The year is 1942 , the date – October 3. The German scientist and engineer Werner von Braun, together with his colleagues at the German Research Reactor Center in Peenemünde, carried out the first successful test of something unseen at that time - the world's first ballistic missile, which went down in history under the name Fau-2 (V-2 ).
The third day of October, 1942, is the first day of a new era – that of space travel, declared Col. Walter Dornberger, the program's leader, immediately after the successful test. And as history will show – will turn out to be right.
Since the world is in a big war, the purpose of the new missile is clear - to bombard targets on the territory of the enemies of the Reich - Great Britain, France and Belgium and reverse the negative development of the Second World War for the Third Reich. During the tests "Fau-2" rises to a height of nearly 200 km in a vertical test launch, and therefore it is considered that this rocket is also the first product of mankind to reach Outer Space. In fact, the rockets "Vau-2" fail to accomplish their primary purpose – to turn the tide of the war. Especially in the beginning, they often fail to hit their targets. Yet they are a weapon hitherto unknown.
The rocket is 14.3 m long and has a maximum launch mass of 13 tons. The engine is liquid fuel, and the "Fau-2" develops a maximum speed of about 5760 km/h. Its combat radius is 320 km. Attacks with rockets "Vau-2" against Britain began on 8 September 1944. The first rocket fell in the Chiswick area of London at 18:43, killing three people and injuring 17. The rockets were fired by an artillery unit under the command of SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General Hans Kammler, stationed near The Hague. By the end of the war, more than 4,000 Fau-2 missiles are believed to have been fired. But of those, about 3,000 reach their goals. And the last rocket was launched on April 5, 1945.
It is curious that nearly a quarter of a century after the end of the Second World War, the Minister of Armaments and Military Industry in the Third Reich, Albert Speer, made an interesting admission, stating that he had made a mistake in favoring the Vau-2 ballistic missile. in front of the "Wasserfall" anti-aircraft gun. In the end, nearly 30,000 people lost their lives because of "Fau-2". However, a significant number of them are not fired upon citizens, but concentration camp inmates from the "Dora" camp. and prisoners of war who are forced to work to exhaustion in the tunnels of the underground complex "Mitelwerk" near Nordhausen, where the missiles are mounted.
For the transformation of the Vau-2 into a serially produced weapon, the main credit goes to the engineer Konrad Vandemberg. At a time when a significant part of German industry had already been destroyed by bombing, and the Third Reich had almost lost the war, Vandemberg created and organized the rocket production on a conveyor in an underground plant, invulnerable to the strikes of Anglo-American aviation. 20,000 concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war were busy assembling the rockets. A large number of them die at their "work place". And although F-2 failed to turn the tide of the war and was responsible for the loss of thousands of human lives, it was a huge technological leap for the development of humanity.
It is no accident that experts consider it the first direct harbinger of the space race, the sending of a man to the moon and the modern spacecraft that now fly outside our system. It was precisely the development of the Fau-2 that later enabled the conquest of space, as after the war Von Braun devoted himself to the Apollo missions that took Americans to the moon. In order not to fall into Russian hands, which he feared the most, Wernher von Braun came to an agreement with the Americans and after the end of the war he worked in the USA as a technical advisor to the US missile program.
In 1950, he was transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, where he headed the Redstone Missile Program for 10 years. In 1960, he became director of operations development at the NASA center - "D. Marshall" in Huntsville, Alabama. He is personally responsible for the development of the Saturn V — the rocket used in the Apollo program to manned the moon. And NASA scientists admit that he is the real creator of the American space program. And Vau-2 remains in history as the rocket that did not reverse the war, but reversed the technological development of mankind. This happened Dnes, for the important things of the day, follow us also in
Source: dnes.bg