What if von Braun refused the nazi regime to design rockets?

[jimfromnsf]

Means do not justify the ends. <br />Also, it didn't happen in the 1940's. A 10, 20, 50 or even a 100 year delay in the first orbital launch isn't going to make a difference as to "saving" the species. escaping to the stars is going happen any faster

 

[edkyle98]

>"Would there be manned spaceflight today without the V2? "<<br /><br />Perhaps this is what you are really asking. Both the U.S. and the Soviets benefited greatly from captured V-2 technology at the end of the war. It gave both a jump start in what became the missile race. V-2 saved both countries a few years effort, at least. But missiles, and spaceflight, would have happened without V-2, IMO, because of the Bomb and the Cold War. Gagarin and Glenn would have orbited, but maybe not until the mid 1960s. Armstrong's first step might have occurred during the 1970s, etc.<br /><br /> - Ed Kyle

 

[racer7]

<b>spacefire</b>, generally I enjoy your enthusiam regarding space and your posts. That said, I think your questions here have probably crossed the line of bad taste.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Do you think developing rocketry as a means for the human species to extend to the stars and thus escape certain extinction was worth the Holocaust?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote>No. One doesn't lead to the other. Rocketry would have been developed without the Holocaust. In no way did the technology developed take us to the stars regardless.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I ask you to think about it....would YOU allow 50 million people to be slaughtered if the technology developed during this conflict safeguarded the future of the entire species? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote>No. As stated by <b>jimfromnsf</b> the amount of time saved doesn't justify the means. I'm basically agnostic bordering on atheist, but even to me this is selling your soul.

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I think the fact that the V2 was utterly useless as a practical weapon reflects well on Von Braun considering soime of the alternatives.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Actually, the V2 was quite a fearsome weapon. The Nazis fired many of them to bombard London, Paris, and Brussels (moving backward as the Allies advanced forward). It enabled them to continue bombardment after they had been pushed back to where they could no longer safely stage bombing raids, even beyond the range of the V-1 "buzz bomb". And unlike the V-1, it was impossible for the Allies to shoot it down. V-1s, like modern cruise missiles, were vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire and interception by fighters. V-2s, being ballistic missiles, were totally invulnerable to such defense systems. The only defense was to take out the launch platform before it could fire, but this was a problem because the launchers were mobile. It was the dawn of a new kind of artillery -- the ballistic missile.<br /><br />The main reason the V-2 failed to turn the tide had nothing to do with its capabilities. It just came too late in the war to make much of a difference in the long run. All it could do was to increase the casualty count. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[ckikilwai]

@ Spacefire<br />I don't like the question either spacefire, the Holocaust wasn't needed for the V2, if some communist party took control in Germany instead of the nazis, they would probably have spotted von Braun's genius to and developped the V2.<br /><br />Some of the things I ask myself is if von Braun ever publicly apologized himself for what he has done during WW2.<br />I know that the V1 and V2 has killed many people's family in Antwerp (the city where I grew up) and Essen (the village where I live now), it could have ease the pain for them a bit.

 

[edkyle98]

>"Some of the things I ask myself is if von Braun ever publicly apologized himself for what he has done during WW2. "<<br /><br />Von Braun viewed his wartime work as duty to his country. Neither he nor the U.S. authorities viewed anything he did to have been against the laws of war. Yes, V-2 was aimed at civilian populations, but Von Braun didn't assign targets - and at any rate civilians became targets during the war. Numerous Allied bomb raids against Germany were aimed at civilians during so called "terror raids", for example. <br /><br />Von Braun once wrote the following: <br /><br />"With the tight press censorship imposed by Hitler, the abuses of his regime were not nearly as visible to the average German as they were to an outsider who had free access to the international news media. For this reason, I must say, more by way of a statement than as an apology, that I never realized the depth of the abyss of Hitler's régime until very late and particularly after the war, when all these terrible abuses were first published. I guess until about a year before the war's end I shared the feelings of most Germans that while Hitler was unquestionably an aggressor and a conqueror, that this put him more in a class with Napoleon than with the devil incarnate. While right from the beginning I deeply deplored the war and the misery and suffering it spread all over the world, I found myself caught in a maelstrom in which I simply felt that, like it or not, it was my duty to work for my country at war."<br /><br />http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbraun.htm<br /><br /> - Ed Kyle

 

[steve82]

The war crimes of which Von Braun is thought to be a part did not involve the use of V2 rockets on civilian populations. Rather, they are the well-established fact that he was involved in and knew of the illegal use of slave labor in the construction of the V2's. He is known to have visited the Nordhausen factory/concentration camp where thousands of workers died in inhuman conditions. He was also a member of the SS although that in itself was not a war crime. There may not necessarily have been enough to convict him of a major war crime, but had all of his involvement been known at the end of the war, he would have been denied entry to the US or at least his circumstances while working for the US would have been drastically different.

