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60 Years Later: The V2 And The Space Race
securitas writes "In a two-part feature written sixty years after the V2 rocket was first launched on London, BBC News Online's Paul Rincon describes the Soviet-American space race, German V2 rocket technology and how the USSR and USA divided Germany's best scientists between them. The second part addresses the technological lineage of both space programs, the creation of NASA, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development and the V2's legacy. Another feature provides some context, following the history of the development of the V2 rocket from its precursors that began with space flight enthusiasts like Wernher von Braun and Walter Riedel, through its use as a terrifying weapon in the London Blitz, to the recruitment drive by the Americans and Soviets. Today the V2 rocket is being used as the basis for the Canadian Arrow X Prize team. The Arrow team has some pages on V2 history and the main engine thrust chamber. For those interested you can read more at the A4 / V2 Rocket Resource site."
and the births of (von Braun, Riedel, etc.) its ethos single handedly launched the world into the space age.
Never forget that.
If this is your cup of tea then please read "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. [google].
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
told me on how they were afraid of the V2. The V1 made a loud humming noise and only became dangerous when the engine stopped. The V2 was faster than sound, meaning no advanced warning. It just went boom.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
It's my understanding that the Russian "Scud" rockets so beloved of wannabe regional powers are also V-2 derived.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Wasn't that the answer given, when the US president demanded to know how the Russians got Sputnik up before the Americans managed a similar feat? "Because their Germans are better than our Germans".
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Which entirely negates the credit of Germany with fathering rocket science, right?
PBD:Frontline coverage of Iraqi scud missile variants
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
In the early 1940's, he wrote a letter to president Franklin D. Roosevelt urging him to start a project to build an atomic bomb because the German government had already started a little atomic bomb project of their own. Einstein believed that a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of the United States would not only end the war, but ensure safety to the rest of the world after the war as well. Roosevelt, being a believer in Einstein, became thrilled at this letter and took the plea into deep consideration. Soon, the project was underway.
One of my profs was in the German air force as a radar mechanic. At the end of the war he was driving a truck back from Norway. The Americans were at Penemunde (sp?) and he tried to surrender to them. "Are you a rocket scientist?" they asked. When he said no, they didn't want him. However they were willing to trade his side arm for a tank of gas and he could go down the road and surrender to the British.
While the A4/V2 information may be of limited use to countries that don't already have a ballistic program, North Korea already has an advanced ballistic missile program, and builds missles based on Russian SCUD technology, itself loosely evolved from the original A4/V2 designs.
Further information on North Korean missile programs here
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There was a movie biography of Wernher von Braun life produced in the 50's called I Aim for the Stars. I read somewhere that someone wrote on the bottom of a movie poster outside a theatre: I Aim for the Stars ... but sometimes I hit London.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I think the article is about the scientific development, not the actual construction. And I think the fact that they were constructed with slave labour is fairly irrelivant since they would have been evil weapons even if they were created by well-payed union workers with health benifits, dental care and 8 weeks holiday a year.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
.....On 4 October 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik I..... .....America's first attempt to launch a satellite ....was an embarrassing failure..... ....The space race was underway..... (much snipping)
.
WTF? The Russians get into space and later on the space race is on? Hadn't the russians won (by being first into space?)
My pics.
- Surface-to-surface missiles
- Guided air-to-air missiles
- Jet fighter planes and jet bombers
- Airplanes transparent to radar
- Information science (before computers)
- Encryption technology (only comprimised due to physical reasons, i.e. someone stole one)
And many others. It's scary to think of what would have happened if they had a few more years to develop before attacking the world.Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Correction:
"I aim at the stars, but sometimes I hit London."
-- Mort Sahl, who, incidentally, happens to be Jewish.
If you would like to see a very good comparison between the US and the USSR space race, starting all the way back in WWII Germany, you should go to The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, KS. The Hall of Space exhibit starts with the German slave camps building the V1 and V2 rocket, and goes all the way through to Apollo/Soyuez.
It is one of the few places on Earth where you can see an intact V1 and V2 rocket.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Even if used at short range, the V2 was never "accurate". It had extremely primitive guidance, and was no better than throwing a dart at a map of an entire metropolitan area. There was no way to make it hit an individual high-value target.
The reason why the Soviets managed to get the first satellite into space is simple: a brilliant Russian rocket designer named Sergei P. Korolev, who passed away in 1966.
