In a two-part feature written sixty years after the V2 rocket was first launched on London, BBC News Online's Paul Rincon describes the Soviet-American space race, German V2 rocket technology and how the USSR and USA divided Germany's best scientists between them. The second part addresses the technological lineage of both space programs, the creation of NASA, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development and the V2's legacy. Another feature provides some context, following the history of the development of the V2 rocket from its precursors that began with space flight enthusiasts like Wernher von Braun and Walter Riedel, through its use as a terrifying weapon in the London Blitz, to the recruitment drive by the Americans and Soviets. Today the V2 rocket is being used as the basis for the Canadian Arrow X Prize team. The Arrow team has some pages on V2 history and the main engine thrust chamber. For those interested you can read more at the A4/V2 Rocket Resource site. [ 12. September 2004, 06:04 PM: Message edited by: Otto ]
Without a little help from Bomber Command, that date could have moved forward by about three months.....
Gentlemen, good show ! great text and a wild painting. have a little surprise for you if I can just find the web-page......I will post it here. Peenumunde today
A cool link indeed Erich. It's amazing that the factory is still there considering the passage of time& progress.
Not to forget this man in developing rockets: Hermann Oberth - Rocket Scientist Hermann Oberth was trying to prove that liquid fuels, instead of solids, offered the best approach to powering rockets for space vehicles. Oberth's other two assistants were Klaus Riedel and Rudolf Nebel. In August 1930, Oberth's little rocket engine succeeded in producing a thrust of seven kilograms for 90 seconds, burning gasoline and liquid oxygen.
was far from just in Germany. And I don’t doubt that Konstantin Tsolkovsky’s (Tsiolovokskii [?] I’ve seen both spellings) had some impact on both Oberth, and Goddard and through them von Braun. As those three pioneers Tsiolovoskii, Goddard, and Oberth constantly exchanged friendly letters as soon as each discovered they were all passionate fans of Jules Verne, and that they all were working in the same fields. This went on for about five years before Tsiolovskii’s demise. But the Russian theoretician was never taken seriously by his own government(s) during his lifetime, never built a rocket himself, and his designs were never constructed nor tested by anybody else either. Many of his theories were applicable to modern rockets and space travel today, but not then. The German rocketeer, Oberth (von Bruan's mentor), after interrupting his medical studies to serve as a medic in WW1 returned to university study, but in 1922 Oberth's doctoral thesis on rocketry was rejected (six years after Goddard's first liquid fuel patent for rockets), and never having heard of the Russian pioneer due to the instability in the new Soviet government and lack of scientific papers being published, probably because the fledgling Soviet government had more important matters to take care of. In 1923, he (Oberth) published the 92 page "Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen" (The Rocket into Planetary Space). This was followed by a longer version (429 pages) in 1929, actually financed by his wealthy wife (instead of the Weimar Republic), which was internationally celebrated as a work of tremendous scientific importance. While the book was being printed Oberth became aware of Robert Goddard who had previously published "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes" in 1919. A correspondence between the two rocket pioneers sprang up in this time period, and about the same time both Oberth and Goddard also learned of Konstantin Tsiolkovskii in what would eventually become the USSR (he had started his work under the Tzarist regime); and that they (Oberth and Goddard) were also working unknowingly in parallel. However while Goddard and Oberth could be seen as "practical experimenters" in that they built the rockets as well as wrote the papers, Goddard's first successful liquid fueled rocket was developed and launched on March 16,1926. Tsiolkovskii was more along the lines of theoretician in that he generally used complex math and Newtonian physics to prove his points and support his theories. Oberth and von Braun (who had joined him in the late twenties) did attempt to construct actual rockets, but were never as successful as Goddard. Tsiolkovskii died in 1935, about five years after he, Goddard, and Oberth began their correspondence. I don’t doubt that von Braun, Oberth, and Goddard all read any of Tsiolovskii’s papers that were available outside of the Russian and later USSR’s borders. I also wonder just how freely any the information passed between the men after Stalin came to power? Oberth and Werner von Braun used Goddard’s guidance systems, gimbal nozzels, gyroscopically controlled stabilization vanes, pump designs, fuels combination ratios, and was amazed at the US wanting to interrogate him about them post war. Von Braun was unaware the man he was following (Goddard) had died in 1945 and had not been working in the field of liquid propulsion during the war. When he was first taken into custody and interrogated he asked (paraphrasing); "why aren’t you asking your own Dr. Goddard? I was using his data and patents." As I mentioned, Von Braun was unaware Goddard was dead. Robert Goddard's "firsts" are a lengthy list even in truncated form: First explored mathematically the practicality of using rocket propulsion to reach high altitudes and even the moon (1912). First proved, by actual static test, that a rocket will work in a vacuum, that it needs no air to push against. First developed and shot a liquid fuel rocket, March 16,1926. First shot a scientific payload (barometer and camera) in a rocket flight (1929, Auburn, Massachusetts). First used vanes in the rocket motor blast for guidance (1932, New Mexico). First developed gyro control apparatus for rocket flight (1932, New Mexico). First received U.S. patent in idea of multi-stage rocket (1914). First developed pumps suitable for rocket liquid fuels (1937). First launched successfully a rocket with a liquid fueled motor pivoted on gimbals under the influence of a gyro mechanism (1937). Goddard also produced the first improvement on "gunpowder" for the rockets when in 1912 he developed the detailed mathematical theory of rocket propulsion. In 1916 the Smithsonian Institution provided funds for Goddard to continue his work on solid-propellant rockets and to begin development of liquid-fuel rockets as well. During WW1 Goddard explored the military possibilities of solid fueled rockets. He succeeded in developing several types of solid-fuel for rockets, the one which was the most successful (40 percent nitroglycerin, 60 percent nitrocellulose) twenty years later used in the rockets of the Bazooka of WW2, as well as other rockets both Allied and Axis. The Soviet "Stalin's Organ" (little Kate) used a slightly different formula developed in the USSR. BTW, as an aside; Werner von Braun went out of his way to assist Robert Goddard’s widow in winning her patent infringement suit against NACA/NASA, while he was working for one and then the other! The US government eventually paid the largest patent infringement suit in history to that date (1960), when they awarded the Goddard estate $1,000,000 for improper use of 214 of his pre-existing patents. Von Braun knew full well he was using Goddard’s work, and recognized that he was standing on R. Goddard’s shoulders.
And my book recommendation is this one. The Rocket and the Reich Peenemunde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era. By Michael J. Neufeld http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocket-Reic...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217867268&sr=8-1
goddard was a pioneer and very inventive. but von braun made the best use of technology and resources around him.
