week and try and geocache in my limited spare time too. Not sure how I fit in all in to be honest.

Regards,

Martin

6.2k · May 7, 2009

Consider me suitably chastised, I won't do it again.

I wasn't specifically thinking of you Martin; I thought the question you got right to pose yours was pretty tricky too! It was more of a general, gentle reminder to future setters.

1.4k · May 8, 2009

Pimply Saul is gonna have a heck of a shock if he ever tries to participate in a pub quiz in Shetland. Those people are incredibly well-read and their standard of pub quiz questions far exceeds University Challenge level.

The multipart "rocket science" Q's would have been a breeze for them, but I've already been upbraided for using the 'phone a friend' option so I didn't use that cheat.

Is it my go?

May 8, 2009

Pimply Saul is gonna have a heck of a shock if he ever tries to participate in a pub quiz in Shetland. Those people are incredibly well-read and their standard of pub quiz questions far exceeds University Challenge level.

The multipart "rocket science" Q's would have been a breeze for them, but I've already been upbraided for using the 'phone a friend' option so I didn't use that cheat.

Is it my go?

I suggest then that another thread is started for all those people here who live in Shetland. For the rest of us ignorant people we'll stay here. And yes, it's your go!

1.4k · May 8, 2009

My go?

OK. He had a mother, but no father, and only two grandparents.

Who/what is/was he?

3.9k · May 11, 2009

Dolly?

6.2k · May 11, 2009

Invention?

May 11, 2009

Going for the Sunday School answer...

Is it Jesus? Though he had (has) a father, it wasn't (isn't) in the usual sense. And definitely only two grandparents.

1.4k · May 11, 2009

Not Dolly. She was a she, not a he, and this is very specifically and exclusively a male thing.

Not an invention. Definitely a natural phenomenon.

Absolutely not an institutionalised myth that has been passed down the millennia from one religion to another to another to another such as the Zoroastrian thing of a "virgin birth" and the myth of god-head being born in a byre being regurgitated, rebranded and re-sold as a 'new' age myth every two or three millennia.

This most emphatically does not involve myth or a virgin birth (or ovines). This is real.

Time for a hint? A bagpiper would probably make a note of the answer when treating the inside of the sac of his bagpipes in a traditional way.

May 13, 2009

Random guess time - Big Ben? Nigel Benn? Uncle Ben's rice?

May 13, 2009

My go?

OK. He had a mother, but no father, and only two grandparents.

Who/what is/was he?

It's a drone bee.

1.4k · May 13, 2009

That's a ding for Naffita.

A honeybee queen mates with several drones in a single flight and stores that lifetime supply of sperm in her spermatheca. The workers construct honeycomb cells of about five millimeters wide for young worker eggs to be laid in and for their transformation into young adult workers. The queen measures the cell and if it's of the standard size she fertilises a single egg with a single sperm and deposits the egg at the base of the cell. The workers also construct a few percent of the cells to a size about 20% larger than the standard worker cell. When the queen finds a clean and freshly polished larger cell she lays an unfertilised egg which then becomes a drone.

Very much like Westminster MPs, drones are lazy lunks who are too stupid to be able to feed themselves. They have to be fed vast amounts of precious resources by the workers. Also like MPs, they make a characteristic monotonous and loud droning noise in the hive and only venture out if there's a prospect of some bonking to be done.

May 13, 2009

That's a ding for Naffita.

A honeybee queen mates with several drones in a single flight and stores that lifetime supply of sperm in her spermatheca. The workers construct honeycomb cells of about five millimeters wide for young worker eggs to be laid in and for their transformation into young adult workers. The queen measures the cell and if it's of the standard size she fertilises a single egg with a single sperm and deposits the egg at the base of the cell. The workers also construct a few percent of the cells to a size about 20% larger than the standard worker cell. When the queen finds a clean and freshly polished larger cell she lays an unfertilised egg which then becomes a drone.

But that drone still rpvides the sperm, even if it's stored, so the bee will have a father i.e. the donor drone?

1.4k · May 13, 2009

No. A drone has only a mother, not a father. To have had a father his mother would have needed to fertilise the egg. She doesn't fertilise a drone egg. That's what makes it a drone egg.

The fact that she still has sperm aboard after laying the drone egg is irrelevant.

A drone has a reduced number of chromosomes, though I can't remember how many. Just like some Tory MPs, a drone comes from a rather shallow gene pool.

May 13, 2009

No. A drone has only a mother, not a father. To have had a father his mother would have needed to fertilise the egg. She doesn't fertilise a drone egg. That's what makes it a drone egg.

