Material World - 01/05/2008

Quentin Cooper talks to Ben Russell one of the curators of the Science Museums’ new exhibition ‘Dan Dare and the birth of Hi tech Britain’ After 1945, though war-weary and broke, Britain found huge pride in wartime advances such as radar, penicillin and the jet engine. Discoveries like these were tipped to start world-beating industries, bring prosperity and fund the emerging welfare state. Technologies and research that emerged from war continued to develop – from nuclear physics to landing systems for jet aircraft. In 2008 Britain is the sixth largest manufacturing economy in the world – world leaders in high value engineering, pharmaceuticals and aerospace technologies. Quentin discusses the post war boom in science and technology and asks if it would have happened if World War II hadn’t.