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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."
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
The only thing Nazi Germany wanted to do was build new technical devices to kill people - the fact that their ballistic missies had peaceful applications is space flight was noted by the scientists at the time, and much theoretical work was done by German scientists in the war (eg Sanger), but it remained in their minds and on paper. All the Nazis wanted were devices capable of killing more people at a greater distance. That was their ethos.
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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.
They might be a bit deluded when they think of themselves as a master race (well, only some of them do) but if they were to qualify it as a "master engineering race" then I think there'd be a lot less of us that would argue with it. From rockets to cars, they are excellent engineers.
If you are interested in "our" Germans from the parent's statement, do a google on "operation paperclip". It's very interesting... the US program to extract as many German scientists out of post-Nazi Germany as possible.
-- james
PS I mean to stir no racial tension by the use of "master race", merely referring to the use of a very well known phrase
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.
- 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!
The only thing Nazi Germany wanted to do was build new technical devices to kill people
Antropomorphisms like this are dangerous. It's so tempting to say "Russia wants to conquer Tschetschenya" or "USA want to justify Guantanamo to the public opinion", but you should always remember there is no such person as Uncle Sam or Mother Russia. Whatever George W. Bush wants or needs, it's not necessarily what every American or even majority of Americans want or need. It's also dangerous when you talk about dictatorship, as there was more in Third Reich than just Hitler and his crazy followers. What we know about Werner von Braun is that he was interested in rocket science "as such" - his lifelong dream was a manned mission to Mars. He worked for Hitler not because he loved him, but simply because for a German rocket scientist in 1940's there weren't really any other options. When you say "That was their ethos" you should consider who do you mean by "they". Them-Nazis? Sure, you're right. Them-German scientitst? You are obviously wrong.
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.
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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.