The scale of a project often determines the size of the problems too. Agreed, all or most projects are confronted with hurdles, but overcoming them is often easier in the case of smaller projects. When the stakes are higher and things take a downward turn, problems might seem insurmountable on occasions.
As the university’s botany department owned land in Cheshire, Lovell decided to use it to continue his experiments to see if radar could be used to study cosmic rays. They couldn’t, but there was success nevertheless. On a cold day in December, Lovell drove a trailer to the remote location — with the area around the gardener’s hut serving as the perfect setting for him to set up shop. it didn’t meet his initial objectives While the results were good. Instead, he had luck finding meteors and work soon shifted in the direction of studying meteor trails, the moon, and different planets. It marked the beginning of radio astronomy in Jodrell Bank. For what remained of the decade, Jodrell Bank turned into a hubbub of activity in radio astronomy. Studying radio waves from space to understand the universe was still a fledgling field and the excitement was palpable for the scientists who joined Lovell to work in this new branch of science. Lovell, however, knew that they needed a bigger telescope to be at the forefront of the field.
Having returned to the University of Manchester after the war in 1945, Lovell’s efforts at radar experiments outside his lab in the city proved unsuccessful as there was interference from Manchester’s electric trams.
Using army surplus, they built their own equipment, including the “Searchlight Aerial” in 1946 and “Transit Telescope” in 1947.
This wonderful echo, the only instrument in the Western world which could detect the launching of the Sputnik. Even though there were complaints from certain quarters about these tracking escapades costing valuable research time, there was no denying that it only amounted to just a small fraction of all the work it was doing. Additionally, tracking these probes also enabled exploring regions of space wherein Jodrell Bank had a scientific interest.
“A huge echo — the echo of the intercontinental missile travelling over the lake to a distributed speed of 17,000 miles an hour.
“I was in the laboratory where the receiving apparatus was and suddenly, before midnight, I saw the most dramatic echo” Sir Bernard Lovell “I was in the laboratory where the receiving apparatus was and suddenly, before midnight, I saw the most dramatic echo,” Bernard recalled, years later, according to the BBC.
