I know that I heard it once before, but last time I realized that the first man-made object launched into space was produced by Nazis.
I read this curiosity in Phaidon’s “Universe: Exploring the Astronomical World” book. If someone had asked me before about who launched the first man-made object into space, I would answer that Soviets did it. For me, it is fate’s irony that so magical, remarkable, and the breakthrough event was made by one of the cruelest and bloodthirsty people who had ever stomped on this planet. Nazis vertically launched a V-2 rocket that reached an altitude of 174 km (108 miles). This is far more than the Karman Line, which is 99 km (62 miles) high. The Karman Line is traditionally considered the border between Earth’s atmosphere and space. I still cannot believe that it was Germans who first launched a man-made object into the cosmos.
They did it in 1944. Luckily, they were already losing many battles. Where were they losing them? Nazi Germans were being defeated on the Eastern and Western front, and on the sea and in the air. Thus, they couldn’t gain an advantage by using the V-2 rocket. Why? Because it was already too late for Nazis to use it effectively in battles.
The fact is that later on, Wernher von Braun, who was the leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany, started to collaborate with Americans.
With whom he exactly cooperated? With NASA. Speaking shortly: thanks to their cooperation, the American Saturn V rocket launched the crew of Apollo 11 on its historic eight-day mission to land on the Moon in 1969. But, before they did that, we should remember that the Soviets were true pioneers of space exploration. It happened because they preempted American by sending the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik I, in 1957. This event started an actual race into space that lasts till today.
