The immensity of space and the infinite number of possible planets make us realize how tiny our
existence is. It’s intriguing to know what the universe has to surprise us, to know if there
is someone else out there or if we are the only ones lucky enough to live... unfortunately it
will be something that our generation and the next ones will probably never know.
Humans are currently unable to reach even the closest planet to ours,
but that has not stopped the different world powers in the race to be the first to develop
the necessary technology to reach those new horizons and obtain any advantage it offers them.
Today we will learn how close the Nazis actually came to stepping on the moon,
Welcome to Copernicus’s Galaxy.
Wernher Von Braun: The controversial Nazi engineer that NASA hired.
The United States, leading NATO and Russia, leading the USSR began a confrontation that
lasted from 1947 to 1991. The Western bloc wanted to curb the socialist influence of
the Eastern bloc in Europe, so they began a race for political, economic,
social, ideological, military and informational superiority, this became known as the Cold War.
Among the topics to be overcome was the conquest of space... or at least the small
satellite orbiting around us. Russia at that time had the advantage over the United States
with the first satellite called Sputnik in 1957 and by 1961 the first man in space,
all thanks to the recruitment of different brilliant minds from the terrible Nazi Germany.
The United States had also lured 120 German scientists and engineers to their country through
a secret project called "Operation Paperclip", giving them a chance to escape war trials for
their part in the Nazi party's heartbreaking acts and offering them a new life. The Americans were
desperate for a victory against Russia and Wernher Von Braun was the man to fulfill their dream.
During the recent World War II, Braun had served the Third Reich and Hitler in the design,
development and production of the "Miracle Weapon", a missile named "V-2". It was so fast
that civilians who died in Nazi bombings with this missile could not hear anything
until it had already hit. It is estimated that between 8,000 and 12,000 people died
due to this weapon and between 10,000 and 20,000 workers were enslaved in the production alone.
Faced with the imminent German defeat for the second time,
both this engineer and his team surrendered to the U.S. military forces of their own free will.
Braun never hid his opportunism, commenting that his country had already lost two world wars
and that he wanted to be on the winning side, receiving his citizenship in 1955
thanks to his work as Director of Development of the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency.
With his help, the first U.S. satellite was launched in 1958,
Explorer 1, and 11 years later the gigantic 3,000-ton Saturn V rocket was launched with
3 astronauts who would visit the moon, among them the well-known Neil Armstrong,
a mission that made him a superstar and further developed his career.
While the country's political interests became satisfied,
almost no one cared about the past of the now director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center;
he had promised the moon and kept his word.
There are those who saw him as a war criminal, an opportunist who only took advantage, someone who
could have chosen not to participate in creating missiles to bomb civilians, others argue whether
his participation in developing weapons for Hitler was not completely voluntary... but the truth is
that Braun never cared much about Nazi ideologies, he simply sought to develop his career and fulfill
his ambition to reach space no matter what country he was in, and he was not the only one.
V-2 Rocket Other World Space Technology
Those frightening liquid-fueled weapons designed by Nazi Germany in World War II with the help of
Wernher Von Braun to annihilate the enemy actually held the secret to reaching space.
Braun, since childhood, had been obsessed with conquering the vast infinity. He was intrigued by
rockets, so he studied engineering to understand their composition and achieve his dream,
attracting the attention of the Nazi regime. They wanted new, effective and superior weapons
to annihilate the enemy and Braun saw in this the opportunity to develop the technology he needed.
The V-2 missile was made up of advanced technology. He had managed to solve some
fundamental problems of rocketry, he created an engine of considerable size that was efficiently
supplied with fuel and a sophisticated steering system. In the eyes of the British at that time,
this was something from another world.
It is believed that, if Germany had won the war, the flag on the moon would have a swastika,
because Braun only cared about reaching his goal. He said that the V-2 rockets were perfect
and functional, the only mistake was that they landed on the wrong planet.
Possibly, if the victory had gone to the Nazis he would have surely convinced them to inject
exorbitant sums of money to his space project, creating not only ships, but advanced stations
with artificial gravity and the capacity to build more interplanetary spacecrafts
without the restrictions that the planet Earth posed ... but the story was different.
As soon as the war ended, the British, Russians, French and Americans pounced on
the missiles developed by Braun to decipher their secrets. Under operation "Backfire",
the United Kingdom began a series of test flights with V-2 rockets with certain modifications that
improved their performance and in 1946, Ralph Smith even proposed to adapt them to carry crew.
However, even though all the tests were successful and the so-called "Megaroc"
had a 10-year head start on its time, Smith's design was rejected due to the
difficult conditions the country was experiencing.
In the words of former London Science Museum chief engineer John Becklake, "We were broke."
Instead, the U.S. government gave Braun all available resources to build a new and
improved V-2 to take its pilots off-planet, creating the Mercury-Redstone, predecessor
to the Saturn V and responsible for taking the first U.S. astronaut, Alan Shepard, into space.
According to Becklake, the Mecury-Redstone bore a striking similarity to Smith's Megaroc.
It was simply an extended V-2, but it managed to give them the advantage.
The British could have reached the moon first if their project had been accepted and supported.
The true story of the Nazis on the moon
The image projected by the Nazis as evil and ruthless characters makes them the perfect
candidates to base legends, myths, movies and even video games on that mix fantasy with reality.
It could be said that the events of the Second World War are relatively recent, not even a
century separating us from them, which makes them the perfect villains of science fiction stories.
Immediately after the war, urban legends and books began to appear that took advantage of
the recent traumas left by the war conflict. Rumors were fed by the fear that the Nazis
caused in the hearts of the population of the different countries. One example is the case
of the German Nazis who supposedly fled to the dark side of the moon and built a prosperous base
from which to prepare their revenge... knowing how scary and radical these enemies were, we
may believe that this is true, however it is all a product of a very creative collective imagination.
This is not to say that the Germans did not participate in the space age...
in fact it could be said that they were pioneers in this field. Hitler and his
engineers inaugurated what would later become the space race with the aforementioned V-2 missile.
It is indisputable that they were the first nation to go into space. We only need to look at the year
that these events took place along with where we believe the frontier that separates us from space
is. If we believe in the "Karman Line '', then the inhospitable void begins at 100 kilometers above
sea level or 62 miles, on the other hand, if we trust NASA, it only takes 50 miles to get there.
Either way, in both 1942 and 1944 the two objects that crossed both lines were nothing
more and nothing less than a pair of V-2 missiles. Measuring 46 feet tall, weighing 12 tons and with
an engine powered by alcohol and liquid oxygen, these rockets could cover enormous distances in
a few seconds at a speed of up to 195 mph, both cases surpassing the previous altitude record.
Thanks to these exploits, Von Braun was allowed to adapt one of his missiles to take a pilot into
space. This was the A9, a manual rocket plane that had two wings to help it reach speeds of up to 340
mph, however, after cancellations and failed tests, the project was abandoned.
From here on, we all know the story, perhaps we still ignore many of the details and some may
never come to light. We are far from deciphering the mysteries of the vast universe. But even so,
the different world powers will continue in their efforts to conquer the unknown,
no matter who or what they discover, we will be here to tell you about it, at Copernicus's Galaxy.