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Space Science Technology

60 Years Later: The V2 And The Space Race 196

Posted by timothy from the man-of-reknown dept.
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."
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60 Years Later: The V2 And The Space Race More

60 Years Later: The V2 And The Space Race

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  • Nazi Germany (Score:3, Insightful)

    by u-238 ( 515248 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:21AM (#10226978) Homepage
    and the births of (von Braun, Riedel, etc.) its ethos single handedly launched the world into the space age.

    Never forget that.

    • Re:Nazi Germany (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jolyonr ( 560227 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:46AM (#10227055) Homepage
      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.
      • My point still stands.

      • Re:Nazi Germany (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:19AM (#10227194) Journal
        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 [space.com]. 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.
        • You have a good point, and my original post should have been clearer. I was certainly refering to the Nazi leadership (and that whole concept of a 'nazi ethos'), and not directly to the german scientists - many of whom did plan and dream for peaceful uses of their technology, but it was not until the Nazis were defeated that they were able to work directly to achieve this (although of course even after the war their initial work was to help develop the first ICBMs).
        • The Nazis were more concerned about developing technology that could directly lead to weapons, resulting in chemical weapons, jet aircraft, new artillery, ballistic rockets, etc. The Allies on the other hand were do more "big picture" scientific research into new areas such as nuclear reactions, radar, and computers. These all had military uses and applications, but also formed the basis for our dominance and technological revolution in the decades following WWII.

          And it's definately not an American thin

        • Russia wants to conquer Tschetschenya

          um...where? I'm sure everyone realizes you're talking about Chechnya or (Slashdot is filtering out my windows-1251 encoded chars) and not some German republic somewhere, but I thought I would point it out so no one is confused.

      • Re:Nazi Germany (Score:3, Interesting)

        by TheEqualizer ( 812747 )
        All the V2's killed just about 4000 people, but in the process wasted innumerable resources that might have otherwise been spend on manufacturing ammunitions, airplanes and tanks that had a much better kill ratio per work hour invested, V2 was actually lousy as a weapon because of its immense costs. Only reason why it existed was because Albert Speer made it for some reason his own pet project and sold the idea to Hitler. The whole project cost about ½ of the US Manhattan project, but of the kill ratio

        • Re:Nazi Germany (Score:3, Interesting)

          by jolyonr ( 560227 )
          What was interesting is that it was the British, not the Germans, who were closer to using chemical weapons during the second world war, which would have been a tremendous mistake as at the time British chemical weaponry relied primarily on WW1 vintage mustard gas, whereas the germans had perfected and produced stocks of nerve gas agents.

          Churchill wanted to drop chemical weapons on German cities in retaliation for the V1/V2 raids, but fortunately was persuaded against it. If the Germans had used chemical
    • and the births of (von Braun, Riedel, etc.) its ethos single handedly launched the world into the space age.

      Yeah. Pretty good for war criminals using slave labour.

      The US protected war criminal von Braun in order to outrace the Soviets.

      A (possibly apocryphal) story goes that one time after the war, von Braun's plane, flying from Europe to the US, developed mechanical troubles and the pilot was about to divert to England, when von Braun informed him that he, von Braun, was still subject to arrest in the U
    • Crap.

      von Braun would have been working on rockets regardless of Nazis in power or not. The difference is that the Nazis prohibited civilian research on rocketry (prohibiting the "Verein fuer Raumschiffahrt").
      Another point is that all those people (von Braun, Einstein, Born, Hilbert, Minkowski, Heisenberg...) are products of an education of pre-Nazi Germany.

      Not to mention all those people who worked in Germany, because of those outstanding scientists.
      Before the Nazi-regime, practically all papers in Chemis

  • If this is your cup of tea... (Score:4, Informative)

    by davesag ( 140186 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:24AM (#10226984) Homepage
    If this is your cup of tea then please read "Gravity's Rainbow [hyperarts.com]" by Thomas Pynchon. [google [google.com]].

