Rocket Boys

_Don’t say that he’s hypocritical
Say rather that he’s apolitical
”Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department!” says Wernher von Braun_​

• “Wernher von Braun”, Tom Lehrer ​

Excerpt from podcast “A People’s History of Space”, Season 1, Episode 2: “The Living and the Dead”, narrated by Alana Lincoln Schwartz, uploaded March 18th, 2018*

A People’s History of Space is a collaboration between Cosmos (the public relations/media arm of ASEDA), PBS-12, and the EBC, exploring the history of space exploration from the earliest ideas of Tsiolkovsky to the current attempts to land a man in the outer solar system. Hosted by University of America, Princeton historian Alana Schwartz*, the podcast began in 2018, with a history of the space race, before moving on to the post-80’s collaborations, the 1996 Mars landing, and current issues in space. In episode 2, Schwartz tackles the rapid development of rockets during World War II, with guest, rocket engineer and historian Krishnan Krishnamurthi*

[…]
Schwartz (narrating): The Secretariat of Aeronautics folded in [Robert] Goddard’s experiments with the WFRA in New Mexico and the Rocket Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, effectively forming America’s first rocketry program, especially as Theodore von Karman was appointed its first Secretary. Now under the same umbrella, the two camps would soon clash and jockey for resources. The conflict was mainly about the use of liquid vs solid fuel, but there was an undercurrent of generational conflict, with the younger, more devout party members like [Jack] Parsons and [Frank] Malina being considered more “reliable” by the Reds than the apolitical technocrat Goddard. Goddard’s tendency towards secrecy didn’t help matters, with some in StateSec concerned that Goddard’s lack of cooperation might indicate possible sabotage.

Despite this, as war brewed in Eastern Europe, AeroSec would begin tests at Roswell under Goddard’s direction. The tests at Roswell mainly focused on navigation, with their utility as potential weapons as top priority. Despite the stigma around rocketry lessening, Goddard still was reluctant to expound upon his dream of spaceflight.

Krishnamurthy: Goddard had been lambasted in the 20’s for his ideas of spaceflight. It also kept investors away during the Depression.[1] It was only after the Revolution that the Red Army decided to give their support, but even they were mainly focused on their use in war. Goddard kept tightlipped about his desires for spaceflight.

Schwartz: Meanwhile, in Pasadena, the Rocket Propulsion Laboratory were tasked with researching “rocket assisted take-off” for airplanes, and would soon become the Army’s main contractor for RATO equipment. The RPL had hoped to exchange information with Goddard’s team in New Mexico, but initially, it proved difficult. Von Karman recalled in a radio interview around the launch of Sputnik:

Theodore von Karman (archive recording, c. 1957): [Frank] Malina visited Goddard in New Mexico a few times, but he was reluctant to give anything that wasn’t already published. At most a few bits of information to help us.

Schwartz: Goddard disputed this, stating that given both were under government supervision, he gave as much as he could that was applicable to them. However, over time, Goddard would warm to figures like Malina and [Qian] Xuesen, who shared his affinity for rocketry and space travel, and would grant them more cooperation and visits to Roswell. However, one figure proved too insufferable. In a 1996 interview for a documentary about the Space Race (meant to commemorate the Mars Landing), Xuesen explained:

Qian Xuesen (interview, 1996): Jack and Robert, their personalities clashed a lot. Jack was already into the occult[2], the Cosmism, and he already had a growing following with that. The blood transfusions, the space stuff, the idea of the “New Cosmic Man”, that was too much for Goddard. He felt it was too much of a distraction.

Schwartz: Besides, with the Lab and resources at CalTech, it was decided that Parsons would largely stay in Pasadena to run the RPL and its new state defense corporate operator, RocketLab[3]. With him helping recruit from CalTech, many students also became involved with the program around this time, though they found less success in MassTech. As development continued, to show the full potential of rocketry (and perhaps lay the groundwork for a new “space age”) Malina began making arrangements for a test. Not a big one, but one that would have significant implications for the coming years. Xuesen again.

