by Mark Stewart, FBIS
Editor
Odyssey – the Science Fiction, Space Art and Cultural Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society
From the BIS Archives
Building Beneath the Stars: Eric Burgess (1920 – 2005)
“The ship came down from space. It came from the stars, and the black velocities, and the shinning movements, and the silent gulfs of space…it had fire in its body, and men in its metal cells, and it moved with a clean silence, fiery and warm.”
– The Silver Locusts (1951), Ray Bradbury
“Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.”
– Edward Young (1683 – 1765)
They were rocket men long before that term became popular, building and launching miniature rockets perhaps more in hope that expectation, believing that they might, just might, see the people-carrying version in their lifetimes. Most did indeed live to see the Saturn V, a rocket perhaps they alone could have conceived of before the Space Age arrived. Even today there are those within the BIS who constructed and launched model rockets when they were boys, often to the alarm of their parents and in direct contravention of the Explosives Act. Their exploits, their bravura in the face of potential disaster, recalls to mind the famous line from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “In our youth our hearts were touched with fire.”
One such rocketeer was Eric Burgess, who belonged to a Northern branch of the BIS many years ago. Eric’s books on rockets and space travel can still be found in the BIS library and he remains an influential figure to this day, referenced in the BIS lecture programme, such as the one delivered by Martin Griffiths (University of Glamorgan) on Visions of the Future: Imaginative Literature, Spaceflight and the BIS.
Eric never stopped looking out into space; it seems his eyes were always set upon the arc made by those experimental rockets, and his visionary ideas included the original concept for the famous Pioneer plaque, which he suggested to another now erstwhile space dreamer, Carl Sagan. Pioneer 10 and 11 both carried the plaque and both were launched on mighty Atlas-Centaur rockets, machines which owe at least part of their historical antecedence to those built by youthful rockeeters such as Eric. Not bad for a boy who in June 1936, and at the age of just sixteen, founded the Manchester Interplanetary Society with its headquarters at his home. Eric went on to play an instrumental role in shaping the post-War BIS, along with Arthur Clarke and Ken Gatland.
It is perhaps not too farfetched to suggest that men like Eric contributed to a version of Bradbury’s “rocket summer,” creating an environment in which space travel and space exploration could flourish. As Ray said at the start of what remains his most famous work: “It is good to renew one’s wonder…spaceflight has again made children of us all.”
Image 1: BIS Rocketeers at work, led by 16 year old Eric Burgess (far right).
Image 2a & 2b: A message to the stars: the Pioneer plaque, as displayed by Carl Sagan in this photo, owes its existence to Eric Burgess, and may one day be “read” by an extra-terrestrial civilization.
Image 3: Eric shares his enthusiasm for space.
Image 4: Architects of the BIS, and rocketeers one and all. The post-War BIS Council with Eric Burgess in illustrious company. Back row (left to right): Val Cleaver, Ralph Smith, Les Shepherd, Ed Sawyer, J. Humphries, “Doc” A.E. Slater, G.V.E Thompson and Eric Burgess. Front row (left to right): Ken Gatland, W. Gillings, Arthur C. Clarke, Len Carter and Harry Ross.
2025-01 (submitted 04/03/2025)