People forget that the Soviet rocket program in a very secret group called RNII was very underestimated by everyone else, because in the 1930's before the Yezhovchina Great Purge the Russians probably had some of the most advanced rocket development programs in the world--in some cases more advanced than the German programs at the time! Despite the Great Purge, Korolev managed to keep the majority of his development team at RNII together, and Korolev was actually working for SMERSH (Soviet counterintelligence) in the latter half of the 1940's studying German developments in rocket technology. That's why by the early 1950's the Soviet rocket program was probably more advanced than the US program, and that's why they were able to build the R-7 rocket designed by Korolev's team (which was far larger than any US equivalent rocket at the time) that carried the large-sized Soviet nuclear bombs with the side benefit of being able to launch payloads into orbit. The sheer size of the R-7 was also the reason why the Russians were able to launch unmanned probes around the Moon and launch the first manned flights. Because the R-7 was designed as an ICBM, it meant the ability to launch in a fairly short countdown sequence and used launch pads that could erect the rocket into firing position fairly quickly, too; that's why the Russians were able to launch reconnaissance satellites so quickly and had a pretty advanced space weapons program.
Don't forget the Avro Arrow, which the Canadian entry is named after, was a jet fighter that was very advanced for its time. The program was cancelled by the Canadian government due to pressure from the US government.
Most of the engineers who worked at Avro went to work for the US space program. Yet again picking the best scientists from the spoils of, this time, a political war.
It boggles the mind all those connections.
If you're in Canada visiting mention "Avro Arrow" and see what reaction you get even now all these years later.
Arrow info
http://prinzeugen.com/V2.htm
another project the US picked up and pursued.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
High altitude bombers had similar accuracy, and it usually took countless thousands of bombs per raid to effectively destroy major targets. Each large bomber raid carried more explosive power than the all V2s combined delivered over the entire life of the program.
Moreover, submarine-based launches would have lacked the frame-of-reference required to accurately aim the missiles even if they had perfect guidance.
Sputnik made no scientific discoveries, it was pretty much just a simple relay, a propaganda machine. On the other hand, Explorer 1 was packed with scientific equipment and among others discovered the van Allen belts! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_1
BTW, during my days in university I studied in the same building that German scientists worked in after the ww2 on designing soviet jets and rockets in Himki near Moscow . These were the buildings of Lavochkin Association company ( the one which built famous La-5 during ww2 then the company developed first russian jets and later produced russian space vehicles which flew to Moon Mars and Venus).
why doesn't Korolev get the same political backslash von Braun does
maybe because Korolev himself spent years in Gulag.
And it's definately not an American thing - most of the scientists responsible for these incredible achievments were not Americans (Bohr, Einstein, von Braun, Fermi, etc) and a large portion of the work was accomplished in England.
"Trying is only the first step towards failure." - Homer
Actually, I am ignorant. I apologize for the ignorant statement (I hate history). I thought it was a mistype in the post and didn't realize it was actually correct.
In "Leap of Faith" (Harper, ISBN 0-006-109877-9
... Joaquin "Jack" Keutner, with whom I worked in the early days of Mercury on the Redstone rocket program. Jack had some hair-raising flying stories to tell. In an attempt to improve the accuracy over the target, some V-1s were modified with a cockpit to allow for a pilot [air-dropped from a] twin-engine Junkers bomber. After being dropped free, he would air-start the "Flying Bomb." When they got within range of London he would release the bomb, then turn toward the French coast and ride the rocket home."
p. 172 "As we always said at the time, our Germans are better than their Germans.
"The visitors to Wehrner's house included
p. 173: "At war's end, a manned V-2 was sitting on the pad at Peenemunde, all tested out, fueled up, and ready to go. It would have been launched on a low-energy easterly orbit, Jack explained. The plan: to drop a warhead on New York City. That 1945 manned rocket flight -- sixteen years before the first U.S. manned rocket flight -- came within a week or so of being launched."
"Wehrner confided to me that the Germans were testing more than rockets at Peenemunde. "Some of the craft we were developing," he said, "were far ahead of anything the rest of the world had or knew about."
p. 170: After a V-2 first hit London, Wehrner remarked to his colleagues, "the rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet."
One of the first broken V2s ever captured by, or, in effect given to the allies landed in southern Sweden in July 21st 1944. It was the result of a failed test flight, and it scared the living hell out of some relatives of mine.
Read more at Linus Walleij's site covering the topic. Interesting reading.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Look at how the US fights wars now... the WW2 bombers had to be nearly with in small-arms fire to have a reliable bombing run... now we fire cruise missles from 1000Mi away without "endangering" our own troops. We'd have never "invaded" iraq or afganastan without the V2's decendants.
The Germans were WAY ahead of their time in weapons development...had they [and japan] not picked the wrong fights [russia/ pearl harbor] the US/ russia would never have entered the war...and Germany would have easily finisihed the job.
Considering that the armchair psychologist and the university-trained psychoanalyst dispense equal measures of bullshit.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Except that it didn't work. I've never seen anybody suggest that Great Britain considered surrendering due to fear of the V2.
The Germans were WAY ahead of their time in weapons development
Yes, and they dedicated so many resources into this not-yet-effective weapons system that it hastened their defeat. With the guidance systems of the 40s-60s, missiles weren't really worthwhile without nuclear warheads. Conventional warhead missiles didn't become worthwhile until precision terminal guidance was introduced in the 1970s with cruise missiles.