1.
Moon
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The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earths only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, following Jupiters satellite Io, the Moon is second-densest satellite among those whose densities are known. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 384,400 km, the Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. It is the second-brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earths sky, after the Sun and its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its cycle of phases have made the Moon an important cultural influence since ancient times on language, calendars, art. The Moons gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future. The Moons linear distance from Earth is currently increasing at a rate of 3.82 ±0.07 centimetres per year, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft. The usual English proper name for Earths natural satellite is the Moon, the noun moon is derived from moone, which developed from mone, which is derived from Old English mōna, which ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn, like all Germanic language cognates. Occasionally, the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of our moon. The principal modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, a less common adjective is selenic, derived from the Ancient Greek Selene, from which is derived the prefix seleno-. Both the Greek Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia, the names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune, pericynthion, and selenocentric. The name Diana is connected to dies meaning day, several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moons formation 4.51 billion years ago, and some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These hypotheses also cannot account for the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence, eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists, You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to computer, do whatever you have to. Dont come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moons birth, at the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most popular. Afterward there were only two groups, the giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System, computer simulations of a giant impact have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the present angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system
2.
Robotic spacecraft
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A robotic spacecraft is an uncrewed spacecraft, usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to lower cost, in addition, some planetary destinations such as Venus or the vicinity of Jupiter are too hostile for human survival, given current technology. Outer planets such as Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are too distant to reach with current crewed spaceflight technology, many artificial satellites are robotic spacecraft, as are many landers and rovers. The first robotic spacecraft was launched by the Soviet Union on 22 July 1951, four other such flights were made through the fall of 1951. The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was put into a 215-by-939-kilometer Earth orbit by the USSR) on 4 October 1957, on 3 November 1957, the USSR orbited Sputnik 2. Weighing 113 kilograms, Sputnik 2 carried the first living animal into orbit, since the satellite was not designed to detach from its launch vehicles upper stage, the total mass in orbit was 508.3 kilograms. In a close race with the Soviets, the United States launched its first artificial satellite, Explorer 1, into a 193-by-1, 373-nautical-mile orbit on 31 January 1958. Explorer I was a 80. 75-inch long by 6. 00-inch diameter cyllynder weighing 30.8 pounds, compared to Sputnik 1, a 58-centimeter sphere which weighed 83.6 kilograms. Explorer 1 carried sensors which confirmed the existence of the Van Allen belts, on 17 March 1958, the US orbited its second satellite, Vanguard 1, which was about the size of a grapefruit, and remains in a 360-by-2, 080-nautical-mile orbit as of 2016. Nine other countries have successfully launched satellites using their own vehicles, France, Australia, Japan and China, the United Kingdom, India, Israel, Iran. In spacecraft design, the United States Air Force considers a vehicle to consist of the mission payload, the bus provides physical structure, thermal control, electrical power, attitude control and telemetry, tracking and commanding. JPL divides the system of a spacecraft into subsystems. These include, This is the backbone structure. It, provides overall mechanical integrity of the spacecraft ensures spacecraft components are supported and can withstand launch loads This is sometimes referred to as the command, components in the telecommunications subsystem include radio antennas, transmitters and receivers. These may be used to communicate with stations on Earth. The supply of power on spacecraft generally come from photovoltaic cells or from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Other components of the subsystem include batteries for storing power and distribution circuitry that connects components to the power sources, spacecraft are often protected from temperature fluctuations with insulation
3.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
4.
Luna programme
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The Luna programme, occasionally called Lunik or Lunnik by western media, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. Fifteen were successful, each designed as either an orbiter or lander and they also performed many experiments, studying the Moons chemical composition, gravity, temperature, and radiation. Twenty-four spacecraft were formally given the Luna designation, although more were launched and those that failed to reach orbit were not publicly acknowledged at the time, and not assigned a Luna number. Those that failed in low Earth orbit were usually given Cosmos designations, the estimated cost of the Luna programme was about $4.5 billion. Luna 1 missed its intended impact with the Moon and became the first spacecraft to fall into orbit around the Sun, Luna 2 mission successfully hit the Moons surface, becoming the first man-made object to reach the Moon. Luna 3 rounded the Moon later that year, and returned the first photographs of its far side, Luna 9 became the first probe to achieve a soft landing on another planetary body. It returned five black and white stereoscopic circular panoramas, which were the first close-up shots of the Lunar surface, Luna 10 became the first artificial satellite of the Moon. Luna 17 and Luna 21 carried the Lunokhod vehicles, which roamed around on the Moons terrain, another major achievement of the Luna programme, with Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24, was the ability to collect samples of lunar soil and return them to Earth. The programme returned 0.326 kg of lunar samples, the Luna missions were the first space-exploration sample return missions to rely solely on advanced robotics. Luna 15, also designed to return samples from the lunar surface. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were already on the surface when Luna 15 began its descent. While the programme was active, it was Soviet practice not to any details of missions which had failed to achieve orbit. When details of Soviet launches were later disclosed, no launches of Luna spacecraft were found to have occurred on those dates
5.