The fact that she still has sperm aboard after laying the drone egg is irrelevant.

A drone has a reduced number of chromosomes, though I can't remember how many. Just like some Tory MPs, a drone comes from a rather shallow gene pool.

Ah that makes sense. Presumably the drones are therefore haploid rather than diploid, that is each has only one copy of each chromosome rather than two?

May 13, 2009

We had this one in our local a couple of weeks ago.

Why is a camel hair brush called 'a camel hair brush'

May 13, 2009

We had this one in our local a couple of weeks ago.

Why is a camel hair brush called 'a camel hair brush'

Because its used to brush camels hair ?? :blink:

3k · May 13, 2009

Because Mr Camel invented it?

May 13, 2009

Because Mr Camel invented it?

Thats a DING

3k · May 13, 2009

Because Mr Camel invented it?

Thats a DING

hahahaha - naaah - don't be silly.........

3k · May 14, 2009

What was the second biggest city in England at the time of the American Revolution in 1776 ?

May 14, 2009

I shall guess at Liverpool

1.4k · May 14, 2009

Bristle?

May 14, 2009

And I should reckon it's Bristol because of the slave trade.

Aaaargh, beaten with typing time by Forester!

Edited May 14, 2009 by kennamatic

6.2k · May 14, 2009

Going for a long shot:

London

3k · May 14, 2009

I shall guess at Liverpool

Nope

Bristle?

Ding :blink:

And I should reckon it's Bristol because of the slave trade.

Aaaargh, beaten with typing time by Forester!

Slave trade? What slave trade. No slaves were traded in or out of Bristol......

Going for a long shot:

London

Nope

Over to the Forester (again)

1.4k · May 14, 2009

Slave trade? What slave trade. No slaves were traded in or out of Bristol......

OK, they weren't slaves, they were "guest workers" who volunteered to go to the Caribbean to get a sun tan.

Now, most of us who read maps can read the contours as easily as reading a face. It's almost as if maps were always drawn that way. Actually, contours are a relatively modern way of depicting topography on maps.

Who was the first to join the dots of equal height and display those lines as contours?

3k · May 14, 2009

Slave trade? What slave trade. No slaves were traded in or out of Bristol......

OK, they weren't slaves, they were "guest workers" who volunteered to go to the Caribbean to get a sun tan.

Now, most of us who read maps can read the contours as easily as reading a face. It's almost as if maps were always drawn that way. Actually, contours are a relatively modern way of depicting topography on maps.

Who was the first to join the dots of equal height and display those lines as contours?

According to Bill Bryson it was Charles Hutton.......

And Bristol wasn't a slave port.....it was one corner of a triangular route that took slaves from Africa to America....but they never came in or out of Bristol as a commodity.

1.4k · May 14, 2009

Bristol's prosperity most certainly was mostly derived from the slave trade. This document shows that over 2,000 slave voyages sailed from/to Bristle between 1698 and 1807 and that by the time the trade was abolished and Bristle's decline began most of the city's prosperity was derived from the slave trade.

A ding for Hutton though. Actually I'd have preferred the more factually accurate answer of Maskelyne as it was he who instructed Hutton in the new form of graphical representation of hypsographic data, not the other way around, but we must accept that pop-culture has obscured historical reality, especially where Maskelyne is concerned. Dava Sobel's otherwise excellent little book, Longitude, practically turns him into a pantomime villain and almost exhorts the reader to boo and hiss every time his name is mentioned.

It's odd that pop-culture inverts villains into heroes and vice-versa. Gangstas and muggers like Robin Hood and Ronnie Biggs are treated like folk heroes while blatant swindlers occupy the front and back benches of the houses of parliament and truly brilliant scientists like Maskelyne are excoriated.

Neverthelees a fair dinkum ding to Don Keehotee for Hutton.

May 19, 2009

Calling Keehotee.............Calling Keehotee..............

3k · May 19, 2009

Whoops - OK, a real quicky...

According to the Guardian today - what's close to breakdown?

p.s. yes - nobody would deny that Bristol's prosperity came about as a result of the slave trade - but Bristol was not a slave port...... ships from Bristol carried goods to Africa, where they were traded for slaves for transportation to the Americas, before returning to Bristol with tobacco, coffee, coco, cotton, etc

Edited May 19, 2009 by keehotee

May 20, 2009

Is visiting the Grauniad website allowed? Or are you limiting it to people who buy that wooly rubbish?

I know the answer...

The All New All New Groundspeak UK Pub Quiz

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