Nazi Terror Weapons to Moon Rockets - The Story of Wernher Von Braun
July 16th, 1969.
As the Saturn V rocket climbed into the sky, carrying the crew of Apollo 11 towards the
moon.
A certain German engineer was watching, proudly from the launch control center.
His name was Wernher von Braun, and The Saturn V was his creation, the culmination of A/his
life's work in rocket engineering.
In fact, the entire space age, was in a way, his creation.
Nowadays, he was an all-American celebrity, "Rocketman" Von Braun.
But 30 years earlier, back in Europe, his career had begun very differently.
Throughout the ages, people have gazed up at the stars and wondered
"What's it like out there?"
But from the beginning of time to the dawn of the 20th century, nobody really had a feasible
idea about how to get up there and find out.
Then came the idea… of riding rockets.
Often inspired by science fiction, people around the world calculated and theorised:
Was it possible to ride a rocket into space?
Rockets were nothing new, they had been around, as weapons, for centuries.
However, a rocket, at the time looked a bit like a big firework, burning gunpowder and
having no chance of reaching space.
It needed to be drastically improved.
However, the would-be rocket-pioneers were mostly on their own, people usually rolled
their eyes at their ideas and it had been a long time since any military funding had
gone to rockets.
They were a weapon of the past, made obsolete by modern artillery.
Still, a few optimists kept at it.
The first modern liquid-fuel-burning rocket was launched in 1926.
However, it barely rose above the trees and in forty-two years one would carry people
to the moon.
Something special was gonna have to happen to make that leap in technology possible.
That thing turns out, was German engineering combined with good old human tribalism.
In the early 1930's rockets and space travel was more popular in Germany than anywhere
else, mostly because of a smash hit sci-fi movie.
Von Braun was a physics student in Berlin at the time, specialising in rocketry.
He had dreamed about building spaceships since he was a kid.
But the universe had a different plan for him.
Germany was in the midst of re-arming itself after their defeat in the First World War.
An artillery captain from the army was impressed by Von Braun's research and invited him
to come build rockets at his test range.
The young engineer had no interest in artillery but realised that this might be his chance
to get his research off the ground, literally.
Blessed with a rare opportunity, Von Braun didn't waste it, building upon the research
of those who came before him, he managed to make great progress
Soon his rockets were flying a mile high.
When the Nazi party came to power and accelerated the weapon-building effort, the small rocket-range
operation was moved to a larger, secret facility.
Von Braun had impressed the army and was brought along as director of the new rocket program.
Here, as World War 2 was raging, Wernher Von Braun led the team that created the missile
that would change the world.
The A-4 was the picture of a modern weapon, menacing, large but aerodynamic and equipped
with a guidance system.
Fired straight up, the A-4 was the first man-made object to cross into outer space.
Loaded with the right explosive, it was a terrifying weapon.
It descended from the sky faster than the speed of sound, meaning you wouldn't hear
it coming, until after it had already struck it's target…
Or at least struck something.
The A-4's one big flaw, was it's accuracy, or lack thereof.
But Hitler didn't care, he was high on a thousand drugs, the war was going to hell
and this was surely the aryan wonder weapon the valkyries had sent to turn it all around.
He ordered the missile mass-produced.
But first it needed a new, scarier name.
The V-2 project was turned over to the SS, and they started using slave labor to mass
produce the rockets.
During 1944 and 1945 over three thousands V-2 rockets were launched at allied cities
in the west.
The allies, who thought they had control over the skies, were shocked to find that they
were still being bombed and that there was nothing they could do about it.
Luckily, the V-2's accuracy problem caused it to, more often than not, miss their targets
completely, saving a lot of lives.
In fact when it all was over and done, more people had died building the rockets than
had died being hit by them.
As the war drew to a close both the Western Allies and the Soviets saw the potential of
the V-2 technology.
Wernher Von Braun had convinced them that missiles were the weapons of the future and
both sides now wanted to get their hands on him and his staff.
Looking at how each side treated their prisoners, Von Braun the V-2 staff decided to go with
the Americans.
They engineered a daring escape to the western frontlines and gave themselves up.
The Soviets mostly had to be content with kidnapping some poor factory engineers.
The Germans were shipped to the US and put to work teaching Americans the ins and outs
of rocketry.
After a few years of that, they were employed by the US Army's Redstone Arsenal to build
upon the V-2's design and create a new, American rocket.
Von Braun was now once again stuck building weapons.
But this time he had American free speech on his side.
He was free to promote his interest in Space travel.
He wrote articles with detailed ideas for space stations and missions to the moon and
to mars, some of which would later be used.
Interestingly: He also wrote a science fiction novel about Mars Colonisation in which the
Colony is led by an elected leader known as:
"the Elon."
Von Braun even appeared with Walt Disney in a series of short films promoting space exploration.
The man who had terrorised Europe now appeared in Disney films.
While Von Braun was promoting space travel, the cold war had begun.
Despite not getting the catch America had got, the Soviets managed to learn from the
V-2's design and had build some decent missiles of their own.
By now both sides had nuclear weapons, so naturally, they started mounting them on top
of rockets.
Having atom-bomb-tipped missiles was a good way to project power.
But how do keep reminding the world of your superior rocket technology without looking
like a mad warmonger?
"We're gonna use one of our amazing new rockets to send a satellite into space"
said the Americans.
"We're gonna do that too" said the Russians.
And so Wernher von Braun had accidentally started a race into space.
Not that he minded.
He proposed that they use one of his Redstone rockets to launch America's first satellite,
but he was rejected at first.
The Redstone was a known weapon!
And to boot it was built by ex-nazis.
Only after another "more peaceful" rocket exploded on the launch pad, and after the
Soviets had shamelessly used a military missile to launch a satellite first, did the Redstone
get the job.
Finally, Wernher Von Braun was in the space business.
When NASA was founded, Von Braun was put in charge of the Marshall Space Flight Center
and when President Kennedy urged America to put a man on the moon.
The Marshall team was tasked with designing the rocket that would carry him there.
So while the Redstone was used to launch the first two American astronauts into space.
Wernher von Braun led the development of the rocket that would become the Saturn V.
Leading us, 9 years later, to the launch of Apollo 11.
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the moon 4 days after launch, Von
Braun had fulfilled a lifelong dream.
However, he wasn't finished.
He wanted to push on to Mars, he had plans for an even more powerful rocket and insisted
that a landing could be made by the early 1980's.
However, public support for the space program was waning.
After all, they had shown the Russians who was boss.
NASA's ambitions had to be dialled down, a lot.
Frustrated, Von Braun resigned from NASA, A couple of years later he was diagnosed with
kidney cancer, and died soon after.
All the rockets, used by both sides of the space race, was more or less descended from
his V-2.
Wernher von Braun remains a complex character.
How involved exactly was he in the slave labor, the SS or the nazi regime in general?
There are differing accounts but most seems to point towards him simply doing whatever
it took to conduct rocket research.
Was there more he could have done to use his position to prevent the slave labor?
Is he responsible for a weapon that led to tens of thousands of deaths?
Was he a visionary that helped usher humanity into a new era of space exploration?
Engineer of War or Conqueror of Gravity…?
Nazi War Criminal or American Hero..?
Just a man doing his job?
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