Wernher Von Braun Accomplishments

At Approximately the same time the government terminated the rocket project World War II was coming to an end. The Soviets had captured Germany; and seized the technology, physicists, and engineers, who had been working on the rocket project and later forced to work for the Russians (Neal 39). With the material seized during World War II, the U.S.S.R. established a space program. Twelve years later Russia launched the first successful satellite, Sputnik 1.

On October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first ever satellite, Sputnik. The launch of Sputnik sent the United States into a frenzy, beginning the Space Race, and the innovation of technology as a whole. The Space Race most importantly had a major impact on the evolution of the United States’s defense technologies through the launch of Sputnik. The Space Race sparked the United States battle for technological superiority against the USSR, and lead to improvizations in their satellite and satellite defense technologies.

The origins of the Space Race can be found in Germany in the 1930s. During World War II, Nazi Germany was researching and building operational ballistic missiles and experimenting with liquid-fueled rockets. As early as 1942 and 1943, the rocket Aggregate-4 became the first vehicle

In addition to initiating a space race between the two current superpowers, the Sputnik spacecraft launch also had alarming military implications. The Sputnik satellites used intercontinental ballistic missiles that were initially used for their thrust capabilities but could theatrically be capable of flying from the Soviet Union to United States military targets in less than an hour—cutting the flight time to a fraction of a conventional bomber aircraft. In response to the launch of Sputnik, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. The act created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) . To prevent the rise of Soviet dominance in military matters, Eisenhower also established the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Defense. This was symbolic of a serious revelation of the standing of the scientific and technological capabilities of America in comparison to other countries, and also led to President Eisenhower issuing a proclamation to increase funding for education in America in science and engineering to combat this widening deficit. The quick Soviet lead in the newly emerging space race caused much panic, which shaped American foreign policy for the following decade(Document E). An example is avoiding “an all-out war with China” for fear of having to combat communism on two fronts.(Document

The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine. Was developed during the Second World War by Germany, United States wanted to help them in the Space Race.

In the early 20th century new technologies like the airplane, electric grids, and automobiles made the World start to think they could achieve the impossible. A new idea was to use rockets, previously used in ground warfare, to send objects into space. Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, and Oberth grandfathered the idea of rocketry and illustrated the possibilities of rocketry in the modern world. The ideas the scientists argued did not get much attention until the Second World War. With the German V2 rocket program, the world discovered the militaristic

The Eisenhower Administration not only supported the Act but was instrumental in its passage. Eisenhower himself is said to have made the “key decisions that led to the creation of NASA in 1958” (Logsdon). Even before the creation of NASA, Eisenhower approved the first U.S. Space mission in 1955, which was the launching of a scientific satellite. It was Eisenhower who, in April 1958, proposed the creation of NASA and signed the NASAct later that year. He also initiated Project Mercury, a “research effort aiming at learning whether it was possible to send a human into orbit” (Logsdon). Eisenhower’s support allowed the Act to be passed during his administration, a crucial time for the United States in the midst of a war of technology with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower was aided by his science advisor James Killian, another influential man in the creation of NASA. Killian, at the request of Eisenhower, researched the best way to structure a national space program, and at the 357th Meeting of the National Security Council in 1958, Killian presented his research and set many guidelines for the creation of “a government agency devoted to space technology and exploration,” which would later become NASA (“Creation of NASA” 260). Another politician who played a major role in the passage of the NASAct was Democrat Senator

Though the scientists themselves were the ones to encourage the creation of the atom bomb, their plans and views differed immensely from those of the military. As World War II raged on, Germany was suspected of harnessing atomic energy and directing it into powering a weapon. Albert Einstein, agreeing with Leo Silzard, the man who first thought into the concept, urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to look further into the study of atomic energy and the possibility of using it for a bomb. President Roosevelt, fearing the German’s advances in this study, quickly agreed and sent money to the University of Chicago to begin the study and research of atomic energy. (Roleff 62) (The Manhattan Project 1) Upon sending this money, the top-secret research program and building of the atomic bomb began. Later moving from Chicago to Los Alamos, New Mexico, this secret project was called the Manhattan Project. (1) Einstein later explained that his recommendation to the president was to only further the United State’s knowledge of this energy and to have an extra line of defense if the Germans were to ever launch a nuclear attack. (Roleff 62) When the possibility of using one of these weapons was

