The German V2 Rocket

Before and After

In 1865, there appeared a work of fiction which marked the birth of modern Rocketry. It was Jules Verne's "From The Earth to The Moon." It was the inspiration to fullfill the dream of space travel. Three men shortly thereafter would provide the springboard to propel man into the unknown. One was a German. One was a Russian and one was an American.

The Russian, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, was born in 1857 and by 1878 he was teaching physics and theaoretical rocketry. He concluded that reaction flight, as used in rockets, was not dependent on the atmosphere. He also envisioned a multi-stage space vehicle that could escape Earth's gravitational pull. His vision was for interplanetary space travel.

Robert Goddard was the American in our story. In 1926, he launched the world's first liquid-fuelled rocket. The fuel he used was liquid oxygen. By 1942, Goddard was working on the problems of rocket-propelled missiles.

In Germany, interest in rockets was keen. Herman Oberth was the principal promoter of "The Society For Space Travel." The chief scientist for the society was one other than Werner von Braun. He was instructed by the Hitler regime to build a war rocket. Soon afterwards, in 1937 a scientific base was established at Peenemunde, an isolated peninsula on the Baltic coast. The result was the German V2 rocket. It was a liquid propelled rocket. The V stood for "Vergeltungswafeen" or weapon of revenge.

The V2 was 47 feet long and carried its warhead in the comical shaped nose. The tail section held the rocket motor which was powered by alcohol and liquid oxygen. The engine produced a thrust of 27 tons. The liftoff weight was 14 tons. Every second, the rocket lost 260 pounds of weight because of fuel being consumed. The lighter the rocket, the faster it went.

To Werner von Braun, the first successful flight of the V2, in 1943, was the crowning achievement of years of work, the object of which was a flight to the moon. After the V2, came the V1, a revolutionary gasoline-fed pusle-jet which could carry a 2000 pound explosive at 390 MPH. At the end of World War II, German rocket scientists were captured by Russians and Americans. Fortunately for the U.S., we got Werner von Braun.

When von Braun died in 1977, it was not before America had gone around the Moon and landed on the Moon. He did indeed live long enough to work in the "glory years" of NASA and see his dream come true in the mighty Saturn V with 6 million pounds of thrust.

The German U-Boats >>

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