Scotland's efforts to join the space race never got off the ground

- but it's still going strong in 2002.

Okay, Caledonian rocket research programmes don't exactly measure up to multi-billion pound operations like Cape Canaveral in the USA.

Instead, our throbbing technological nerve centres are divided' between a four-in-the-block council flat in Ayrshire and a leafy suburban street in Paisley.

And they're so hush-hush that fellow earthlings may find it hard to even make initial contact.

For starters, STAAR Research, based in Beith, Ayrshire, has a grand-sounding title hat would impress visiting NASA boffins.

But unfortunately, their HQ doesn't have a telephone yet.

Our enthusiasts started cobbling their DIY space probes together from used kitchen roll :tubes, empty plastic bottles and cardboard.

Amateur

But the basic principles used aren't all that different from the NASA space shuttles.

And some sophisticated amateur efforts can now climb to enormous heights — with one rocket even making it a tenth of the way to space... around 35,000ft.

Yet despite being eclipsed by the big players in the space race, our interstellar explorers have been reaching for the skies for more than 60 years.

Ironically, Scotland's early dabblings in space flight have been chronicled in a •new British movie called Rocket Post.

The £5million film, which stars Trainspotting's Kevin McKidd and Gary Lewis, whc played Billy Elliot's dad in the award-winning film, is tipped to be a smash when if released this summer.

It's based on the true story of German scientist Gerhardt Zucker who, in 1934, carried out experiments to deliver mail by rocket on the islands of the Outer Hebrides.

But they could have just as easily made a film about Paisley man John Stewart, who was doing the same work at the same time.

More than seven decades on, former aero engineer John is still as enthusiastic about his hobby as he was back then. In the

mid-1980s he fired off some of the first rockets from Scottish soil.

He also pioneered the world's first three-stage flights - which eventually became the norm in modern space exploration.

John's home-made effort used the same principals which launched Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961 and carried the crew of Apollo XI to the first Moon landing.

And he can even boast being the first man to launch a rocket across the Atlantic.

In 1935, a year after Zucker had unsuccessfully tried to fire a rocket carrying mail from one Outer Hebridean island to another, Stewart was planning his own blast-off.

After meticulous planning, using seven penny rockets bought from a sweet shop, he and fellow apprentice rocketeer James Cunningham were ready for their maiden flight.

But Research Rocket One,known to the boys as RR1, never got above its launch pad in his parent's back garden.

John said: "It was utter chaos as we weren't sure what we were doing. The design had seven rockets mounted together but when we lit one, it would start moving before we had time to get to the others.

"So it flew all over the place, pursued by us desperately trying to get the rockets lit." • Undeterred, the boys persevered and the following year, recorded two successful launches — RR9, and the formation of the Paisley Rocketeers Society.

For three glorious years the group fired ever more ambitious projectiles into the skies, including what is thought to be the world's first three-stage rocket, which reached 1,000 feet.

Among those proud to become members was a young Arthur C Clarke, now better known as a leading science fiction writer.

The outbreak of World War II saw the Rocketeers grounded, but the spark was eventually rekindled and in 1966 the society regrouped.

Mr Stewart, now 80, remains as enthusiastic as ever. Recalling his early experiments, he grinned: "I love to tell people how, in 1967, I was the first fellow to get rocket mail across the Atlantic.

"But it's only when I'm pushed will I add that it actually only flew a few hundred feet from the Scottish mainland to Seil Island, near Oban. But, technically, it did cross the Atlantic Ocean, albeit a very small strip of it, and it did contain some letters."

Over the year's John's craft have been powered by solid fuels - similar to that used it fireworks — and also water-boosted aquajets.

And he's encouraged by the numbers of youngsters still taking up the activity.

He added: "The biggest problem we still have today is the same one as when I first started out — and that is FINDING the damn rockets again after we've fired them.

"The blasted things seem to have a natural inclination to get stuck up trees."

One of the next generation of rocketeers Inspired by John's work is Beith-based John Bonsor. The 50-year-old former chemical engineer runs STARR Research - which is short for Space Technology Applications, Astronomy and Rocket Research.

He travels around schools and colleges organising and staging workshops.

He also runs the International Rocket Week event held every August at Kelburn Castle in Largs which attracts hundreds of enthusiasts from all over the world.

Mr Bonsor explained: "The modern amateur clubs and events are pretty advanced.

"Rockets using solid fuel motors - and hybrids which also use liquid fuel - can reach enormous heights and I've launched some myself to more than 5,000ft.

"When we are flying these kinds of craft we have to get clearance from the Civil Aviation Authority and are in constant contact with Air Traffic Control at airports.

"Some amateurs are investigating techniques and theories that could eventually supercede the technology used for the current Space Shuttles.

"People like myself are already looking at new ways of travel that could perhaps someday even aide mankind to travel from planet to planet."

He added: "It may look as if we are tinker-ing with toys, but some of the theory has very real practical possibilities.

"If guys like John Stewart had been encouraged instead of hindered by the Government with his early work, Britain might have had a proper space programme today, and may even have been ahead of the Americans and Russians. We may be still an awful long way from putting the first Scot on Mars.

"But as long as there are plenty of dreamers around, who knows what may eventually be possible?"

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