The point was made by Mr. Woodrow Wyatt, Labour MP for Bosworth, who was given leave by the Commons last week to bring in a Bill to provide for the appointment of a Minister of Space Research and Development.
He said: “We shall make no real progress in this important new field until we have a Minister in the Cabinet whose responsibility it is to co-ordinate everything to do with space.”
So, 64 years ago, stsrted a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of March 29th 1961
The story continues:
The Americans knew that there was an enormous profit to be made out of communication satellite systems.
In this country officials of the Postmaster General, who was responsible for going into this prob-lem, had refused to consult in-dustry. As a result firms like English Electric, Hawker-Siddeley and Pye were making parallel studies at the same time as the PMG.
Expense and effort were being duplicated. What was needed was a Minister to tackle the problems.
