What legends do not currently go about the times of the Third Reich! Reverse sweep airplanes, jet aircraft and flying saucers, top-secret Anenerbe research laboratories, located almost kilometers underground ...
Most of all this is ordinary fiction and outright nonsense. But there was one industry in which the Germans really advanced far enough - rocketry. Their FAU-2, The Weapon of Retribution, was indeed a technological breakthrough. The British especially “appreciated” the power of these missiles, since this weapon was created and used for attacks on London.
A brief historical excursion
Each FAU-2 was launched from a special launch mobile installation. On board each missile, which had a length of 14 meters, was almost a ton of explosives. For the first time, a missile of this type fell on London in early September 1944. After it, a ten-meter funnel remained, three killed and 22 wounded people.
Before her, the Germans had already used the FAU-1 projectile, but this technique was a fundamentally new example of weapons. The missile flew to the target in just five minutes, due to which the means of detection of that period were completely powerless in front of it. From a historical point of view, the FAU-2 represents the latest attempt by the German defense industry to turn the tide of war in their favor. Their “superweapon” had no effect on the outcome of World War II, but it became an important milestone in the development of world rocket science and space exploration.
Witnesses later recalled that huge piles of fragments rose into the air, all of which was accompanied by a terrible roar. The launch of the missiles themselves was almost silent: in most cases, this event was reminded of only light popping from across the English Channel.
About development and costs ...
How many people died due to the launches of the FAU-2 is still unknown, since such data were not recorded anywhere. It is estimated that in Britain alone, about three thousand people died from missile attacks. That's just the production of "miracle weapons" took the lives of at least 20 thousand people.
Missiles were built by prisoners of concentration camps. Nobody counted them, their lives did not cost absolutely nothing. The FAU-2 missile was being assembled near Buchenwald, work was going on around the clock. To speed up the process, specialists (especially welders and turners) were brought from other German concentration camps. People were starving, they were kept without sunlight, in underground bunkers. For any wrongdoing, the prisoners were hung right on the cranes of the assembly lines.
The creator of these missiles, Werner von Braun, is considered almost the genius of world rocket science. An evil genius, I must say: von Braun was never tormented by those who assembled the weapons he created, under what conditions the unfortunate prisoners worked and died. However, the recognition of the merits of this man had good reason: the allies, after capturing the technical documentation on missiles, recognized the superiority of German developments over their projects.
Go to the stars!
For its time, the rocket engine was extremely powerful: it was able to lift it to a height of about 80 kilometers with a flight range of approximately 200 kilometers. The power plant was powered by a mixture of oxygen and technical ethanol. It is especially important that the Germans began to use the supply of oxidizing agent (oxygen), which was placed in a container on board the rocket. This made it independent of atmospheric air. In addition, it was possible to significantly increase engine power. We can say that the FAU-2 rocket became the first technology that could really leave the Earth, reaching space.
Of course, small developments in this area have existed since about the 30s of the last century. But all of them were characterized by much more modest sizes, a small fuel supply, and nobody even thought about space during their development. Thus, the FAU-2, the “superweapon” of the Third Reich, became a real springboard, which helped all of humanity to explore the near-Earth space.
Technological breakthrough
But even this was not so struck by the technicians of the allied states. The most important technological innovation, which was massively used in the design of these missiles, was a fully autonomous targeting system .
In those days, it was real science fiction that only the FAU-2 could make real! The “superweapon” of the Third Reich could hit its target, without any need for a tip from the ground. To achieve such impressive results, German developers used the simplest (to date) electronics. Before the launch, the coordinates of the target were entered into the “on-board computer”, on which the rocket was “oriented”.
Other technical solutions
In addition, specially created gyroscopes were used for the first time, which stabilized the flight with considerable accuracy. The rudders located on the side stabilizers corrected the direction if the rocket deviated from a given course. It is not surprising that before the end of the war, the USSR, the USA and Britain really wanted to take possession of the technology for creating the FAU-2 (its photos are on the pages of this article).
For obvious reasons, von Braun was not too eager to fall into the hands of Soviet soldiers, preferring the American "captivity". The Soviet Union was left with almost an entire assembly line, several copies of missiles and several people of technical personnel. Domestic and American experts dismantled the pieces of equipment that went to their countries, literally on the cogs. However, the FAU-2 German missile was so interested in the Yankees that they immediately took a few pieces overseas. There, a new technique was used for some high-altitude experiments.
Further development of Brown
In the USA, they perfectly understood that the FAU-2 designer is much more valuable than the assembly line for its production. Von Braun realized that the Americans would immediately provide him with everything necessary for a wonderful life and the continuation of further work, and therefore he quickly surrendered to the Allies. We must pay tribute to this man: despite his active participation in the program for creating intercontinental missiles, he made every effort so that the main activity of his department was aimed at developing the space program, since that was what he had dreamed about for almost his whole life.
Soon, the creator of the FAU-2 rocket makes its American version, Redstone. It was an actual continuation of the line of German missiles, with minor "cosmetic" improvements and additions. A little later, a modified and significantly improved version of Redstone in 1961 was used by Americans to deliver their first cosmonaut, Alan Shepard, into orbit.
Von Braun's legacy
Thus, it is not so difficult to find a connection between those rockets that were collected at the cost of the lives of thousands of prisoners of war and the first flights into space. Simply put, the Americans got not only the creator of the FAU-2, but also all the technological developments in this area. Technologies that cost enormous resources, the most important of which were human lives.
A rather complicated moral and ethical question immediately arises: how realistic was it to send a man into an artificial earth satellite and go to the moon without using the technique developed by Nazi scientists? Of course, the USSR and the USA had their own developments, but the “help” of fascist Germany saved a huge amount of time and money. In general, nothing unprecedented happened this time: the war simply spurred many scientific fields. In the 30s and 40s of the last century, this especially affected rocket science, which until then had remained practically in its infancy.
Fundamental contribution to space exploration
In general, the fundamental principles on which the FAU-1 and FAU-2 were developed have not undergone significant changes over the past seven decades. The overall design of
rocket engines remains unchanged, liquid fuel has proved that it is the most optimal option, and in flight stabilization systems to this day all the same gyroscopes are used. All these decisions were once laid thanks to the FAU-2. “The weapon of retribution” once again proved the power of human thought. Thanks to the technique still used, man has received a constant reminder that science must always remember humanity.
Modern use
It should not be assumed that today the FAA exists only in the form of state space programs. About 15-20 years ago, individual enthusiasts began to say that the creation of spacecraft would soon become the prerogative of private specialists. Today, Elon Musk has demonstrated the truth of these claims.
Then these people could not count on the help of powerful investors, no one believed in them. And even more so, no one would begin to transfer technologies to them, on the basis of which rockets could be built. Again, the FAU-2 came to the rescue. It was her schemes that laid the foundation for those
spacecraft of private designers who soon promised to start intercepting large space orders from the state industry.