  • my parents (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spectrokid ( 660550 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:29AM (#10226996) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:my parents (Score:2, Informative)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 )
      The V2 was faster than sound, meaning no advanced warning.
      It was a ballistic missile, and when the rocket came down the engine would already have burned out, that's why it was silent.
    • I guess we should consider ourselves very lucky that the Germans never had the time to develop a submarine-launched V2.. or they'd have been able to conduct accurate short-range attacks on targets in the UK (from offshore positions) and maybe even the USA.
      • That probably would have been a good development. It took so much of Germany's limited resources to produce V2s that each one probably set them back more than any destruction it caused. Moreover, given its failure rate, fueling and launching a V2 from a submarine would have been extremely dangerous. It probably would have wiped out a good chunk of their submarine fleet.

        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

        • You didn't read the site then. The last revisions of the V2 were accurate to within metres of the target even when launched from hundreds of miles away, thanks to superb aiming calibration machines and slight mods to the missile itself.
          • I can't find in the several article where it mentions improved accuracy. However, von Braun's next project, the US Redstone missile [astronautix.com], had an accuracy of 300m at a similar range as the V2. Although measured in "meters", this accuracy is just about totally useless for conventional weapons targeting.

            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 comb

        • Who cares how "accurate" the V@ was? that's like comparing a "model T" to an indy race car, you completely miss the point! Germany was the only country DURING the war to have WORKING ballistic missiles in their arsenal... Much like the US atomic program, it was mearly the fact that it worked at all that caused mearly FEAR of the weapon to be enough to achive their goals. It was the first "long range" weapon ever created...before the V2 you had to use bombers or ships and get within several miles of your
          • Much like the US atomic program, it was mearly the fact that it worked at all that caused mearly FEAR of the weapon to be enough to achive their goals.

            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 w

            • Yet you cannot say that the V2 program had no affect on military decisions. Part of the reason why Ike gave Monty the go ahead for Market-Garden was because Churchill was pressuring Ike to do something about the V2 launch sites.

      • They were working on it. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by plopez ( 54068 )
        http://prinzeugen.com/V2.htm

        another project the US picked up and pursued.

  • Scud (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:29AM (#10227001)
    It's my understanding that the Russian "Scud" rockets so beloved of wannabe regional powers are also V-2 derived.

  • The best Germans (Score:4, Funny)

    by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:33AM (#10227014) Journal
    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".

    • Re:The best Germans (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hype7 ( 239530 ) <u3295110.anu@edu@au> on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:53AM (#10227082) Journal
      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".


      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
      • Germans are definately the master race. I mean, they've got freakin' laws that make it illegal to brew crappy beer!
      • 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.

        I AM AN EXCELLENT ENGINEER! I am an excellent engineer! By genetics!!!1!! I genetically r00l!11! Imagine a Beowulf cluster of myself!!!11!! My engineering genes racially own you!

        Hey wait, my car... broke down... yesterday..
      • They might be a bit deluded when they think of themselves as a master race (well, only some of them do)
        Next time, will you please write a sentence like that in the past tense? Thank you very much.

        I assure you, right now there are no more people in Germany thinking of themselves as the "master race" than there are people in the US thinking of their nation as superior to others.

        Oh, wait...

      • Re:The best Germans (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Deadstick ( 535032 )
        I worked for two of the Paperclippers as an Air Force lieutenant, doing a Master's thesis project on an ion-stream space propulsion gizmo at Wright-Patterson AFB in 1964. The head of the lab was Hans von Ohain, who invented the jet engine at the same time as Frank Whittle in England, although they didn't know about each other...my thesis advisor was Herr Erich Soehngen. He was a Herr instead of a Doktor because -- I am not making this up -- the Eighth Air Force bombed his homework.

        Yes, a lot of our technol

    • Re:The best Germans (Score:2, Informative)

      by ch-chuck ( 9622 )
      close, but backwards [thelogbook.com] (bottom of page)

    • Reason why: Sergei P. Korolev. (Score:5, Informative)

      by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @10:20AM (#10227447)
      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.
      • Although Korolev was brilliant the Russian program wasn't all that much more advanced than the US program. In fact the US could have put a satellite into orbit in 1956 had they wanted to. However President Eisenhower wanted the first satellite to be launched by a civilian agency. On April 23rd 1956 the Army informed the office of the Secretary of Defense that a Jupiter missile could be fired in an effort to orbit a small satellite in January of 1957. The Army then backed up this claim by launching a Jupiter
    • Because the US could build smaller, lighter nuclear warheads than the Soviets. The Soviets had rockets large enough to throw Sputnik up because they had larger payloads to deal with.

