preparing first-class astronomical equipment we would learn much more about the universe . . . It is all rather rot" Woolley's protestations came just one year prior to the launch of Sputnik 1, five years before the start of the Apollo Program, and thirteen years before the first manned landing on the Moon. In a 1995 letter to New Scientist, J.A. Terry and John Rudge pointed out that the quotation ascribed to Woolley is actually a misquotation of what he actually said (as they had heard themselves on Radio Newsreel). Terry and Rudge report that Woolley's statement was: "All this talk about space travel is utter bilge, really." Woolley went on to say: "It would cost as much as a major war just to put a man on the moon." Terry and Rudge assert that Woolley's latter prediction turned out to be quite accurate, and state that the deletion of the first four words of the quotation by newspaper editors was in reaction to the fact that it was those self-same newspaper's hyperbolic articles, talking about space travel, that Woolley was criticising. "Anyone", said Terry and Rudge, "who had seen the flamboyant articles about space travel and the imminent colonisation of the moon and planets that were splashed all over the newspapers in 1956, with science fiction-style illustrations, must have been immediately aware of what the new Astronomer Royal was riled about." Publications The Outer Layers of a Star (1953) co-written with Prof Walter Stibbs. References External links Australian Academy of Science Online catalogue of Woolley's working papers (part of the Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives held at Cambridge University Library) 1906 births 1986 deaths Astronomers Royal 20th-century British astronomers English people of Dutch descent Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Fellows of the Royal Society People from Weymouth, Dorset University of Cape Town alumni Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge People educated at Allhallows College Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society Knights Bachelor Officers of the Order of the British Empire British emigrants to South Africa