About The Society

The British Interplanetary Society (BIS) was founded in 1933, and is the world’s longest established organization devoted solely to supporting and promoting the exploration of space and astronautics. The BIS is financially independent, has charitable status, and obtains its main income from a worldwide membership. The Society’s headquarters are located in central London. It is devoted to initiating, promoting and disseminating new concepts and technical information about space flight and astronautics through meetings, publications, visits and exhibitions.

Membership (non-corporate) is open to all and intended for those with a general interest in astronautics. Fellowship (the corporate grade) is restricted to those with professional interests and qualifications. How to Join .

The BIS publishes a monthly, full-colour magazine “Spaceflight” of general interest (first published in 1956), a monthly 40-page technical journal “Journal of the British Interplanetary Society” (JBIS) which is professionally refereed (first published in 1934) and a twice yearly supplement “Space Chronicle” (first published in 1980 and relaunched in 2002) carrying review and historical papers. These publications record the latest scientific and technical advances, news, digests and other wide-ranging information on astronautics and space flight. Publications

The BIS holds regular meetings and one or two day symposia on topics of interest and significance in astronautics. Symposia are generally directed towards the interchange of technical knowledge, and have included such diverse topics as Space History, the Soviet and Chinese Space Programmes, Space Transportation and Remote Earth Sensing. Evening Meetings include lectures by experts in their various fields, but are intended to be of general interest. Events

The Society also has an extensive library of works on astronautics, as well as an archive containing papers of historical interest to the Society.

History of the British Interplanetary Society
The Society was founded in 1933 by a group of space flight enthusiasts who dreamed of using rocket propulsion to fly to the Moon and the planets. The word “Interplanetary” in the Society’s title was not intended to limit attention only to those nearby worlds that circle our Sun, but to cover space exploration activities in general – even in the most distant visions to conceive of travel across interstellar space.

 

In the years before World War II a technical core of BIS members made first plans for a rocket capable of landing three men on the Moon and returning them to Earth. After World War II members of the Society developed ideas for the exploration of outer space including developing liquid rockets for launch into space, the construction of Space Stations, the human exploration of the Moon, the development of probes to investigate other planets in our Solar System and the use of space telescopes to observe distant starts and galaxies. Arthur C. Clarke first suggested the concept of communications satellites in a private memorandum to Fellows of the Society prior to first publication in 1945.

In 1951 the BIS organized the world’s first International Congress on “The Artificial Satellite”, and became one of the founder members of the International Astronautical Federation.

Earth Remote Sensing was initially advocated and studied at an international level at its NATO Conference in the 1950s, with space biology following soon afterwards. Currently it has been concerned with how to preserve life on Earth in the face of various potential calamities.

With the demise of the Apollo Program in 1972, the Society continued to encourage exploration of ideas on the possibilities of a return to the Moon and its eventual colonization.

The Society’s first definitive paper on the requirements for Interstellar Travel appeared in JBIS as long ago as 1952. In the late 1970s a group of members worked together on the design of a possible interstellar vehicle that was published in 1981 as the Daedalus Study. From this followed many papers concerned with communications with extraterrestrial intelligences (SETI) and associated studies.

Planetary studies began with papers examining the propulsion requirements to reach Mars and Venus, as well as projected instruments for scientific probes. Advocacy of studies on comets and meteors helped further the Giotto mission to Halley’s Comet and later the ESA Rosetta mission. A number of papers during the 1990s also looked at the problems of making other planets (principally Mars) more hospitable to human habitation through “terraforming.”

The Society also provided certain of its members a route for publication of information and analysis on the Soviet (and more recently the Chinese) Space Programmes at a time when detailed information on these programmes was difficult to come by at first hand.

Most recently a group within the Society has initiated a series of studies on the scientific and technical objectives of conducting a human exploration of the Martian North Polar Cap.