Val Cleaver

Arthur Valentine Cleaver, known as Val Cleaver, was a British rocket engineer who became one of the United Kingdom's leading figures in postwar liquid-fuel rocket propulsion. After the Second World War he developed de Havilland's Sprite and Spectre rocket engines, used to provide rocket-assisted takeoff for aircraft operating from short or hot-and-high runways, and in 1948 he co-authored an early technical paper examining the possibilities and problems of nuclear rocket engines. He moved to Rolls-Royce in 1957 and by 1960 had become general manager and chief engineer of its rocket departments, where he was responsible for the RZ.2 engines that powered the Blue Streak ballistic missile and, later, the Black Arrow satellite launch vehicle, Britain's only successful indigenous orbital launcher. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his contributions to British rocket engine development, and was a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.