 

[qso1]

jimfromnsf:<br />Unlike the DOD, NASA never got it out of their thinking.<br /><br />Me:<br />Actually, the bulk of NASA missions are unmanned, ranging from earth resource satellites to unmanned deep space probes. Those which are manned are directed towards objectives which are thought to be better served by a human presence. Unmanned planetary missions have been a staple of NASA since its beginnings. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

spacefire:<br />Do you think developing rocketry as a means for the human species to extend to the stars and thus escape certain extinction was worth the Holocaust?<br /><br />Me:<br />The idea of a space arc is the one that ought to be challenged. As presented and as I understand such a concept...it is designed to get people off earth to safety in the event of some impending planet smunching catastrophe. The practical aspects are rarely addressed and probably barely thought of at all at the time of the V-2. A time when it was still uncertain if humans could even survive long term space travel.<br /><br />As for 50 million dying. The impracticallity of getting people to the stars will result in decisions as to who should go which will in turn result in the number of deaths being far beyond 50 million. Those deaths will be the people who are left behind because there is simply not likely ever to be a way to remove billions from earth within the next millinia or so. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[mattblack]

He would have been replaced with somebody less capable and probably, very ruthless. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[holmec]

I can't believe that people are blaming Von Braun for making V2 and forget his contribution in the Cold War -- the development of IRBMs, and more importantly the development of Saturn V on whose shoulders the US went to the moon. How many lives were saved there? <br /><br />Besides the development of the V-2 (started 1936) was before the Holocaust (started 1942, spring).<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2#Developmental_history<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[holmec]

To say that rocketry and Holocaust had anything to do with each other is preposterous since the only time they ever coincided in history was when Hitler was desperate.<br /><br />Rocketry started way before WWII and its effect was felt mainly in the Cold War. I believe Russian rocketry was a way to counter the B-29 global reach with a nuclear bomb. So even without the V-2 the cold war was still on. Von Braun probably saved the US since the US was slow in developing ICBMs until Sputnik. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[edkyle98]

>"The war crimes of which Von Braun is thought to be a part did not involve the use of V2 rockets on civilian populations. Rather, they are the well-established fact that he was involved in and knew of the illegal use of slave labor in the construction of the V2's."<<br /><br />Knew of, yes, but Kammler and Rudolph were the ones who were "involved". They were the ones who proposed and endorsed the use of "concentration camp prisoners" at Mittelwerk. <br /><br /> - Ed Kyle

 

[edkyle98]

>"I can't believe that people are blaming Von Braun for making V2 and forget his contribution in the Cold War -- the development of ICBMs. How many lives were saved there?"<<br /><br />Von Braun worked on Redstone and Jupiter, both Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs). He was not involved in ICBM (Intercontinetal Range) missiles because he worked for the Army, not the Air Force.<br /><br />If anyone must "blame" Von Braun for his involvement in the V-2, then they must also "blame" the likes of Clairmont Egtvedt and Philip Johnson for the B-17 and B-29, or Avro's chief designer, Roy Chadwick, for the Lancaster. Planes such as these were used to bomb cities full of civilians in Europe and Asia with much more deadly effect than the V-2 during that horrible war.<br /><br /> - Ed Kyle

 

[strandedonearth]

The other thing that limited the effectiveness of the V-2 was the low-yield warhead. High yield explosives would have been set off during the heat of re-entry. Not that a high-yield warhead would have made much difference, unless, of course, it was nuclear.<br /><br />Excerpt from www.v2rocket.com <br />Warhead: 1627 lb of explosives, 738 kg<br />(not high explosives, because of frictional warmth exceeding 1200 degrees F during flight)

 

[spacefire]

