Richard van der Riet Woolley

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Sir Richard van der Riet Woolley (April 24, 1906 – December 24, 1986) was a British astronomer who became Astronomer Royal. His mother's maiden name was Van der Riet.

He moved to South Africa when his parents retired there and got a degree from the University of Cape Town. He returned to the United Kingdom and studied at Cambridge University. After two years at Mount Wilson Observatory he again returned to the United Kingdom in 1931.

He specialized in solar astronomy and in 1939 he was appointed director of the Commonwealth Solar Observatory in Canberra, Australia. He later returned to the United Kingdom to take up his appointment as Astronomer Royal from 1956–1971. He moved the Royal Greenwich Observatory from Greenwich to Herstmonceux.

He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1971. From 1972 to 1976 he was director of the new South African Astronomical Observatory. He retired in the late 1970s and spent most of his retirement in South Africa.

Woolley is also known for his initial disbelief in the practicalities of space flight. In 1936, reviewing P.E. Cleator's "Rockets in Space", Woolley wrote

"The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space]...presents difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished" ^[1].

On appointment as Astronomer Royal, he reiterated his long-held view that "space travel is utter bilge". Speaking to Time Magazine in 1956, Woolley noted

"It's utter bilge. I don't think anybody will ever put up enough money to do such a thing . . . What good would it do us? If we spent the same amount of money on preparing first-class astronomical equipment we would learn much more about the universe . . . It is all rather rot"^[2].

Unfortunately for Woolley, these last public statements came the year prior to the launch of Sputnik, 5 years before President Kennedy's launch of the Apollo Program, and 13 years before the Apollo 11 mission.