Radar altimeter
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The utilization of radio altimeter equipment is categorised as so-called safety-of-life service, must be protected for Interferences, and is an essential part of Navigation. See also As the name implies, radar is the principle of the system. The system transmits radio waves down to the ground and measures the time it takes them to be reflected back up to the aircraft, the altitude above the ground is calculated from the radio waves travel time and the speed of light. Radar altimeters normally work in the E band, Ka band, or, for more advanced sea-level measurement, radar altimeters also provide a reliable and accurate method of measuring height above water, when flying long sea-tracks. These are critical for use when operating to and from oil rigs, consider a radar pulse emanating from a radar beacon traveling downwards and interacting with a flat ocean surface. The following figure shows an illustration of the vertical cross-section and top-down view of the radar pulse, the radar altimeter measures the return power of the radar pulse thats reflected off the land/ocean surface. The expected return pulse can be derived from a few basic mathematical considerations, alternatively, Frequency Modulated Continuous-wave radar can be used. The greater the frequency shift the further the distance traveled and this method can achieve much better accuracy than the pulsed radar for the same outlay and radar altimeters that use frequency modulation are industry standard. As of 2010, all commercial radar altimeters use linear frequency modulation - continuous wave, as of 2010, about 25,000 aircraft in the US have at least one radio altimeter. That includes all commercial transport and all business aircraft licensed to fly for hire, the top-down view in the figure below shows the decreased footprint size of the delay-doppler signal. First, the footprint is covering less area so the radar pulse emitted by the satellite requires much less power. It covers the radar footprint using more frequent, but less power consuming radar pulses, secondly, the return waveform has a more complex signature allowing the arrival time of the pulse to be more accurately constrained. The following list notes the error associated with radar altimetry measurements. Because tidal periods can be on the order of diurnal and semidiurnal, electromagnetic Bias - There is a sea state bias where the troughs of waves tend to focus waves back to the radar, while the crests of the waves scatter waves away from the radar. Ionosphere - The ionosphere can also impose a delay on the return signal. The electron density in the ionosphere varies throughout the day, complicating the ionosphere correction, wet Troposphere - Water vapor can also cause a delay in the radar signal which can be more difficult to correct. A delay correction for the water column in the radar measurement can be accounted for using output from meteorological models, like ECMWF. In 1924, American engineer Lloyd Espenschied invented the radio altimeter, in 1938, Bell Labs put Espenschieds device in a form that was adaptable for aircraft use
6.
Oceanus Procellarum
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Oceanus Procellarum is a vast lunar mare on the western edge of the near side of the Moon. Like all lunar maria, Oceanus Procellarum was formed by ancient basaltic flood volcanic eruptions that covered the region in a thick, unlike the other lunar maria, however, Oceanus Procellarum may or may not be contained within a single well-defined impact basin. Around its edges lie many minor bays and seas, including Mare Nubium, to the northeast, Oceanus Procellarum is separated from Mare Imbrium by the Carpathian Mountains. On its north-west edge lies the 32 km wide Aristarchus ray crater, also, the more-prominent ray-crater Copernicus lies within the eastern edge of the mare, distinctly with its bright ray materials sprawling over the darker material. On the northern edge of Oceanus Procellarum lies Sinus Roris, there are several hypotheses about the origin of Oceanus Procellarum and a related asymmetry between the near and far sides of the Moon. One of the most likely is that Procellarum was a result of an ancient giant impact on the side of the Moon. The size of the basin has been estimated to be more than 3,000 kilometers. The impact likely happened very early in the Moons history, at the time when magma ocean still existed or just ceased to exist and it deposited 5–30 km of crustal material on the far side forming highlands. If this is the case, all impact related structures such as crater rim, central peak etc. have been obliterated by later impacts, one piece of evidence in support of this hypothesis is concentration of incompatible elements and low calcium pyroxene around Oceanus Procellarum. Procellarum may have also formed by spatially inhomogeneous heating during the Moons formation. Other hypotheses include a late accretion of a companion Moon on the far side, the latter postulates that in addition to the present Moon, another smaller moon was formed from debris of the giant impact. After a few tens of millions of years it collided with the Moon, the robotic lunar probes Luna 9, Luna 13, Surveyor 1 and Surveyor 3 landed in Oceanus Procellarum. Luna 9 landed southwest of Galilaei crater in 1966, Luna 13 landed southeast of Seleucus crater, later in 1966. Surveyor 1 landed north of Flamsteed crater in 1966, and Surveyor 3 landed in 1967, the manned Apollo 12 mission also landed in Oceanus Procellarum, with astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean on board. Their landing site, within 300m of Surveyor 3, has known as Mare Cognitum
7.