Xuesen: In 1940, Professor von Karman stepped down as Aeronautics head to go back into research, and in our talks, he speculated about the potential highest limit an airplane could fly in the sky. So, when Karman heard that Goddard was moving back to setting new height records with his new Q-series of rockets, he was excited and told me to meet him and see whether his Q-series could test his theories. I came to Roswell and had a look. I told him about Karman’s offer. I could tell Goddard’s face lit up the way I said we’d provide millions more dollars in funding. The rest was history.

Krishnamurthy: There was also some desire from the Weather bureau to help with atmospheric research. So, they take a look at the Roswell tests, and they find the rocket that achieved the highest altitude was the L-B, at 2.7 kilometers. Now, you’ll hear that the bureau was disappointed with Goddard, whose newer P-series of rockets were pretty unsuccessful and hitting only a few dozen meters. But they weren’t unsuccessful to Goddard. Goddard didn’t care about records: he wanted to test his new pumps. That’s why he called it the P-series. So, Goddard launches the Q-B, and it hits a dizzying ten klicks high. They got excited after this.

Schwartz: They were able to justify the Q-K test using the efficacy of aircraft, arguing that they could better test airplanes if they knew what altitude to use. So, Malina, Xuesen, and Caltech astronomer and RocketLab consultant Fritz Zwicky were dispatched to Roswell to help Goddard’s team build this rocket and test it, ensuring it could reach the upper atmosphere. And on May 22nd, 1940, they were ready for their launch, buoyed by their new sixty klick record after a series of frustrating failures. The only attendants were AeroSec and RocketLab employees (including Parsons and Ed Forman, who flew in for the occasion), and few military observers, notably Navy lieutenant Robert Truax and Army major Jimmy Doolittle. The rocket was equipped with a small camera to possibly take a photo of the Earth from its position. The Q-K burned for a minute and ten. It was incredible to Goddard. He was used to ten second, twenty second flights. Finally, it reached 103 km, just above the von Karman line, making it the first man made object in space. While the actual rocket was destroyed, the film was recovered with no damage. Von Karman had hoped to publish the image, and they were prepared to do so, if not for an event that occurred the next day.

Krishnamurthy: With the invasion of the Soviet Union, there was suddenly more secrecy to the rocketry projects, especially with rumors that the Germans were preparing their own programs. Now, they had to keep the test secret for longer, and focus mainly on RATO for the time being.

Schwartz: That said, the launch wasn’t entirely forgotten.

Krishnamurthy: The photograph retrieved from the wreckage of the Q-K convinced new AeroSec Quentin Roosevelt to commission a potential long-range missile from Goddard, with the RATO work being transferred to CalTech.

Schwartz: The WFRA and WFRN also began collaborating with AeroSec to develop the new missiles, with the Navy working with the RPL and the Army in Roswell for the R-series missile system.[4]

[…]

Schwartz: Perhaps inevitably, the RPL would also give rise to one of the stranger myths about the period. One which has recently gained traction with some conspiracy minded politicians in the FBU. Here is Hughes-Welch commentator Boris Johnson in 2010

Boris Johnson [Interview, DailyMail.tv, 2012] And you know, there’s this idea that in 1942, ‘43, there was this attempt, at the Rocket Propulsion Lab in California, to create this Communist Alien God, this Red Anti-Christ, this immortal being that would lead the forces of communism and Satan towards complete world conquest. This alien filled with the blood of capitalists that would just rejuvenate it, so it couldn’t die.

Schwartz: While bigger in the capitalist sphere, this conspiracy even has followers in the Workers’ Sphere. Here’s Florida Social Ecology Congresswoman Alana Castro on it.

Alana Castro [Interview with news podcast “The Green Mile”, 2015]: I was reading about this experiment during World War 2, where in addition to building the Q missiles, they were also trying to create this “New American”. The guy in charge, Jack Parsons, was this huge cosmicist and occult guy who, with sci-fi writers Robert Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp, tried to use rockets to contact alien beings and learn their secrets, try to improve mankind based on their insights. Allow for better blood transfusions, to breathe in space, to live forever, to be free of disease.