I know a lot of people fail to see a connection, but:]<br /><br />Von Braun got his deutschemarks from the Nazi regime, same regime that brought us gas chambers and used them plenty as well.<br /><br />The advent of the second world war spurred aerospace technology in a way never accomplished before, except during the first world war.<br /><br />Without said world wars, there would have been no cold war either.<br /><br />without all this impetus to develop rockety and technology in general, our spacefaring exploits would have been delayed ,IMO, at least 30 years (not 10)<br /><br />there ight come one day when these years might make the difference between life and death for our species: an incoming asteroid for instance, which could be detected and neutralized only with space-based platforms.<br /><br />so it does make sense to ask whether the Holocauset and the Second World War were worth the technological advance we got.<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[holmec]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Von Braun worked on Redstone and Jupiter, both Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs). He was not involved in ICBM (Intercontinetal Range) missiles because he worked for the Army, not the Air Force. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />While that is true I was thinking about his attempts to jump start the US missile program before Sputnik was launched. <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[holmec]

here is a wiki on mittelwerk<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[holmec]

They were reichmarks.<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichmark<br /><br />The deutschemark came later.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>so it does make sense to ask whether the Holocauset and the Second World War were worth the technological advance we got. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />The Holocaust had nothing to do with the war. It was a side campaign by Hitler. It had nothing to do with technology either. Neither did the cultural revolutions that probably killed more in Russia and China had anything to do with technology. Technology is a tool not a philosophy.<br /><br />But to answer the question, I don't think any life is worth any new technology. If you have to take a life it probably means you took a short cut down the technology road. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

"without all this impetus to develop rockety and technology in general, our spacefaring exploits would have been delayed ,IMO, at least 30 years (not 10) "<br /><br />30 years isn't enough to make a difference

 

[frodo1008]

Whoa there jimfromnsf! Von Braun had nothing to with any decisions made on the ISS after 1977, as he died from cancer in that year!! Further if you read his works you will discover that his vision for a space station was entirely different (and far more advanced) than the current ISS! <br /><br />His vision for a space station was to be at a far higher altitude (thus, no need for additional fuel for station keeping and the station would be out of the human debris area it is now dealing with). The station was to only be a stepping stone for going further out to make bases and colonies on the moon and eventually Mars. Something that we are going to have to do correctly eventually (perhaps using Bigelow modules?).<br /><br />To truly exploit the materials from the moon not only are we going to have to have a true garage type of space station in a high earth orbit, but a smaller but human tended and viable station in lunar orbit as well. This in concert with vehicles that travel only between such stations (using far more economical fuel such as ion drives) is what it is going to take in the form of space infrastructure to truly give humanity access to the nearby space resources of the moon. This was Von Braun’s vision way back in the 1950’s, and is STILL the best space vision that is available.<br /><br />By the way, if it hadn’t have been for our desire to wage war in South East Asia by blowing holes in rice paddies and therefore robbing NASA of the funds for such a vision we would now have colonies on the moon, and bases on Mars!!<br /><br />And now we are doing it again in the Middle East (only this time it is desert instead of jungle). This is why I am very afraid we will never get back to even the moon let alone on to other places!! Will we NEVER learn??????<br />

 

[jimfromnsf]

It wasn't his decisions, it was a mentality he instilled

 

[drwayne]

His vision was also developed at a time in which the involvement of men in monitoring and controlling equipment was a major part of the job of being in space.<br /><br />This viison shows up in the idea of a goodly number of men sitting around at consoles watching gauges and pressing buttons - automation changed that quite a bit.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[j05h]

<i>> Whoa there jimfromnsf! Von Braun had nothing to with any decisions made on the ISS after 1977, as he died from cancer in that year!! Further if you read his works you will discover that his vision for a space station was entirely different (and far more advanced) than the current ISS!</i><br /><br />Jim is basically correct, Frodo. Regardless of the actual shape of each vehicle, NASA has been following Von Braun's plan for 50 years. Race to the Moon, check. "Space Shuttle", whether the Saturn Glider or STS, check. Space Station, whether brick-work, centrifugal wheel or ISS, check. The Moon and Mars bases are still in the works. Whatever differences, we are still basically stuck in his paradigm. <br /><br />In answer to the original question, Von Braun would have spent even more time in prison if he'd refused to cooperate on the V2 development. To much talk-back and he might have received a .32 caliber "parting gift", despite his position as a scientist.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[chyten]

<b>What if von Braun refused the nazi regime to design rockets?</b><br /><br />Most obviously -- he would have died in a Stalag.