  • The Visionary.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by kc_cyrus ( 759211 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:49AM (#10227069)
    The progress of V2 itself wasn't so important to United States, not until Einstein envisioned a scientific military weapon that carried the potential to end the war.

    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.

    • Re:The Visionary.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Yokaze ( 70883 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:19AM (#10227195)
      > 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.

      Your assumption.


      I made one great mistake in my life... when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification - the danger that the Germans would make them. - Albert Einstein


      His only fear was, that the Nazi would build them. He didn't believe in the US being the saviour of the world. In fact, he was suspicous towards any kind of patriotism or nationalism.

  • They really were after rocket scientists (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 12, 2004 @08:51AM (#10227073)
    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.
    • Maybe this is a bit offtopic, but didn't the same thing happen when the Iraqi Information Minister tried to surrender?
      • Maybe this is a bit offtopic, but didn't the same thing happen when the Iraqi Information Minister tried to surrender?

        Basically, yeah, same thing. Just like there was no point in taking as a POW some lowly mechanic, likewise the US army didn't really have any reason to arrest a talking head. That late in both wars, the fighting was over and neither of those guys were "fighters" anyway.

    • "At the end of the war he was driving a truck back from Norway."

      Which would mean his first chance to surrender would have been when he crossed the Finnish border into the Soviet Union. There was no bridge between Sweden and Denmark at the time (and if there were, it would have been bombed to hell). Which is moot, since...

      "The Americans were at Penemunde (sp?) and he tried to surrender to them."

      ... Peenemünde is on an island. If nothing else, the US would have been very interested in his uber-

  • Wernher von Braun (Score:5, Funny)

    by frank249 ( 100528 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:00AM (#10227112)
    There was a movie biography of Wernher von Braun life produced in the 50's called I Aim for the Stars [findarticles.com]. 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.

    • Re:Wernher von Braun (Score:5, Informative)

      by frank249 ( 100528 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:34AM (#10227253)
      Some people think that Von Braun actually said 'But sometimes I hit London, but it is an old joke popularized by Mort Sahl.

      Von Braun did say
      'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
      That's not my department'.

      It was even put into a 1965 song by Tom Lehrer [aol.com]:

      Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun,
      A man whose allegiance
      Is ruled by expedience.
      Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown,
      'Ha, Nazi, Schmazi,' says Wernher von Braun.

      Don't say that he's hypocritical,
      Say rather that he's apolitical.
      'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
      That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun.

      Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
      But some think our attitude
      Should be one of gratitude,
      Like the widows and cripples in old London town,
      Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.

      You too may be a big hero,
      Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.
      "In German oder English I know how to count down,
      Und I'm learning Chinese!" says Wernher von Braun.

  • Does not compute... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tpgp ( 48001 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:17AM (#10227186) Homepage
    .....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?)
    • I know somewhat off-topic...

      But today is my birthday and the anniversary of Kennedy's man on the moon speech.


      Also Kennedy's wedding day, which makes you wonder why he wanted to fly to the moon ...

    • the space race is more like a marathon. Just because you're off the starting line first doesnt guarantee a 'win'.

  • Nazi tech (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:18AM (#10227193) Homepage
    The technological achievements by the Nazis during the war were amazing. They developed and used:

    • 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.
    • And the allies came up with:

      Nuclear weapons
      Computers
      RADAR
      Supersonic 20,000lb bombs
      Jet aircraft (before the Germans)
      Seemingly unbreakable encryption (even today)

      Sure, the Germans came up with lots, but it was only their V2 program that was of any interest to anyone after the war. The main Allied inventions had serious and far-reaching implications for technology after the war, and even today.

      • Re:Nazi tech (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Bender_ ( 179208 )
        And the allies came up with:

        Nuclear weapons
        True

        Computers
        Nope, Konrad Zuse of germany was first. However the Nazis failed to take advantage of it.