Schwartz: Obviously, I won’t try to defend this, and this serves mostly to discredit their enemies (Communists for Johnson, Liberation and RevScis[4] for Castro), but the myth did arise from some real events there. Parsons was known for his fascination with religion, in particular eastern religions and the occult, and Russian cosmism as well as his fierce independent streak (both of which would get him in trouble during his leadership of RPL during the Space Race). Heinlein and de Camp did work with Parsons at RPL, on top secret R&D projects including a prototype of the space suits later worn by astronauts[5]. Later in life, Parsons did become interested in SETI, and even recruited future Praetor Carl Sagan to lead ASEDA’s first SETI program in 1973. And during the First Cultural Revolution, America did attempt to import Bogdanov’s thought, including the idea of creating a sort of humanist ideal to replace religion. However, as far as the evidence and declassified materials go, very little evidence actually remains for a “Communist alien antichrist”. But don’t let me stop you if you really, really believe.

[…]

Schwartz: People often associate the Vavilov Mission with either Daisy Bell or the Anchorage Seed Vault, but amongst the evacuation of scientists and engineers from the USSR were a number of rocket scientists. Many of the Reactive Scientific Research Institute still imprisoned in Sharashkas were released on Molotov’s orders and sent to America, among them [Sergei] Korolev, [Valentin] Glushko, and [Georgy] Langemak. Most were dispatched to Roswell to help with Goddard’s R-series missiles. The normally private Goddard took to these newcomers, who in turn admired him for his contributions to rocketry in the 1920’s. He took a particular shine to Korolev, and became something of a mentor to him. It was at Roswell that Korolev and Glushko were also introduced to one of Goddard’s new associates, Navy Lieutenant Robert Truax. Little did any of these men realize this meeting of the mind would come to be known as “The beginnings of the space race.”

[…]

Schwartz: The deployment of the R-series missiles in INTREV operations immediately following the victories in Leningrad and Stalingrad were a success. Not a huge success by any means, but the three-ton rockets whizzed over the green pines and the yellow fields into German bases, inspiring the terror of the rocket into them as the V-2 had done in Western Europe to the British. Now, following the invasion of the Soviet Union, it was decided that Goddard’s team would be better off reorganized as an experimental design bureau. Goddard decided to call it “Cherry Tree” – bureau number 201 – after the dream that started his rocketry obsession. Under the new EDB-201, Goddard’s team completely changed the way they tested, made and designated their rockets. The pressures of the army demanded fast results and a program centered around mass production and use. For that, Goddard repurposed the alphabetic series to differentiate new designs: numbers would mark each successive test of the design instead. This way, a common family of missiles was made. Through three years of hard work, they succeeded in developing the R-5, which they could carry around in mobile trucks equipped with tanks of liquid oxygen and gasoline. But the R-5 proved usable only in specific contexts: the liquid oxygen made the R-5s logistically unwieldy to use.

Krishnamurthy: Then in March of 1944, we got a taste of our own medicine from the Nazis. It wasn’t looking good. Their V-3 missiles were pounding into us in battles and theaters we’d thought inconceivable to launch a missile. Some battles really suffered some setbacks because of that. Goddard and Malina, they inspected V-3 wreckages the Americans recovered and transported to Roswell. That was when their propellant chemists noticed something curious. Traces of fluorides in the ashes and tars on the metals. See, designers in the United Republics had headaches about working with red fuming nitric acid. Nitric acid was supposed to be a great storable oxidizer – but the thing would just keep reacting with any container it was inside of. Except glass, but obviously, you can’t build fuel tanks out of glass. Turns out, all the Nazis had done to keep their nitric acid from turning into a green mushy slop was to put a little drop of hydrogen fluoride in the acid. And that’d work to keep it in aluminum or steel. It was so simple, they couldn’t believe it. And so the UASR discovered inhibited red fuming nitric acid, or IRFNA – the workhorse oxidizer of many tactical missiles today.

Schwartz: Goddard immediately jumped on to designing a new storable R missile, the R-6. But overwork and stress of the war caught up to him: he’d already been struggling with tuberculosis for much of his life. Now, we know he visited a doctor in Roswell at the beginning of 1945: the doctor told him that he ought to immediately quit work and rest in bed. Goddard couldn’t do it. He was too passionate for his work. That’s when one day in February 1945, while pacing back and forth over a blueprint, the pioneer immediately broke course to the bathroom in a stumble. He dropped to the ground. A worker found him half an hour later, dead, his lungs filled with liquid. His bureau practically ground to a halt, mourning the man for days. It fell to Frank Malina, his protege, to be the new Chief Designer. He would pick up where Goddard left off along with a new habit – now – thanks to that habit, Cherry Tree therefore began what it fondly remembered as “the Age of Aquarius”.

