Friday, March 28, 2008

Post-WWII view of German transatlantic rocket

This inaccurate but interesting article from 1947 shows a conflation of two ideas from Wernher von Braun's German missile team - one for a manned version of the V-2 derived A-9 rocket (never flown) and one for a two-stage transatlantic missile. The author put them together and thought this meant the Nazis had planned to send a manned "spaceplane" rocket against New York. In practice, von Braun lacked the time, resources, and materials to make such a technological leap. To Americans in 1947, though, it seemed the Germans had been capable of just about anything.

No comments: