The Rocket Age and the Space Age
V-2 and Sputnik
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
The first successful launch of Germany’s A-4 ballistic missile and the orbiting of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1, took place 15 years and one day apart. The two achievements are related in more ways than their proximity on the calendar.
On Oct. 3, 1942, an A-4 developed by Wernher von Braun and his German Army team reached an altitude of 85 to 90 km (52.8 to 55.9 miles) after launch from Peenemunde on the Baltic Coast.
Whether this counts as the first human-made object to reach space is a matter of debate. The V-2 exceeded the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s 50-mile (80.4-km) definition of space. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) , which keeps records on such achievements, uses 100 km (62.1 mile) as the boundary.
But, both of those definitions came later. The Germans who launched the V-2 that fall day had no doubts about what they had just done.
“Do you realize what we accomplished today? Today the spaceship was born,” von Braun’s Army boss, Walter Dornberger, declared at a celebration that evening.
Well, not exactly. An actual spaceship would come 15 years later. The V-2 was a weapon of war. Dornberger’s hungover engineers got up the next morning and went back to trying to win the Second World War for Adolf Hitler. In this, they would thankfully fail.
The V-2, as it was later renamed for vengeance weapon, occupies a rare place in the history of weaponry: it killed far more of the people who built it than the enemy it was fired against in England, Belgium and France.
Approximately 10,000 prisoners from the Dora concentration camp died while manufacturing the V-2 in a cold, damp underground facility known as Mittelwerk. They worked in horrendous conditions while being beaten, starved and hanged by brutal SS guards.
The 3,200 to 3,600 missiles fired at enemy targets killed an estimated 5,500 people and left 6,500 others seriously wounded. The V-2 spread terror, but it actually shortened the war for the Allies by diverting money and resources from far more effective weapons.
Faced with mass layoffs and the liberation of their prisoner workforce as Hitler’s regime fell in 1945, von Braun made a deal with the Americans to bring a core of more than 100 V-2 engineers to the United States.
They subsequently launched V-2s at White Sands in the New Mexico desert. During the 1950’s, von Braun and his team also developed the short-range Redstone ballistic missile based on their work in Germany.
The Soviets took a number of Peenemunde veterans and V-2 rockets back home with them. They subsequently developed a missile known as the R-1, the first in a series of increasing powerful boosters based on captured German technology.
In the beginning, the rockets could only carry experiments on brief suborbital flights. But by the mid-1950’s, both the United States and Soviet Union were eyeing orbital launches.
Von Braun’s effort to launch the world’s first satellite on a modified Redstone during the International Geophysical Year (1957-8) was turned down when a government panel selected the U.S. Navy’s Vanguard rocket.
It was a fateful decision. The Vanguard ran behind schedule. And on Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching Sputnik on an R-7 booster that traced its heritage back to the V-2.
The launch shocked the world and set off a panic in the United States where American technological and military superiority had been taken as a granted since the end of World War II.
The first American satellite launch attempt two months later on Dec. 6 failed spectacularly as the Vanguard booster exploded right after liftoff and fell back on its launch pad. News[papers dubbed the failure “flopnik”, “kaputnik”, “oopsnik”, and “stayputnik”.
On Jan. 31, 1958, von Braun got his chance. A modified version of the Redstone rocket called the Jupiter-C lifted off from Cape Canaveral with the Explorer 1 satellite aboard.
Explorer 1 was intended to orbit the Earth every 90 minutes or so. But, that time came and went with no word from the Goldstone Tracking Station in California. After an agonizing wait, Goldstone finally acquired the satellite’s signal. It was in a higher orbit that took it around the Earth every 114.8 minutes.
Von Braun became a national hero in his adopted country. Explorer 1 discovered radiation belts that circled the Earth that would be named after James Van Allen, an University of Iowa professor who designed the instrument that measured them.
In 1961, the United States suffered another shock as the Soviets sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit around the Earth. The cosmonaut was sent into orbit by a Vostok rocket that traced its origins back to the R-7 booster and, ultimately, the V-2 that von Braun and his team developed.
Prtesident John F. Kennedy challenged the Soviets to land men on the moon. Von Braun and his team would go on to develop the Saturn rockets that the Apollo astronauts would use to achieve that goal.
The launch of Sputnik is rightly celebrated as the true beginning of the Space Age. But, the start of the Rocket Age almost 15 years earlier is all but forgotten today.