Xuesen: It was an… interesting time, to say the least. (laughs)
[…]

/net/global/http:co.na/uchronia/forum/high-modernity-1848-to-1946/WW2/

Thread “WI: Wernher von Braun was not executed/captured by Comintern”
(OP)PerryRodant: Apparently, according to declassified files from SecPubSafe, Hoover apparently wanted von Braun and the scientists at Peenemunde to be captured, sent to a special prison made for captured enemy scientists and extract every last bit of knowledge from them before sending them to East Germany to serve out their sentences..

That never got to VOSCOM, so when von Braun was captured by Comintern, they put him and [Walter] Dornberger on trial, and they were both executed. Both Comintern and the AFS then recruited many of the lower level figures, including (controversially) future ESA deputy Arthur Rudolph.

So, I guess all of that to ask: What if von Braun hadn’t been executed? What if he had been able to surrender to the FBU first, like he had intended to? Would he have been able to reach the higher echelons of ESA, like Rudolph had? Would he have a war crimes trial, like Arthur Rudolph did in the 80’s?

Krishna: Doubtful anything big would change on the American side. Bear in mind, the Americans already had the Peenemunde, all the facilities and all the plans they had for the V-2 and V-3. That helped boost their rocketry program, but given they already had their own program, I’m not exactly sure what von Braun would’ve brought to it. Plus, their use of German engineers was already controversial, someone at von Braun’s level would’ve probably blown the whole affair up.

ESA is another story. The main problem with first the Angevin and later European space program was the fact they had to cobble their space rockets together from their missile program in a very short manner of time to respond to Sputnik. Rudolph said in his memoir that they struggled to put Voyager [the first FBU satellite in 1958] into orbit because modifications to the existing Blue Streak missiles to a new Black Knight rocket system took too long. Maybe with von Braun at the helm (a little more of a technocrat than Rudolph, with a more deliberate approach), they might’ve gotten the program off the ground earlier. Maybe the Black Knight and Europa rocket families might’ve taken more from the unfinished V-5 project (only without the nuclear warhead), instead of the V-2 derived designs they ended up using.

Actually, maybe the entire Artemis program may have been revamped completely with von Braun at the helm, since he might’ve helped slow down the program and allow them more tests and more successful launches, instead of the string of disasters it had through the Space Race, and even into the building of the Wheeler Base. Rudolph stated that he thinks von Braun may have favored an Earth orbit rendezvous approach as well, instead of the Lunar orbit rendezvous favored by both Luna and Artemis. He also said the FBU might’ve landed on the Moon first with von Braun’s help, but who knows?

I know, or at least it’s guaranteed, that von Braun would’ve suffered the same fate as Rudolph in the 80’s. The evidence of his crimes were too overwhelming, and von Braun was even more complicit than Rudolph did. Once the Space race lost steam, I suspect they would’ve tried von Braun. Don’t know if they would’ve dragged their feet like they did with Rudolph (allowing him to escape to Rhodesia to help build their missiles), but the crimes in question are too hard to ignore.

PerryRodent: The idea of von Braun having his brain extracted, sucked of all knowledge, and left to rot does bring a smile to my face.

Anyway, agree about Voyager. Notably, the Blue Streak and later Black Knight rockets were not really based on the V-3 or the unreleased V-4, using the V-2 as the main base. Von Braun might’ve pushed for a V-4 inspired design for the Black Knight.

Would ESA chairman be too far?

Krishna: I mean, Rudolph was kept from that spot precisely because of intense protests. Ironically, West German chancellor von Merkatz led the charge, believing having a Nazi in the position would alienate the populace from the mission of ESA. Also, offhand, but the reason they didn’t use the V-3 is pretty simple: it was a downscaled version of the V-2 that they’d launch from batteries on mobile wagons for tactical ballistic work (range around 90 km). The goal was a quick, responsive and mobile launcher. They swapped to storable propellants (nitric acid and kerosene) – one bad side effect of that: it cratered the specific impulse (AKA rocket fuel efficiency). Not exactly a worthy platform for a space-going rocket.

