Kenneth W. Gatland
From The Space Library
 Kenneth Gatland (ca. 1958) | |
| Birth Name | Kenneth William Gatland |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Engineer, Draftsman, Author |
| Nationality | Britain |
| Notable Works | The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology |
Kenneth William Gatland was one of the earliest proponents of astronautics in Britain. He founded the Astronautical Development Society (ADS) in the late 1930s and during World War II he merged his organisation with the Manchester Interplanetary Society to create the Combined British Astronautical Societies or CBAS. Gatland was a junior draftsman at Hawker aircraft at the time he founded the ADS.
During the war Gatland and Eric Burgess kept the grass roots interest in astronautics alive while the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) was on hiatus. At the end of the War both Gatland, Burgess and Arthur C. Clarke revived the various groups under the newly incorporated banner of the BIS.
Gatland would go on to become first vice-chairman and then chairman of the BIS and a well-known author of many books on space flight. Including: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology, Star Travel, Manned Spacecraft, Robot Explorers, Astronautics in the Sixties, Usborne Book of the Future, The Inhabited Universe, Development of the Guided Missile, Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century, Frontiers of Space, Rockets and Space Travel, Spaceflight, The Scholastic Funfact Book of Space Flight, Project Satellite and others.
Gatland's ideas for micro-satellites were later incorporated into early American space programming.