Marius (crater)
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Marius is a lunar crater located on the Oceanus Procellarum. These domes, if volcanic, may have formed by magma that is fairly more viscous than the volcanic material that formed the basaltic lunar maria. The nearest named crater feature is Reiner to the southwest, kepler is located to the east-southeast, and rays from that formation reach the rim of Marius. The floor of Marius has been flooded by lava. There is no rise, but a small craterlet Marius G lies in the northeast part of the floor. The crater rim is low and generally circular in form, the area of this crater was one of the locations proposed for an Apollo mission, but the expedition was subsequently cancelled. About 50 kilometres to the southeast was the site of the Luna 7 probe. One of the numerous rilles in the surrounding area has been found to host a probable cave skylight of a lava cave in 2009. Observations by the Japanese probe SELENE indicate the hole is about 90 meters deep, and this would be a likely location to consider moon colonization should the hole connect to a long enough section of ancient lava tube. By convention these features are identified on maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Marius
8.
Sergei Korolev
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He is considered by many as the father of practical astronautics. Although Korolev trained as a designer, his greatest strengths proved to be in design integration, organization. Arrested for alleged mismanagement of funds, he was imprisoned in 1938 for almost six years, following his release he became a recognized rocket designer and a key figure in the development of the Soviet Intercontinental ballistic missile program. Korolevs unexpected death in 1966 interrupted implementation of his plans for a Soviet manned Moon landing before the United States 1969 mission. Before his death he was identified only as Glavny Konstruktor, or the Chief Designer. Korolev was born in Zhytomyr, the capital of Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire) now recognized as part of Ukraine. His father, Pavel Yakovlevich Korolev, was from the Belarusian city of Mogilev and his father moved to Zhytomyr to be a teacher of the Russian language. Three years after his birth the couple separated due to financial difficulties, although Pavel later wrote to Maria requesting a meeting with his son, Sergei was informed by his mother that his father had died. Sergei never saw his father after the family break-up, and Pavel died in 1929 before his son learned the truth. Korolev grew up in Nezhin, under the care of his maternal grandparents Mykola Yakovych Moskalenko who was a trader of the Second Guild and Maria Matviivna Moskalenko, Korolevs mother also had a sister Anna and two brothers Yuri and Vasily. Maria Koroleva was frequently away attending Womens higher education courses in Kiev, as a child, Korolev was stubborn, persistent, and argumentative. Sergei grew up a child with few friends. Korolev began reading at an age, and his abilities in mathematics and other subjects made him a favorite student of his teachers. He later stated in an interview, the torment of classmates bullying and teasing him as a small child encouraged his focus on academic work, local schools were closed and young Korolev had to continue his studies at home. Grigory proved an influence on his step-son, who suffered from a bout of typhus during the severe food shortages of 1919. Korolev received vocational training in carpentry and in academics at the Odessa Building Trades School. Enjoyment of a 1913 air show inspired interest in aeronautical engineering, Korolev began designing a glider as a diversion while studying for his graduation exams at the vocational school. He made an independent study of theory, and worked in the local glider club
9.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
10.