This was the most technological advancement during the decade. The idea of launching people to other planets or further was breathtaking. It also scared the US, making them feel like they weren't good enough or keeping up with them. This was important to the cold war and showed how far both countries would go. Thus began the space race.

The creation of NASA as a part of the federal government brought along a lot of political changes. Eisenhower, along with many others, was originally opposed to the idea of devoting so many federal funds to a research organization, but he eventually realized the importance of NASA and began to support it politically. Unlike Eisenhower, Johnson wanted to emphasize the power of the National Aeronautics and Space Act and use it to its full potential. Kennedy gave his full support to NASA as a not only part of national security, but also as a research administration, an obvious fact that Johnson and Eisenhower seemed to ignore. Kennedy used the space program and its developments as a distraction for Americans during a time of increased tension and anxiety which ended up increasing his popularity after his speech setting the goal of putting a man on the moon. The nation’s political distress during the Cold War gave the space industry the social and federal support to finally launch the projects that were not possible

Kennedy went before the congress to ask for additional “$7 billion to $9 billion over the next five years for the space program” and challenged the nation to reach the moon by the end of the decade: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth”. With the goal set by JFK to land a human on the moon by the end of the decade, federal budget poured into the NASA to develop a spacecraft to reach the moon. Headed by rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who came to the US after WWII under the Nazi regime that developed the V-2 rocket, a team of engineers began the ambitious development of a vehicle that would be capable of reaching space, landing on the moon, and returning back to earth. This would later be known as the Saturn V under the Apollo program. With newly developed technologies such as multi-rocket staging, telemetry instruments, and safety measures, the Saturn rocket program was a success that would allow astronauts to safely land on the

“By the time he was twenty, while still a student at the University of Berlin, Von Braun was recruited by the army and charged with building a rocket that was superior to the largest guns” (Cadbury 9). Von Braun had already began designing his first rocket called the A-1. It was ready to test in 1933- the same year Hitler came to power.

After the Second World War, the Soviet Union had completely fallen apart with nearly 27 million Soviets dead and as many as 1,700 of its cities destroyed (Siddiqi 23). Its entire economy, including its previously booming industry, was in a massive crisis leaving no funding for studies as seemingly immaterial as rocketry. Though it lacked funding from the federal government, Soviet engineers understood the future necessity for rocket technology and were still determined to learn how to recreate and improve upon the rocket designs created by Nazi Germany. Some of the greatest technological advances made by the Third Reich prior to its defeat were in nuclear weaponry and the creation of the the A-4 rocket (also known as the V-4 or Vengence-4). Developed in the world’s largest rocket research facility to date, the rocket was first tested in 1942 and had the capability to be launched up to 205 miles and reach heights close to 60 miles (nearly out of the Earth’s atmosphere) causing severe destruction to it’s unsuspecting target (Anatoly). Both the Soviet Union and the United States understood the great potential that this technology held and would do anything in their power to obtain it.

Nuclear weapons threaten to end the world and begin the step by step process to space travel. The U.S and Russia go ballistic over missiles all because of a former Nazi, Von Braun.This was because he was really smart and he would be the one to design the United States first rocket. He fled Europe to the U.S., to help them build a missile. In Russia, a prisoner named Sergei Korolev was forced to work by Stalin to build a replica missile of Von Braun’s

The space race did not start as one would expect with the respective American and Soviet space agencies. But rather it began with the German V2 missile launches towards the end of World War 2. The V2 missile