It’s uncomfortable to think that von Braun and other engineers who helped send Americans to the moon once worked for Hitler. That they might have succeeded in helping the dictator win the war is the stuff of nightmares and counterfactual history.
And then there was the exploitation of slaves who were worked, starved and beaten to death while building a weapon for a genocidal regime. It’s a stain on humanity that must never be forgotten.
Descendants of the V-2 have launched spacecraft that have transformed global communications and explored other worlds and interstellar space. They have also kept the world on the edge of a nuclear precipice for more than 60 years.
The beginning of the Rocket Age is a difficult thing to celebrate. Its proximity on the calendar to the start of the Space Age makes it easy to overlook.
17 responses to “The Rocket Age and the Space Age”
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“von Braun …once worked for Hitler”
A brilliant scientist/engineer but who also was a card-carrying Nazi fully cognizant of the atrocities. The documentary titled ‘Untouchable’ which is about a certain Hollywood producer reminds me of von Braun’s story. Von Braun should’ve been incarcerated but was instead immune because of his rocketry talent. No doubt there were many people who would have liked to have seen him put away for his crimes but were powerless to do anything about it. Untouchable indeed.
“Planet Dora” by Yves Béon gives a good idea of the economics of a concentration camp. It also does a good job of describing how the production facility for the V2 was constructed from initial rock blasting to moving the machine tools in, to missile production. Having moved more than my share of 4000 lb + precision production tools the parts about moving the production tooling, jigs, and fixtures into the production facility really stood out to me. He also goes into division of labor and how unskilled laborers were able to produce goods that required great skill. He also goes into the SS slave trade and when you understand that you really understand what the camp system was all about and why Germany created such large refugee streams for the SS to tap into for slave labor. It really brings home the old British saying that the Germans were intent on enslaving Europe. They really were, and did. The book also describes the central role of starvation to make room for the newly enslaved. A almost comical, had it not really happened, desire of the SS to hold onto their slaves to the very last minute as if they thought they could trade their slaves to the allies in exchange for something. In the last weeks of the war the SS shuttles the enslaved workers of Dora on trains trying to avoid allied armies. In the end the author is liberated by the British army showing up at the gates of a holding camp during roll call. The SS held them to them to very last minute.
In the late 80’s I worked at the UofA Science and Engineering library and on hot summer days all of Tucson’s space geeks would come check out books, hang out at Current Periodicals, bother the reference librarian about new NTIS subject searches to do, and we’d all chat about what was going on, who was going to present what idea at some conference or another. It was an amazing scene. We’d have guys like Ken Morris who worked on the F-1, Andy Valarie who was always looking to maximize mass payback ratios for lunar industrialization schemes, guys with histories they would never disclose chat you up about what you were reading in Janes Fighting Ships or NIS Proceedings Mag. I still have weekend coffee with some of the guys I met there 30 years ago. One of them was a guy named Hans. Hans was a Paper Clip refugee who was a machine operator at Peenemunde, and then supervised the loading of warheads onto transport crates at Dora. From what he told me all the real development of the A-4 (He would allow it to be called nothing else.) all happened at Peenemunde. By the time production was happening at Dora a lot of the Peenemunde operation had been scattered about Germany. Having seen both sides it was his opinion that the ties between Peenemunde and Dora were real, but were weaker than what most of the naysayers claim.
One of the things I have noticed in some accounts is the corruption of the SS that caused many (the majority?) of the starvation deaths in the camps. The official minimal rations for the prisoners were considerably reduced by SS diverting them and selling on the black market. It seems plausible that the corruption itself weakened the Nazi war effort by starving prisoners to death far beyond policy. Or corruption made a horrible policy even more horrible in practice.
Given the central role of the SS in the NAZI ideology as it evolved I would argue the SS could never be corrupt as an organization only as individuals provided they acted against the organiztion. Everything they did was legit by definition. This was not an ideology of laws and not men. When I think NAZI Germany I see an attempt at re-creating Sparta on a large scale. Brutal eugenic filtering of the citizenry with most of them bound for military duty to be served by a vast enslaved population of workers. At least in the expansion phase (WWII) the Germans would scoop up more slaves than they could deal with so the starvation was needed to make room for the freshly enslaved. I, like you, once considered that the camp system was probably a net drain on Germany, but I’m a bit wishly washy on that now as most of their huge ‘public works’ projects such as the U Boat pens in France were done with slave labor and those were very effective compliments to the U Boat program. Also under reported were POW’s and citizenry in Poland and Ukraine who were scooped up on an individual basis to do work in Germany as industrial workers and farm hands to take the place of Germans who were doing military duty. There’s a real ‘benefit’ to societies like NAZI Germany as they get to be ‘more honest’. When the base articles of human nature endowed to us by our creator come to the fore, in our society, we consider it corruption and have to fight amongst ourselves in order to maintain social norms. However, a society like NAZI Germany embraces it and puts it forward as success. I think that’s one of the reasons why so many men world wide look up to the early 20th Cen Germany.
The Slavs from Poland and other Slavic nations sent to labor in Germany weren’t there just because Germany needed the labor, but to get rid of them so there would be room in Poland for Germans to settle there. The Jews were just first on the list for extermination because they were seen as the most dangerous by the NAZI ideology. Next in line were the Slavic races.
But also remember that the same slave labor camps are also part of Communist ideology. Just as the National Socialists used the camps as a way to “cleanse” society of the “inferior races” and those who didn’t embrace Socialism so did the Soviets. Indeed, because of the length of Soviet rule the number who died in its slave labor camps is estimated to be at least twice the number who died in the NAZI camps, it just that the Soviets were less “efficient” in doing so. But then conditions in Siberia were so bad the Soviets didn’t need to waste money on gas chambers as the Siberia winter worked as well.
Bringing this back around to space it is important to recognize that just as slave labor was used to build the A-4s so did the Russians use slave labor to mine the ore and build the railroads that made the rockets used to launch Sputnik possible, a sad link between the two events.
And the slave labor camps are not gone from the world. They still exist in North Korea and China. The estimated 3 million Muslims in the Chinese camps live and work in conditions that are little different than those in the German camps, except for the lack of gas chambers for the weak and surplus labor.
You have to wonder why there are no campaigns against American firms that do business in China? I guess it is because so many see China as the “future” rather than a hold over from humanity’s barbaric past. Incidentally India is discouraging it’s businesses from partnering with Chinese firms, which is a step the Unites States should follow.
I would imagine there are few campaigns against the slave camps in China because a good chunk of of American enterprise is dependent on the Chinese for their production. We’ve already discussed my claims that American business men are wimps in the face of orders from the Chinese government. The secret to China’s success is in large part due to the willing help and loyalty of the Western corporations who the Chinese Communist party patronizes. When you look at Chinese national projects where they act alone, they look Soviet, of Soviet quality. The magic sauce is technology transfer from the West. However China is going independent.
Matula, I’m not asking for Chinese style national planning of the economy, it’s the business sector that votes with their choice of production method and source, and their unwillingness to invest in their own countrymen anymore. I’m not the problem. It’s the little Donalds and Donna’s coming from your class.
The ones coming from the “elite” business schools are learning that. But then that is what happens when you neglect teaching students good corporate citizenship and American business history.
I teach the students in my classes about the American business tradition, corporate citizenship and what I call community entrepreneurship, which focuses on local starting local businesses.
Incidentally if you are unhappy about U.S. corporations being in China it means that you must support President Trump’s leveling the playing field by putting high tariffs on Chinese goods, mirroring the high tariffs they had on U.S. goods. ?
What Trump is doing with China is what Trump has always done with his business enterprises. It’s all show and no depth. He’s not addressing why American enterprise is becoming a vassal of the Chinese Communist Party’s planned economy policies. He in no way is asking the American business sector to ask themselves why they are supplicants to the Chinese but then become staunch Libertarians when dealing with the US and state governments. He in no way brings out even the most fundamental point that the US business sector bends over backwards to act ‘international’ while the rest of the world are a bunch of staunch nationalists. He is not addressing at a cultural level nor is he addressing it at the policy level by say dealing declaring any inputs to American enterprise overseas by foreign governments as income to be taxed by the US government. We should be fining corporate individual members of corporate boards as persons when their corporations are nationalized by foreign governments, make the share holders shoulder the losses ensued by those losses, and fine corporate officers, and board members when their technology is stolen by foreign nations and punished even harder when that technology is used by hostile military powers.
Trumps tariffs are simply creating another path to profit by predatory business men. Let me tell you about one path I see here in Tucson. The biggest steel re-seller here in town, Superior Steel, was selling Chinese steel at $0.50/lb for cold rolled before the Tarrifs. Now they sell imported ‘Mexican’ steel at $2.75 lb. However that steel has it’s origins in China just as the old steel did, except instead of coming in from the port of Long Beach, it came in from a Mexican port. I still don’t see steel from the US Steel plant in Indiana come into the train yard from the East. The steel comes in on the FerroMex train instead of from the West. The auto manufacturers in Mexico are also pocketing quite a bit of additional profit by importing their metals into Mexico for the Ford plants instead of using more of a mix. Trump has changed little and probably made things worse. I think all he’s done is create arbitrage opportunities with the Tariffs. I’ll bet once he’s out of office we’ll see someone find a revenue stream from the Trump tribe to metals arbitrage.
So it sounds like you don’t believe in free trade or internationalism which is the basic viewpoint of President Trump. President Trump focused on Tariffs because he has the authority to do it without Congress. Those other actions would require Congressional action and there is zero chance of that happening.
That said President Trump is considering ordering U.S. firms out China, but its questionable if its legal. I am sure the Democrats will say it is.
https://www.scmp.com/news/c…
Donald Trump’s ‘order’ to US companies in China trade war rests on an obscure 1977 law
In terms of the Steel coming from Mexico, under the existing trade treaties a regional value content requirement of either 60 percent of transaction value or 50 percent of net cost method is required from the product to be covered. If they are importing Chinese Steel via Mexico they would still be required to pay the tariff on it as if it was from China.
The Tariff is 25%, so it shouldn’t increase the price more than 12.5 cents if the original price was .50 cents per pound. Some other factor is involved if it increased to $2.75 pound. Perhaps the costs they have to pay to the intermediaries in Mexico. Sounds like someone could easily undercut them if they import directly from China.
I think what’s happening is price gouging and the people who set up the tariffs are cashing in. I don’t think you get a tariff like these set up unless the the lines of gouging are already agreed upon. The market is rigged. It’s time the public relieves itself of the naive notion of free trade and elect people who can articulate intelligent publicly debated and Congressionally approved market rigging that will have measurable and traceable effect.
If you think that is the case you could file a complaint with the FTC. That is how the process starts, with someone filing a complaint which is then investigated.
I was referring to individual corruption make the horrible worse. I didn’t consider the camps as a net drain, but the corruption of individuals made the camps less effective for Germany. People working at the point of death are not effective workers, and constantly having to train a new workforce gets lousy productivity and QC as well.
There are many accounts of dud German artillery shells that were assembled by slaves. People that have nothing to lose will do poor work as there is no reason to do better.
A lot of what you may have considered corruption was probably taught in the institution as policy. Taking from others to enrich or further stoke your desire to victimize the weak is what we consider a social sickness and those of us who have natural proclivity to do so have to cover it up and cloak their behavior behind a noble cause. I doubt that any lip service was ever given to prisoner rights or the humanity of the inmates at SS guard school. I’m sure as an institution the concept of open season by the strong on the weak was fully encouraged and probably taught as scientifically as it was possible at that time.
At the divisional level esp in places like Poland where German occupation was more effective than say in the Ukraine, black market dealings were probably not even frowned upon. The occupational authorities were going to be granted large estates in Eastern Europe, so any ‘black market’ dealings on behalf of the officers corps may have been encouraged as a means of them establishing their dominion over the region as persons not only as members of the state.
The SS prisoners were originally brought to build V-2s at Peenemude. The SS was running a rent a slave operation. Peenemude leadership toured other production facilities where slaves were being used. They liked what they saw and needed workers.
The RAF raided Peenemunde in August 1943. Damaged the base and sadly ended up killing a number,of the slave laborers.
Decision made to move production to underground cave in Hartz Mountains. Slaves brought in to expand the tunnels. The Mark’s they made are still visible. I saw them when I visited.
There are two excellent books by Michael J. Neufeld that document all of this from primary sources.
The move underground took a very heavy toll on the workers. It also provided greater distance physically and programmatically between development and production.
Any idea what will happen to this collection?
https://whnt.com/2019/10/12…
Medaris is spinning in his crypt.
White Sands might be the logical place to store it/ put it on curated public display.
…reached an altitude of 85 to 90 km (52.8 to 55.9 miles)…
Check your significant figures. Since the altitude in km was clearly not stated to better than +/- 2.5 km from 87.5 km, there is no way you know how many miles to the nearest tenth of a mile. This should read:
(53 to 56 miles)
Just because your calculator hands you a bunch of decimal places doesn’t mean they actually mean anything.