        RADAR
        Both sides had radar before the war, the achievement of the british was the magnetron, enable extremely high power and high frequency radar.

        Supersonic 20,000lb bombs
        They were just scaled up conventional bombs. I fail too see the achievement. May also be interesting to note that the allies did not have any targets for 20,000lb bombs on their side.

    • Re:Nazi tech (Score:5, Informative)

      by Insipid Trunculance ( 526362 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @10:02AM (#10227353) Homepage

      Encryption technology (only comprimised due to physical reasons, i.e. someone stole one)

      Sorry ,but your last statement is utter Bullshit.Either you dont know about encryption or are trolling.The inventor of Enigma assumed that a working Enigma would be available to the enemy and therefore,attempted to build the security around the Algorithm.

      In fact ,when the machine's blueprints reached the french they considered the enigma to be unbreakable and thats why they passed the details to the Polish.A young Mathematician named Marion Rewjyski(sp?) set to work on cracking enigma. For details read the book by Simon Singh [amazon.co.uk].

      It was the poles who first broke the enigma and Bletchley park,which came in later, decoded the intercepts

      The Enigma was the most advanced encryption system at its time in the world but to say it was broken only because a machine was captured is utter fallacy.

      P.S I didnt mean to be rude but most /. ers have read enough articles on Encryption to know that the security of a cipher is in its algorithm and nowhere else.

      • Re:Nazi tech (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The name was Marian Rejewski, but he didn't work alone. He worked in team, with Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki. All of them graduated from Adam Mickewicz University in Poznan.

    • Although never deployed they did experiment with wire guided smart bombs which did work. I saw this BBC doco years back called "The Secret War" or something similar, about secret weapons etc in WW2. Among the amazing stuff was film of a smart bomb test using a dummy bomb on a target building, direct bulls-eye. Also they had a clip showing that in the Battle of the Bulge the Reich was trying to deploy one of its experimental jet bombers, holy sh*t eh, just as well the weather was no good.

      Had some very cleve

  • For more information.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @09:30AM (#10227234) Homepage Journal
    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 [cosmo.org] 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.
    • There's also a V-2 at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. One thing that struck me about it was how lousy the "fit and finish" was: the body panels were wavy and uneven. Then I realized that it might be hard to get high-quality workmanship from slave labor....

  • Canadian content (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Easy2RememberNick ( 179395 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @10:42AM (#10227536)
    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 [avroarrow.org]

    • Re:Canadian content (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Easy2RememberNick ( 179395 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @10:51AM (#10227573)
      ...and also.

      EXN.ca [www.exn.ca] an article on the Canadian Discovery Channel about the relationship between Avro Arrow and NASA.

      "When they were flying the Arrow," explains Gainor, "they decided that only one person should talk to the pilot, and that person should have experience as a pilot. At NASA, to this day, all the conversations with the crew are done through the capcom, which is always another astronaut."
    • 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
      • My fellow Americans, when the Canadians come flooding across the border with guns in their hands and murder in their eyes, don't go crying to your leaders about the world's longest uncontrolled border.

        You say that as if Canada were a sovereign nation and not part of the United States.
  • Thomas Pynchon's novel "Gravity's Rainbow" deserves a mention here as it is kind of all about the V2. Sort of.

    I think fair use will stretch enough to allow me to quote one of his "Rocket Limericks" :

    There once was a thing called a V2
    To pilot which you did not need to
    You just pushed a button
    And it would leave nothing But stiffs and big holes and debris too

    • There was another novel 'Space' [amazon.com] by James A. Michener which had a good coverage of the history of that time

      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).

  • Astronaut Gordon Cooper wrote about this ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ankhank ( 756164 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @02:13PM (#10228539) Journal
    In "Leap of Faith" (Harper, ISBN 0-006-109877-9

    p. 172 "As we always said at the time, our Germans are better than their Germans.
    "The visitors to Wehrner's house included ... 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. 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."

  • First V2 sightings (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WowTIP ( 112922 ) on Sunday September 12, 2004 @03:08PM (#10228835)
    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 [df.lth.se] covering the topic. Interesting reading.

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