Jodrell Bank Observatory
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The Jodrell Bank Observatory is a British observatory that hosts a number of radio telescopes, and is part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The managing director of the observatory is Professor Simon Garrington, the main telescope at the observatory is the Lovell Telescope, which is the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world. There are three other active telescopes located at the observatory, the Mark II, as well as 42 ft and 7 m diameter radio telescopes and it is reached from the A535. The telescope can be seen when travelling by train, as the Crewe to Manchester Line passes right by the site, Jodrell Bank was first used for academic purposes in 1939 when the University of Manchesters Department of Botany purchased three fields at the site from the Leighs. The site was extended in 1952 by the purchase of a farm from a local farmer, the new land included the site upon which the Lovell Telescope was sited. The first use of the site for astrophysics was in 1945, the equipment he was using was a GL II radar system working at a wavelength of 4.2 m, provided by J. S. Hey. He originally intended to use the equipment in Manchester, however, consequently, he moved the equipment to Jodrell Bank,25 miles south of the city, on 10 December 1945. Lovells main topic of research at the time were transient radio echoes, the first staff were Alf Dean and Frank Foden and meteors were observed by the naked eye while Lovell observed the electromagnetic signal on the equipment. Coincidentally, the first time he turned the radar on at Jodrell Bank –14 December 1945 – the Geminids meteor shower was at a maximum. Over the next few years, he accumulated more ex-military radio hardware, including a portable cabin, the first permanent building on the site was located near to this cabin, and was named after it. Today, Jodrell Bank is primarily used for investigating radio waves from the planets, a searchlight was loaned to Jodrell Bank in 1946 by the Army, a broadside array was constructed on the mount of this searchlight by J. Clegg, consisting of a number of Yagi antennas. This was first used for observations in October 1946. On 9 and 10 October 1946, the telescope was used to observe the ionisation in the atmosphere caused by meteors in the Giacobinids meteor shower, shortly after this, the telescope was used to determine the radiant points for meteors. This was possible as the rate is at a minimum at the radiant point. The telescope, as well as other receivers on the site, was used to study auroral streamers that were visible at the site in early August 1947. The Transit Telescope was a 218 ft parabolic reflector zenith telescope built at Jodrell Bank in 1947, at the time, it was the largest radio telescope in the world. It consisted of a wire suspended from a ring of 24 ft scaffold poles. The telescope mainly looked directly upwards, but the direction of the beam could be changed by small amounts by tilting the mast to change the position of the focal point
11.
Daily Express
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The Daily Express is a daily national middle market tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom. It is the title of Express Newspapers, a subsidiary of Northern & Shell. It was first published as a broadsheet in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson and its sister paper The Sunday Express was launched in 1918. As of December 2016, it had a daily circulation of 391,626. The paper was acquired by Richard Desmond in 2000, hugh Whittow has served as the papers editor since February of 2011. The papers editorial stances are often seen as aligned to the UK Independence Party, in addition to its sister paper, Express Newspapers also publishes the red top newspapers the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday. The Daily Express was founded in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson, Pearson, who had lost his sight to glaucoma in 1913, sold the title to the future Lord Beaverbrook in 1916. It was one of the first papers to place instead of advertisements on its front page along with carrying gossip, sports. It was also the first newspaper in Britain to have a crossword puzzle, the Express began printing copies in Manchester in 1927 and in 1931, the publication moved to 120 Fleet Street, a specially commissioned art deco building. Under Beaverbrook, the newspaper achieved a high circulation, setting records for newspaper sales several times throughout the 1930s. Its success was due to its aggressive marketing campaign and a vigorous circulation war with other populist newspapers. Beaverbrook also discovered and encouraged an editor named Arthur Christiansen who, at an early age, showed talent for writing. Christiansen became editor in October 1933, under his editorial direction sales climbed from two million in 1936 to four million in 1949. The paper also featured Alfred Bestalls Rupert Bear cartoon and satirical cartoons by Carl Giles which it began publishing in the 1940s, on 24 March 1933, a front page headline titled Judea Declares War on Germany was published by the Daily Express. During the late thirties, the paper was an advocate of the appeasement policies of the Chamberlain government. The ruralist author Henry Williamson wrote for the paper on many occasions for half a century and he also wrote for the Sunday Express at the beginning of his career. In 1938, the moved to the Daily Express Building. It opened a building in Glasgow in 1936 in Albion Street
12.
BBC
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The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, the BBC is the worlds oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total,16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting, the total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBCs radio, TV, britains first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mails Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano Dame Nellie Melba, the Melba broadcast caught the peoples imagination and marked a turning point in the British publics attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests, John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers, to this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain. The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate, set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee and this was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The BBCs broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, the BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00, and required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee, by now the BBC under Reiths leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production and with restrictions on news bulletins waived the BBC suddenly became the source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position, the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PMs own
