Smith, Greg dot com

I'm leaving for Shanghai, China this weekend on business, so naturally I was curious and paying attention to China's first space walk mission last week:

I got to wondering when the era of space flight began. Naturally I thought of the Russian Sputnik orbits in the 1950's. I was surprised to learn, however, that the first time a manmade object was lifted into space was actually 66 years ago today:

This third day of October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel...
– Speech at Peenemünde, Walter Dornberger, October 3, 1944

Talk about political spin: Dornberger's quote above paints the V-2 launch as a benevolent event for mankind, ushering in an age of travel to the stars. That may be a consequence of what happened at Peenemünde, but it certainly wasn't the intent.

Hitler began developing the V-2, the first ballistic missiles in the early years of World War II. The were to be used as strategic weapons, and in the last year of the war they would be launched on London and the Allied supply depots in Antwerp. The became known as as "Vengeance Weapons" since at that point they had no real power to shape the outcome of the war.

But German scientists were developing the technology several years before and managed to achieve suborbital space flight way back in late 1942.

As the Soviets captured Germany from the east some of those German rocket scientists ended up developing the Russian ballistic missile and space programs; others ended up in the west doing the same for the United States.

As we watch Iran develop their own long-range ballistic missiles (with help from the Russians) one can't help to think about the thread that runs from that launch at Peenemünde 66 years ago today to Tehran, and to wonder whether like those first V-2's the result of this legacy will be more "Vengeance Weapons" hurled onto Tel Aviv instead of Antwerp...