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It has been nearly 70 years since Francis Thomas Bacon developed a source of clean green energy that would help power the first moon landing and change the course of history.
Yet, few are aware of the Essex-born, Cambridge-based engineer whose invention of the first working hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell helped send Apollo 11 to the moon. His pioneering work is still a source of inspiration for scientists working on renewable energy solutions today.
Now, the charity Cambridge Past, Present & Future is seeking to shine a light on Bacon’s remarkable achievements by honouring him with a blue plaque at his former home in Little Shelford, Cambridgeshire.
Bacon’s fuel cells – nicknamed “Bacon Cells” by Nasa in his honour – provided secondary power for the Apollo missions, producing electricity for the communications, air conditioning and lights, as well as water for the astronauts.
“Normally, in the course of time, a battery runs down and you’ve got to recharge it,” Bacon told BBC Radio 4, shortly before the moon landings in 1969. “Now, [with] this device, as long as you go on feeding hydrogen and oxygen into it, and you remove the water formed, it will go on generating power indefinitely – and the astronauts drink the water.”
The efficiency and high energy density of the fuel cells played such an integral role in the success of the Apollo missions that President Richard Nixon told Bacon: “Without you, Tom, we wouldn’t have gotten to the moon.”
Sam Stranks, professor of energy materials and optoelectronics at Cambridge University, said: “He was a pioneer. Fuel cell technology was extremely important to the space programme, because as long as you can continuously supply the gases, you can keep producing electricity.” This is vital in a remote location like outer space. “Obviously, there’s no easy means to get electricity there.”
Bacon’s legacy is still inspiring scientists working on new technologies for solar power, hydrogen generation and battery storage today, Stranks said, and fuel cells remain “very relevant” as a potential way of providing green electricity and emergency power, particularly in remote places. They could also power the electric engines of long-haul trucks and ships in the future, avoiding the need for impossibly large and heavy rechargeable batteries and fulfilling a dream Bacon shared in his BBC radio interview. “I always hoped it would be used for driving vehicles about,” he said, before predicting: “In a modified form, it is going to come.”
Stranks said: “I see him very much as a visionary and an unsung hero. The fuel cell is a sustainable power solution that foreshadows today’s clean energy efforts and was decades ahead of its time.”
A direct descendent of the Elizabethan philosopher and empiricist Francis Bacon, he began researching fuel cells while working for an engineering firm in 1932, a few years after graduating from Cambridge with a third-class degree in mechanical sciences.
Nearly a century earlier, the physicist William Grove had demonstrated the theoretical concept of fuel cells in 1839, but failed to generate much electricity. Excited by the huge potential, Bacon secretly started conducting experiments with the highly flammable gases, on his employer’s premises.
Told to either stop or leave, he quit his job and devoted his life to engineering a solution to this complex problem, working first at Cambridge University, then Marshalls, a local manufacturer.
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He later revealed in his BBC interview that it was unclear for decades what the practical use of his invention would be, and he struggled to fund his research as a result. Then, in 1962, Nasa decided to develop his alkaline fuel cell for the Apollo programme and a US company invested $100m in the project.
“British engineers have some of the most brilliant ideas, but turning those ideas into commercial successes is what then often fails, and Bacon faced this,” said Cambridge professor Clemens Kaminski, head of the chemical engineering and biotechnology department where Bacon once worked. “Yet he persevered.”
After they returned to Earth, astronauts Neil Armstong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins met Bacon at Downing Street and presented him with a signed photograph of Armstrong’s famous first “small step” on the moon.
Outside the scientific community, however, Bacon, who died in 1992, is not very well known, Kaminski said. “He was an incredibly modest and quiet man. His delight was solving problems and coming up with real solutions for the benefit of society.”
He thinks Bacon was so far ahead of his time that it may be 20 or 30 years before his legacy is fully understood. “If we can crack the problem of generating and storing hydrogen sustainably and efficiently, then the fuel cell could make an enormous impact on everyday life.”