
Following WWII, a plan to use a Nazi rocket to put a Briton in space - williamhpark
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150824-how-a-nazi-rocket-could-have-put-a-briton-in-space
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arethuza
I was reading "Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute" and they mention Von Braun
and his biographical movie "I Aim at the Stars" \- he claimed that his wartime
work was really motivated by a desire to work on space travel.

Some wit thought the movie should perhaps have been called "I Aim at the Stars
(But Sometimes I Hit London)".

~~~
compostor42
>he claimed that his wartime work was really motivated by a desire to work on
space travel.

Reminds me of Gerald Bull.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull)

He just wanted to build his space gun. He had no qualms about building
artillery for Saddam Hussein if it meant his efforts would get funded.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXgtNqCe9Ko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXgtNqCe9Ko)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun)

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exar0815
Fun thing, some danish guys are trying to do exactly that. They are running a
private space program in some sheds in the Copenhagen harbor, using mainly
off-the-shelf parts and donations to keep going. As they once stated, they
dont want to reinvent the wheel, so they usd freely available plans for
rockets - which, incidentially only were the plans for the A4 rocket and
engine. With this, they want to put a human in space, making Denmark the
fourth country to achieve it worldwide.

Oh, and they also own a submarine.

[http://copenhagensuborbitals.com](http://copenhagensuborbitals.com)

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SFjulie1
When you see how much USA and commonwealth have Me 163 komet, Me262,
volksjager there is no wonder how USA got its spatial program. It must have
been true that for some years there should have been NYIFO being tested in the
skys near USAF bases: Not Yet Identified Flying Objects.

Look where the remaining planes are located:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163_Komet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163_Komet)

You can add, it was nice of them exfiltrating the poor scientists that could
have been unfairly implicated in war crimes.

It is obvious all industrial powers that could try to get the nazi's
technology did: Russia, UK included...

Whatever the way you call it: a nazi rocket indeed helped made a
man/dog/monkey the first man/dog/monkey in space.

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garagemc2
Totally predictable ending.

The potential for this country to get advanced technology well ahead of it's
time getting rejected by bureaucrats because of other priorities (or really it
serves none of their short term goals).

The same thing happened with our fibre network in the early 90's.

~~~
Gravityloss
There was a UK rocket that launched a few satellites to orbit. UK is the only
country in the world to have have given up space access that it had.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow)

~~~
quarterto
> launched a few satellites to orbit

*a single satellite. The first two launches were suborbital tests; the third launch carried Orba, but failed to reach orbit. Only the fourth and final launch, with Prospero as the payload, successfully reached orbit.

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dexen
_Ministry of Space_ [1] is a what-if short comics series by Warren Ellis,
tellsing the very story of Britain being the first to launch into space thanks
to V-2 tech. As expected of Ellis, it's full of references to the british
culture and customs; even the rocket tech design has semblance to actual
british air and space hardware.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Space)

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dalke
The article says "Instead, the spaceman (and only a man was considered) would
have been launched on a parabolic trajectory some 300,000 metres above the
Earth."

I think that's a mistake. The V2 had a range of about 300 km ("For the V-2
rocket, just reaching space but with a range of about 330 km, the maximum
speed was 1.6 km/s" \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-
orbital_spaceflight#Speed....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-
orbital_spaceflight#Speed.2C_range.2C_altitude) ).

The BBC article goes on to quote “Megaroc was essentially the Mercury-
Redstone.” From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-
Redstone_Launch_Vehicl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-
Redstone_Launch_Vehicle) we see that Mercury-Redstone didn't quite make it to
200 km altitude.

According to
[http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back/news.526](http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back/news.526)
, there have been no suborbital flights above 192 km.

EDIT: Nope, I'm wrong. Megaroc was supposed to get to 304 km (one million
feet). [http://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/megaroc](http://www.bis-
space.com/what-we-do/projects/megaroc) . Indeed, it appears that the name is
short for "Mega[foot]roc[et]."

------
nbevans
The BBC has done several TV documentaries over the years about this.
Interesting stuff. Equally interesting was the race to break the sound barrier
where a bizarre scenario unfolded of the British inventing it but the
Americans flying it first (after the Brits shared the design).

~~~
outworlder
So, just like the WW2 radar?

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hadeharian
The Nazi rockets blew up too many times. They would have killed at least 10
men trying to leave the atmosphere, and then killed one leaving the
atmosphere.

~~~
cc438
The basic design of the A4 engine in the V-2 was a sound concept. The
reliability of wartime production was held back by the deteriorating
conditions and post-war testting was held back by the aging of the captured
components. The US and UK used nothing but captured parts, preferring to
iterate on the original design rather than build new components for an old
rocket.

The US took their testing data and combined it with the fruits of Operation
Paperclip's R&D to create the Redstone program. The Rocketdyne A7 engine was a
direct successor of the A4 and was reliable enough to put the first US
astronauts in orbit during the Mercury-Redstone program.

In short, an A4/V-2 would have been reliable enough to serve as the foundation
of a British space program as long as it was built to spec without the
material substitutions carried out due to wartime shortages.

~~~
dalke
(Minor correction: Mercury-Redstone put US astronauts in space but was
suborbital.)

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jand
Could you please change the title to be less clickbaity?

A Nazi rocket... as opposed to communism rockets and god-fearing, democracy
rockets?

Please.

~~~
nbevans
Then the BBC article is just as clickbaity so you'll be needing this:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/contact_us/making_a_complaint....](http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/contact_us/making_a_complaint.html)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
The submission rephrases the BBC's title, so there's not even the excuse that
it's just quoting it.

(And in any case it's not just hyperbolic, it's a lie. A rocket based on a
modification of a German design, but designed and built in Britain, cannot be
reasonably considered a "German rocket," let alone a "Nazi rocket.")

~~~
arethuza
The article appears to make it pretty clear that the engineering breakthroughs
were all part of the V2:

"Engineers overseeing the tests realized that von Braun had solved fundamental
problems in rocketry: he had designed a sizeable engine, an advanced pump to
get fuel in fast enough and a sophisticated guidance system."

