Last modified on Thu 31 Dec 2020 12.45 EST In 1969, a British engineer was invited to the White House to meet President Nixon. His name was Francis Thomas Bacon and he had developed the fuel cells used on Apollo 11. Known now as Bacon fuel cells, these power sources consume hydrogen and oxygen to produce water, heat and, in theory, a continuous supply of electricity. His invention was considered so integral to the success of the Apollo mission that Nixon told him, “Without you Tom, we wouldn’t have gotten to the moon.” Bacon is one of many heroes in the history of Britain in space. The UK was the world’s third ever space-faring nation, after the USSR and US. And in the years after Apollo, several UK space companies, including Inmarsat and Surrey Satellite Technology, were created, building on the work of these early British space engineers.