Geoffrey Keith Charles Pardoe OBE FREng FRAeS FBIS (2 November 1928 – 3 January 1996) was the project manager for the Blue Streak ballistic missile programme.
He argued in September 1959 that the space vehicle could be transformed into the first stage of a European rocket launcher.
He found it difficult to forgive the British government when it withdrew from the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) in 1968, with funding finishing in 1971.
The earlier British rocket project was later referred to as the ill-fated Blue Streak, but it was only ill fated at the administrative level, not the technical.
The idea was flatly turned down by the British government on the grounds that such a system could not be envisaged in the next 20 years (1961–81).
America then set up COMSAT in 1963, resulting in Intelsat, the world's largest fleet (52) of commercial satellites.
He founded the consultancy General Technology Systems in Brentford in 1973, with a colleague from the Blue Streak project, Bill Stephens.
In the late 1980s GTS was developing an 80-foot satellite launcher called LittLEO, to carry 700 kg payloads into orbit from the Andøya Rocket Range launch site in Norway.
During the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969, he was part of the television commentary team with Reg Turnill.
He died of a heart attack aged 67 on a business visit to attend meetings at the International Academy of Science in Kansas City, Missouri.