Ritterstahl: Can you really call individuals like Rudolph or von Braun Nazis? Is everyone who happened to work for the German government between ‘33 and ‘46 a Nazi?

Shadow_Fox: Like fellow opportunist Thomas Watson Sr., yes. Especially when their work directly lead to the mass slavery and suffering during the Holocaust and WWII. THough unlike Watson, at least Von Braun got the rope.

PerryRodant: I call people who were in the SS Nazis. I call people registered to the Nazi Party Nazis. I call those who enabled Nazi war crimes Nazis. I call someone who worked for the SANR and Rhodesia a Nazi.
Ritterstahl: It was a political persecution! They had no problem with Rudolph until it became too politically incorrect for them, and they were going to imprison him without trial!

PerryRodant: That did not happen, he fled before he could have a trial, and went to the only people who would accept a Nazi.

DantheUchronaut: Alright, let’s simmer down. There’s a reason we all left the other site.

Anyway, even with Hoover’s suggestions, I struggle to think of a way that von Braun could’ve lived under the Americans. It might be OP’s suggestion that they do a “They Saved Hitler’s Brain”, and just use him for whatever his knowledge can give them before being dumped to East Germany.

It might’ve affected the development of American ICBMs, since during the Arduous March, that was the only application for rocketry until Sputnik, so most likely von Braun would’ve been doing that for however long until they build a civilian space program.

In the AFS, I do wonder if he’d become like the “FACE OF SPACE”, the way that Rudolph, Arthur Clarke, Patrick Moore, Fred Doyle, Stephen Hawking all became. There was more of an initiative for a Franco-British space program thanks to the famed illustrations in the Economist building popular support.

Shadow_Fox: Not without one hell of a propaganda campaign. From what others have said about him at the time, including Von Braun, he lacked the charisma to pull off being a figurehead for space, and he hardly cared for anything that wasn’t explicitly involving him doing rocketry. Not exactly someone who is good for the camera when you want people engaged with space.

Krishna: True enough, though you could’ve said the same of Willy Ley, but he still appeared with Walt Disney and became a fixture of American television. He might be more popular for articles or interviews or what have you.

Looked through both this site and the old one, and came across at least one TL about this:
[Link to “I Aim for the Stars” on an archived version of co:na/alternatehistory]

Basically, von Braun is “rescued” by the FBU (The writer was a Wehraboo, clearly), and he basically accelerates the space race, such that men land on the Moon 12 years early, Mars 23 years early, and become an interplanetary society.

NestorMakhno: Of course. Actually, I do remember that one. There was one part where an SANR counterpart is formed as on the Moon- and was portrayed as a completely functional, almost utopian society. It was evidence when the user was banned for Holocaust revisionism.

Shadow_Fox: They all eternally cope over the fact that the Comintern got to the moon first lmao.

Krishna: A weak, pathetic social democrat am I, but now I’m in the mood for some Kim Stanley Robinson. Socialist revolutions across the solar system. Gotta love it.

Shadow_Fox: It’s why I keep it downloaded on my slate for when I get the downtime.

[1] With Lindbergh’s TTL disappearance in 1927, Goddard is never introduced to the Guggeheim family, and significant investment into his project is delayed until the revolutionary government begins funding it in 1935.
[2] Not necessarily Thelema, because his specific attraction to that was spurred on partially by his disillusionment with communism
[3] Analogous to Aerojet OTL.
[4] “Party for New Revolutionary Sciences”, formed in 1988
[5] A reversal of OTL, where the JPL worked with the Army and Goddard with the Navy.
[6] OTL, Heinlein, de Camp, and Isaac Asimov all worked at the Philadelphia Shipyards during World War II. Obviously, Asimov couldn’t join them TTL. While there are claims that they worked on a space suit prototype there, de Camp did dispute this OTL. YMMV.

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Special thanks to @Chamarmur for their input and help with aspects of this. *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation