No German scientists/technology for the Wallies - impact on the Cold War?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Hmm.. the Atlas rocket was originally speced & contract let out in 1945, then canceled in 1947. Restarted after 1950 for a three year development hiatus. Production started in 1955 & it was reliable enough it was used for the Mercury manned space flight program. During its production life to 1965 it underwent several major design changes.

http://www.astronautix.com/a/atlas.html

[paulrward]

Hello All :

After watching Atlas Serial 7D explode shortly after its nighttime launch,
Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom remarked "Are we really going to get on top of
one of those things?"

Which was why Al and Gus were launched into space on the Redstone - The Atlas was Not Ready
for Prime Time yet.

Mr. Schwamberger posted:

Hmm.. the Atlas rocket was originally speced & contract let out in 1945, then
canceled in 1947. Restarted after 1950 for a three year development hiatus. Production
started in 1955 & it was reliable enough it was used for the Mercury manned space flight
program. During its production life to 1965 it underwent several major design changes.

I am going to Disect this piece by piece. The U.S. Army spec'ed a contract for the Atlas in 1945.
Then the USAF was separated from the Army in ..... wait for it....... 1947. And the USAF cancelled
the contract for the Atlas in .... wait for it..... 1947. Curtis LeMay didn't want ANY competition
for his shiny new B-36 Pacemaker.

But, to keep up with the Army and the Navy, who were doing things with missiles, the USAF kept
the development contract going for three years..... and then let it lapse until they got intelligence
about the Soviet work on the R-7 Semyorka. So, in 1955, the Air Farce got Convair going again.

Now, the Atlas WAS NOT IN PRODUCTION IN 1955 ! They began cutting metal on the early prototypes
of what was called the Atlas-A, which had only two engines instead of the three engines used on
the later Atlas Rockets. And, in June, 1957, they launched the First Atlas A. And the RSO blew it
up after 50 seconds to protect the good citizens of Florida... The second launch in September was
more successful - the RSO blew it up after 63 seconds ! Finally, on the third launch, the rocket
got down range - though it was yawing out of control due to a guidance system failure, and no
one was able to predict where it was going to land !

The following five years were not much better. To sum it up:

1957 1 success out of 3 launches ( 33 % )

1958 8 successes out of 14 launches ( 57 % )

1959 12 successes out of 23 launches ( 52 % )

1960 19 successes out of 33 launches ( 58 % )

1961 21 successes out of 38 launches ( 55 % )


Though the Air Farce had accepted a number of Atlases, and claimed they were operational,
with a nearly 50 % failure rate, an Atlas armed with an Atomic Weapon in 1961 posed a greater
hazard to the United States than it did to the USSR !


Maybe Convair should have hired a few Germans.......


Respectfully ;

Paul R. Ward

Oh yeah: The first Mercury Atlas Launch, M-A-1, was a failure - the Atlas Booster failed, and it
impacted the ocean after 3 minutes and 18 seconds, about six miles downrange.

Which makes John Glenn the Bravest American in History !

[T. A. Gardner]

The history of US ballistic missiles proves all of Paul's ramblings wrong.

First, up to about 1950, there was an ongoing issue over what branch would do what. After the USAAF became the USAF in 1947, this issue increased in seriousness. By 1949, with the Key West Agreement, the issue over responsibilities was at least established. It took roughly another year to work out all the details.

As such, the USAF gave up developing anything but a very long-range SAM (BOMARC) and then only to keep their rival the US Army from gaining all the research they'd done on GAPA.
The US Army from 1946 on had been steadily progressing on SRBM's starting with Project Hermes. This led to the Viking / Vanguard series then Redstone and later Sargent and Lance. This is where most of the Paperclip German scientists were involved.
The US Army's Nike program had virtually zero German input. This led to the first deployed SAM missile.

The USN with Project Bumblebee with ZERO German input led to Talos, Terrier, and Tartar SAM systems then Standard that's still the SAM in the USN today.

The USAF developed Atlas and then Titan, followed by Minuteman, independent of German input. They started with MX 774 HIROC and for a few years focused on a cruise missile (Matador, Snark, Navajo, etc.) as the solution to an intercontinental missile system. Atlas and Titan were exponentially more complex to develop than Redstone, an SRBM.
Had Convair used German help, Atlas would likely have been a larger failure as a review of German technology of the early 50's shows much of it was crap that was vastly improved by US manufacturers where it was used.

[paulrward]

Hello All ;

Mr. Gardner Posted :

a review of German technology of the early 50's shows much of it was crap
that was vastly improved by US manufacturers where it was used

Crappy German Rocket.jpg

Yeah. Sure. I believe you.


In the real world, in September 1945, the U.S. government brought the German V-2 program
director Wernher von Braun along with nearly 1,500 German rocket engineers and technicians
to the United States in Operation Paperclip. In August, 1963, German rocket engineer Arthur
Rudolph, who was a leader of the effort to develop the V-2 during WW2, became the project
director of the Saturn V rocket program. He developed the requirements for the rocket system
and the mission plan for the Apollo program.

The first Saturn V launch lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on November 9, 1967, Rudolph's
birthday. Rudolph then became the special assistant to the director of MSFC in May 1968 and
subsequently retired from NASA on January 1, 1969, immediately following the successful return
to Earth of the Apollo VIII Astronauts, who had been launched to to Moon on the first manned
Saturn V rocket.

On July 16, 1969, the Saturn V launched Apollo 11, putting man on the Moon


Respectfully ;

Paul R. Ward

[paulrward]

Hello All ;

And, as an additional comment: All of the Germans had retired by the time NASA began
the development of the Space Shuttle, which ended up over-weight, over-priced, and had
a nasty habit of killing it's crews due to it's design flaws......

I wonder, had the Space Shuttle Program been run by Germans, with Germans managing
the engineering portion of the program, if Christa MacAulliffe might not have become the
first Teacher in Space.....

Respectfully

Paul R. Ward

[Takao]

Hello All ;

And, as an additional comment: All of the Germans had retired by the time NASA began
the development of the Space Shuttle, which ended up over-weight, over-priced, and had
a nasty habit of killing it's crews due to it's design flaws......

I wonder, had the Space Shuttle Program been run by Germans, with Germans managing
the engineering portion of the program, if Christa MacAulliffe might not have become the
first Teacher in Space.....

Respectfully

Paul R. Ward

The Saturn V was overweight and overpriced which is why it only flew 13 times...Too expensive and too useless.

If the Germans had designed the Challenger, MacAulliffe would still be dust in the wind...Because the Challenger was not lost to any design failure. Any engineer would have told you that.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

OK, I will handle Mr. Takao's comments in orderL:

The Saturn V was overweight and overpriced which is why it only flew
13 times...Too expensive and too useless.

The Saturn V was NOT overweight. A rocket which is overweight will not lift off the launch pad.
The Saturn V ALL UP weighed 6.5 million pounds. The S1-C first stage had a liftoff thrust of
7.5 million pounds - which means that the Saturn V had 1 million pounds of excess thrust to
lift off the pad.

And, for a rocket that was overweight, the Saturn V STILL HOLDS THE RECORD FOR LARGEST
AND HEAVIEST PAYLOADS LIFTED INTO ORBIT - That's right, a half century later, no other rocket,
Russian, French, Chinese, or American, has ever challenged the capability of the Saturn V !!

As for being overpriced: The Entire Space Program, from 1960 to 1973, cost the United States
26 Billion Dollars. For which we got a the American Flag on the Moon, a Space Station, and
an orbital peace meeting with the Soviet Union.

During the same period, the United States spent 168 Billion Dollars, or about SIX TIMES AS MUCH,
on the War in VietNam. For which we got a divided nation, a wave of refugees, thousands of
American Boys left in wheelchairs or addicted to drugs, and 58,000 NAMES ON A BLACK WALL
IN WASHINGTON !

Mr. Takao, ONLY AN IMBECILE would believe that the money we spent on VietNam was well spent,
and the money we spent on going to the Moon was wasted.

Mr. Takao, I was a teenager who, with the rest of my family, was sitting in our family room, glued to
the television screen, the day Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder onto the Lunar Surface.
I still remember that moment. And, like every other American, that day I WAS TEN FEET TALL !
And so was every one of my friends.

Mr. Takao, exactly what were YOU doing that day ?


As for the Space Shuttle: The design of the Space Shuttle was flawed from it's inception. The idea
of putting a manned payload directly next to the fuel tanks of a rocket is unbelievably stupid. And,
the failure of the Challenger was NOT due to an O-Ring failure, it was due to the failure of the Lower
Attachment Strut that connected the two Solid Rocket Boosters to the Liquid Fuel Tank. This was
caused by changes that NASA had made after the first launch of Columbia, delaying the ignition of
the SRBs for a number of seconds after the Liquid Fuel Engines had ignited, to prevent the SRB
Base Ring Boots from scraping the edges of the Blast Pit on the way up. As a result, the entire
structure of the Space Shuttles were exposed to a higher lever of forces than they had been designed
for, by a factor of nearly 50 %. NASA knew this, because they were constantly having bolts shearing
and stress cracks on the Struts. They ' Normalized the Problem ', which means they ignored it, until
the Challenger rubbed their noses in it.

Then they beefed up the Struts. Which made the Shuttle even more overweight.....

The ugly fact is, the only U.S. Astronauts to die in spacecraft, or nearly die, happened due to the
machines built by North American Rockwell. The Apollo 1 fire was due to poor quality control
by NAR. The Apollo 13 explosion was due to poor quality control by NAR. The design of the
Space Shuttle, which caused 14 deaths, was an NAR project from start to finish.

And North American didn't hire many Germans.....

Respectfully ;

Paul R. Ward

[Takao]

The Saturn V was NOT overweight. A rocket which is overweight will not lift off the launch pad.
The Saturn V ALL UP weighed 6.5 million pounds. The S1-C first stage had a liftoff thrust of
7.5 million pounds - which means that the Saturn V had 1 million pounds of excess thrust to
lift off the pad.

Oddly enough...The Shuttle lifted off the pad every time. I know, I got to see it lift off once(vacation just happened to coincide with the launch). If it Space Shuttle lifted off the pad...According to Mr.Ward, it is not over weight...Yet, according to Mr. Ward, it is over weight...Personal bias obviously clouds his judgement on this matter.

And, for a rocket that was overweight, the Saturn V STILL HOLDS THE RECORD FOR LARGEST
AND HEAVIEST PAYLOADS LIFTED INTO ORBIT - That's right, a half century later, no other rocket,
Russian, French, Chinese, or American, has ever challenged the capability of the Saturn V !!

Cough...Nobody else has needed to...Cough.
Cough...Nobody else could afford to...Cough.

As for being overpriced: The Entire Space Program, from 1960 to 1973, cost the United States
26 Billion Dollars. For which we got a the American Flag on the Moon, a Space Station, and
an orbital peace meeting with the Soviet Union.

26 billion so all Americans could proudly thump their chests seems a bit much, don't you think. Especially after being embarrassed by the Soviet space program so many times.
Skylab was hardly used, and abandoned in 1974, with a good bit of service life still left in it.

During the same period, the United States spent 168 Billion Dollars, or about SIX TIMES AS MUCH,
on the War in VietNam. For which we got a divided nation, a wave of refugees, thousands of
American Boys left in wheelchairs or addicted to drugs, and 58,000 NAMES ON A BLACK WALL
IN WASHINGTON !

Ooooh, Whataboutism. Problem is, we are not talking about the Vietnam War are we?

Mr. Takao, ONLY AN IMBECILE would believe that the money we spent on VietNam was well spent,
and the money we spent on going to the Moon was wasted.

Just because one expensive project is a waste does not mean that another, less costly project, was also not a waste.

Mr. Takao, I was a teenager who, with the rest of my family, was sitting in our family room, glued to
the television screen, the day Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder onto the Lunar Surface.
I still remember that moment. And, like every other American, that day I WAS TEN FEET TALL !
And so was every one of my friends.

Mr. Takao, exactly what were YOU doing that day ?

26 Billion dollars so Mr. Ward & his friends could proudly thump their chests...Waste. Mr. Ward, you can thump your chest for free at any time.

As for the Space Shuttle: The design of the Space Shuttle was flawed from it's inception. The idea
of putting a manned payload directly next to the fuel tanks of a rocket is unbelievably stupid. And,
the failure of the Challenger was NOT due to an O-Ring failure, it was due to the failure of the Lower
Attachment Strut that connected the two Solid Rocket Boosters to the Liquid Fuel Tank. This was
caused by changes that NASA had made after the first launch of Columbia, delaying the ignition of
the SRBs for a number of seconds after the Liquid Fuel Engines had ignited, to prevent the SRB
Base Ring Boots from scraping the edges of the Blast Pit on the way up. As a result, the entire
structure of the Space Shuttles were exposed to a higher lever of forces than they had been designed
for, by a factor of nearly 50 %. NASA knew this, because they were constantly having bolts shearing
and stress cracks on the Struts. They ' Normalized the Problem ', which means they ignored it, until
the Challenger rubbed their noses in it.

https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v3appoe9.htm
Which, oddly enough, does not mention any of Mr. Ward's supposition....

Then they beefed up the Struts. Which made the Shuttle even more overweight.....

Oddly enough, it continued to lift off the launch pad...Thereby meeting Mr. Ward's criteria for not being overweight.

[paulrward]

Hello All ;

So many errors, so little time......


Mr. Takao posted :

Oddly enough...The Shuttle lifted off the pad every time.

Lifting off the Pad is not the test. The first two Atlas launches lifted off the pad. Then the RSO
had to blow them up.... Tell me Mr. Takao, was the last Challenger launch a successful launch ?

As for the Shuttle begin overweight: It was so overweight that the ejection seats were removed,
the crews were initially not equipped with Space Suits, oxygen systems or parachutes ( This is
actually a violation of Federal Regulations relating to Aircrew Safety that NASA simply ignored )
and the structure of the Shuttle was so reduced in strength that the leading edges could not even
take a bird strike on liftoff, resulting in the Columbia disaster.

Cough...Nobody else has needed to...Cough.
Cough...Nobody else could afford to...Cough.

The Soviet Union needed to go to the Moon, to keep up with the USA. The Soviet Union could afford
to build a rocket to go to the Moon. The Soviet Union built FOUR N-1 Rockets, and tried launching
them between 1969 and 1971. Three broke up at high altitude, and the other one came back down
and detonated right on the Launch Pad.

That's right, Mr. Takao - the Soviets tried to built a Saturn V class rocket, and failed. Which is why
there is no Red Flag on the Moon !

26 billion so all Americans could proudly thump their chests
seems a bit much, don't you think.

Do the Math, Mr. Takao. That adds up to $ 130.00 for each American Citizen. Which, spread over
the 13 years from 1961 to 1973, works out to less than $ 1.00 per month per person. Or, for a family
of four, $ 4.00 per month. Or, about ONE Starbucks Latte with Whipped Cream per month....

In return for that investment, the United States got a Technology Boost that powered us into the
21st Century. Everyone on this forum will agree that WW2 spurred the technological
development in such fields as aviation, electronics, medicine, meteorology, metalurgy, synthetic
materials, and nuclear physics.

The Race to the Moon was exactly like WW2, without the mass death and destruction. The
advances in electronics and computers alone paid for the Space Program many times over. That
has been proven by the analysis by the Office of Management and Budget, the economic return
by the Space Program in the 1960s was approximately 10 : 1, or about 260 billion dollars put
back into the U.S.A.' s GNP. Just a few of the spin-off benefits included breakthroughs in such
diverse fields as:

Early breast cancer detection
Remote monitoring of hospital patients
Simplification of kidney dialysis
Integrated circuit development
Computer technology
Satellite Data Telecommunications
Freeze-dried foods
Insulation used on the Alaskan pipeline
Spacesuit textiles used in Green Buildings
Solar Energy development
Fuel Cell development

and dozens more.

Skylab was hardly used, and abandoned in 1974, with a good
bit of service life still left in it.

And Whose Fault was that ? Richard Nixon's. A man who couldn't see beyond the end of his own
deformed prepuce. Had there been a President more interested in the future of the Human
Race than in trying to make Keynsian Economics work, the United States would have gotten
to Mars by now.

Ooooh, Whataboutism. Problem is, we are not talking about
the Vietnam War are we?

All right, Mr. Takao. Name ONE Federal Program since 1950 that has had the financial and
technological return to the taxpayers that the Space Program of the 1960s had. I can name
only one: ARPANET.

Every other program is a rice bowl for bureaucrats and other losers who just want to march
in place until they get a fat federal retirement cheque.

Just because one expensive project is a waste

Going to the Moon wasn't a waste. The real waste is the waste of space taken up by people
who cannot appreciate how valuble the program was to the future of the Human Race.

Mr. Ward & his friends could proudly thump their chests

What's wrong, Mr. Takao. Does thumping your chest make you cough too much ?

Which, oddly enough, does not mention any of Mr. Ward's supposition....

For some bizarro reason, Mr. Takao seems to believe that the Bureaucrats at NASA ( Need Another
Seven Astronauts , Need Another Seven Again ) will ever admit to the design flaws of their crown
jewel. The fact is, NASA was lying about the Challenger Disaster within minutes of the wreckage
hitting the water. NASA officials claimed the seven astronauts died instantly in the explosion.
Then, they later claimed that they were knocked unconcious by the explosion. Then they claimed
they were unconcious due to lack of oxygen. Finally, years later, Storey Musgrave admitted that
the astronauts were alive and concious all the way down. With NO PARACHUTES, in violation
of Federal Aviation Regulations.

When the Columbia broke up, I was just getting up. A friend of mine, who worked for NASA, called
me up, and told me to turn on my TV - the Columbia had broken up on re-entry. I switched on my
TV, sat down, and watched the video footage taken in Texas of the shooting stars going past. And
I looked at my wristwatch, ( It was 6:12 AM PT) and said, rhetorically to the empty room, " I wonder
how long it will be before NASA starts to lie.......

It was 13 minutes. At 6:25, NASA started to lie.


Mr. Takao, if you want to know why the Challenger Exploded, and the Columbia broke up,
you should go on the internet, and look up Space Shuttle Twang

Respectfully :

Paul R Ward

[T. A. Gardner]

The point remains. The US and Western nations didn't need German technical or scientific help to achieve what they did. It was simply gravy, not a necessity. Even in the Soviet Union, German input was relatively short lived, and mostly helped the Russians catch up for the war years where R&D was largely put on hold. By 1955 the Soviets were shipping all the German technicians, engineers, and scientists back to the DDR as they were no longer needed. NII 88, the primary research facility using Germans was relegated to secondary roles with the remaining Russian staff.

The original question in this thread was if the West got no German scientists or technology what would be the impact? The answer is very little to none. The West could have managed fine without them.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

Mr. Gardner, I feel you may be missing an important factor, and that is .... TIME !

The Germans imported into the U.S. were a Force Multiplier. The U.S. had the resources, the
materials, the industrial plant, and the skilled workers capable of accomplishing any project.
The Germans were the guiding force in the years after WW2.

Compare the U.S. with the U.S.S.R.: The Soviets used the Germans to reproduce their V-2
rocket, and build a production line to make the engines for it. Then Korelev adapted that
engine to burn kerosene, by lining the combustion chamber with Copper Foil and ganged
four combustion chambers with one, larger mixing chamber to build the RD-107 and RD-108
boosters.

To understand this, go to YouTube for a quick lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-xyXDiC92s

But, while this got the Soviets into orbit, it has proven to be a dead end. The Soviets got
the power they needed, but did so by ganging lots of little engines. They did this because the
solution to the problems to building larger combustion chambers with stable high temperature
combustion was beyond their capabilities in the 1950s, and, since they had sent the Germans home,
the Russians were on their own. And they got stuck. Their two subsequent boosters, the
Proton and the N-1, have never been as successful as the boosters developed by von Braun's
team. The Proton, after 60 years, has NEVER been Man - Rated, and the N-1 never launched
successfully.


Despite these failures, the Soviets almost succeeded in sending the first Manned Mission to the Moon
in early December, 1968, and seven months later, almost beat the U.S. in sending a Manned Mission
to the Moon and carrying out a Soft Landing. Had they been successfull, they would have planted
the Soviet Flag on the Mare Crisium and retrieved lunar samples, and then their cosmonauts would
have returned to Earth some two weeks before Apollo 11.


On the other side of the World, von Braun and his team were working to improve the V-2, not by
putting on multiple combustion chambers, but by making the chambers bigger and more efficient.
This took A LOT of work - and this was what von Braun's team was working on, in conjunction with
NAA and Chrysler, from 1946 to 1957 - when they got the Redstone to work, and went from 25.7
tons of thrust with the V-2 to 39 tons of thrust with the Redstone.

Von Braun's team also worked with the Army and Air Force to convert from LOX-Water-Alcohol to
LOX-RP1, and worked out the details in getting the RP-1 of sufficient purity to burn at a constant
temperature, as well as developing the techniques to get a stable burn without ' pogo-ing ' or
having hot spots within the combustion chamber. This took a MASSIVE amount of work, a lot of
it very theoretical in nature, involving complex gas and liquid dynamics. I cannot emphasize to
thoroughly how difficult the process of ' Scaling Up ' the combustion chambers of the rocket
engines was, how much deep theoretical understanding of the problems it required, or how
long the engineers at Huns-ville burned the midnight oit to get it accomplished. Sufficient
to say that it was one of the crowning technical feats ever achieved, and done without modern
high speed computer modeling. It literally took some of the greatest geniuses the best years of
their lives to solve the problems.
'
But, it was this work that allowed von Braun, as early as 1957, to begin the early concept drawings
of what would become the Saturn V series of rockets, each of which would have five combustion
chambers of a size that has never been equalled. And, the Saturn V had some 13 launches, only
one of which had a failure on the second stage that prevented the payload from reaching orbit.
Every other Saturn V launch was successful, even the first.


Mr. Gardner, in summation: The reason that the U.S.S.R. came in second in the race to the Moon
was because they sent their Germans home too soon. The U.S.A. KEPT it's Germans, gave them
citizenship, good pay, and respectable positions in the industry, and was rewarded for it with the Gold
Medal in the Space Olympics.

Mr. Gardner, if the United States had sent our Germans home, we might have have ended up, in the
words of the late John Glenn, ' .... In second place to those darned Russians ! "

Respectfully

Paul R. Ward

[T. A. Gardner]

No, they weren't. Outside a few programs under the US Army Ordinance Department, they were virtually a nonexistent entity. For example, BuOrd of the US Navy had exactly seven, 7, ex-German scientists and engineers in its ranks. That's nothing. It's virtually nonexistent. The USAF, likewise, had few in their employ.

The Russians came in second because they couldn't toss cubic dollars (rubles?) at the problem like the US could. They had a number of grotesquely expensive military development programs going on that were already putting their economy on the brink of bankruptcy. The Soviets sent their Germans home because they figured out they were no longer providing any serious benefit to ongoing programs in the Soviet Union.

The US space program was a small part of overall US rocket and missile development. Because of the Key West Agreement, the US Army was limited to developing an SRBM at most. That was Redstone, a missile that started in the late 40's as an outgrowth of Project Hermes. So, by the 60's when the US started to go to space in earnest, Redstone--a conservative design as well--had 25 + years of development background going for it. Of course, it was reliable and fully tested.
On the other hand, the USAF was tasked with developing and IRBM and ICBM, both of which were exponentially more complex and difficult to design. The USAF was also handicapped by the FACT that IRBM and ICBM development was rated as less important than development of a working SAM system (Nike, GAPA, BOMARC, HAWK, etc.) and a working AAM. So, the funding for R&D on an ICBM was constricted.
There was also less development and research done on such long-range missiles. Guidance was a huge issue and all that had really been done was develop and improve Azusa by Hughes. North American was working with their NATIV series to get experience with rockets in general, and guidance in particular. MX 774 HIROC was short-lived and gave Convair only the barest live test knowledge to develop Atlas.

The US also had its cubic dollar programs going on that sucked up resources because they were rated as higher priority than ICBMs and going into space, like SAGE and Missile Master. SAGE represented over 70% of all IBM gross income in the late 50's and early 60's for example. Without the technology that program provided, like the first hard drives, early digital computers, and the like, we weren't going to space in any case.

None of that relied on German technology or engineers to provide. The Germans were just along for the ride. They were a decoration on a very large cake. Neither the USAF or Navy relied on them for much of anything. One department in the US Army made heavy use of them for one particular program, development of an SRBM. The reason so many ended up in NASA was they could see their days with the US military were waning, just as they did in the Soviet Union.

[paulrward]

Hello All :

Wow. I mean like, Wow ! OK. I can handle this. Deep Breath.

Mr T. A. Gardner posted :

No, they weren't. Outside a few programs under the US Army Ordinance
Department, they were virtually a nonexistent entity. For example, BuOrd of
the US Navy had exactly seven, 7, ex-German scientists and engineers in its
ranks. That's nothing. It's virtually nonexistent. The USAF, likewise, had few
in their employ.

Mr. Gardner here is a list of some of the principle Scientists how were involved in some way with
the Manhattan Project:

J Robert Oppenheimer
Ernest O. Lawrence
Glenn Seaborg
Harold Urey
Arthur Compton
Richard Feynman

Albert Einstein
Edvard Teller
Enrico Fermi
Leo Szilard
Hans Bethe
Niels Bohr
Klaus Fuchs
James Franck
Joseph Rotblat
Eugene Wigner
Maria Mayer
Chien Wu

The first Six are Americans. The next Eleven are Europeans ( many of whom were Jewish ) and one
ethnic Chinese.

Mr. Gardner, are you now going to tell us that the United States would have developed the Atomic
Bomb WITHOUT THESE MEN AND WOMEN ? The Manhattan project got started because, in 1939,
Leo Szilard convinced Albert Einstein to co-sign a letter to Franklin Roosevelt. That letter started
the CHAIN REACTION that lead to the creation of the Manhattan District Project, which led directly
to the Atomic Bomb.

And those Eleven European Scientists were key to it's development. Now, they were vastly
outnumbered by the number of Americans working on the Project. But without them, I have
a strong feeling that MacArthur would have been storming beaches in Japan in 1946.

Mr Gardner, one of my professors in college worked on the Manhattan Project. He made no
secret of the fact that the cream of European Physicists and Chemists were in the U.S, working
in technical management positions on the Project. And that they were Brilliant.

Now, the Germans had their own group of brilliant physicists:

Werner Heissenberg
Otto Hahn
Fritz Strassmann
Lise Meitner
Otto Frisch

But, as Werner von Braun told Lyndon Johnson in the film, " The Right Stuff ",

"Nein Mr. Senator. MY Germans are BETTER than THEIR Germans ! "

Mr. Gardner, in the year 1938, Robert Millikan predicted that Atomic Power was 200 years into
the future.... Then the United States got a bunch of European Physicists.

. The reason so many ended up in NASA was they could see their
days with the US military were waning

Now, Mr. Gardner, you keep quoting the lack of German influence in what were basically minor rocket
projects ( NIke, Talos, Hawk, etc. ) Mr. Gardner, ALL of these projects were Military Projects.
Is it conceivable to you, Mr. Gardner, that after WW2 was over, the German Rocket Scientists, as a group,
decided to ' Lay down my Sword and Shield, and Study War No More !' , and rather than wasting
the rest of their lives giving a group of psychotic USAF Generals the means to wipe out humanity, instead
chose to spend it developing the rockets that gave the United States the Moon and our first Space Station ?

Mr. Gardner, If I show a photo of a Nike or Hawk missile to the average American, and ask them what it
is, they will not be able to answer. But if I show them the photo I posted earlier of a Saturn V taking off,
they will ALL recognize it

And that is how important the Germans were to the United States. They gave us the Moon.

All your group of American Military Industrial Complex Slavies did was create a world with Mutual Assured
Destruction. And we all know what General Buck Turgidson said:

" You know, if we'd developed our own Doomsday Weapon,
we could set it off right now, and beat the Russians to the punch
by FIFTEEN MINUTES ! "

Respectfully

Paul R. Ward

[T. A. Gardner]

None of those people were forced to come to the US. All came pre-war. Qian Xuesen (or Hsue-Shen Tsien) came to the US in 1935 on a scholarship to MIT for example (a premier mathematician and rocket scientist). Immigration was ongoing to the US and, of course, the rise of fascism in Europe accelerated it from several countries. None of that impacts the original thesis of this thread.

Instead, you have moved the goal posts. The thesis of this thread is about captured wartime German technology and the scientists, engineers, and technicians the US virtually forced to come to America at the end of the war (eg., Paperclip etc.).

Nike, Talos, HAWK were not "minor missile programs." They were seen as of national importance and put well ahead of anything NASA was doing. Talos cost on the order of the Manhattan Project to bring into service. It spun off Terrier and Tartar which today evolved into the Standard missile that is still in use.
Nike evolved into the US ABM program through its evolution. It also was the second program to see major development in integrated command and control systems with high degrees of automation, Missile Master.

Missile Master and SAGE its Air Force companion system cost more than double the Manhattan Project by the time they were complete. They also represent between them the true birth of systems that would evolve into the Internet.

All of that was done without captured German technological input.

Yes, many European emigrees did contribute to these systems and many others, but they chose to come to the US on their own volition, not because the Army gave them some Hobson's choice.

Some chose other options. Kurt Tank (designer of the FW 190 et al.) and the Horten brothers (Ho IX / Go 229 flying wing) chose to go to Argentina where they made major contributions to that nation's aircraft design and manufacturing ability.



Tank's Ta 183 realized as a flying aircraft. Sure, Argentina was unable to mass produce it, and Tank was unable to get the plane to fully work well.
Another emigree to Argentina was France's Émile Dewoitine. Dewoitine faced charges of collaboration with Nazi Germany in France so he fled to Argentina. Persecution wasn't limited to Germany...

Let's keep things were the OP asked:

No German scientists/technology for the Wallies - impact on the Cold War?

And, as the OP explained this was in reference to those collected at the end of WW 2. It wasn't referring to immigration by various individual's personal volition.

[paulrward]

Hello All ;

No. Mr. Gardner, I am NOT moving the Goal Posts. You obviously are unable to comprehend
what I was writing about. So, i will reduce it to smaller words so that it is more readily
understandable.

You stated that there were very few ( Seven ) Germans working with the USAF on a rocket
project, and that this number was too small to make an input. I pointed out the small
number of European Scientists who fled Hitler, and made a MASSIVE contribution to the
U.S. Nuclear Program in the 1940s.

I stated it before, and will state it again: Genius is like Yeast- a relatively tiny amount will
make the Bread rise to many times it's volume. Without Yeast, you have ...... Tortillas......



Mr. Gardner, you have a military mindset - you believe that quantity can make up for lack
of quality. However, in the Sciences, a THOUSAND Archie Bunkers will NOT equal ONE
Albert Einstein.

......Nike, Talos, HAWK were not "minor missile programs." They were
seen as of national importance and put well ahead of anything NASA.....

Mr. Gardner, that is YOUR opinion. And YOU are entitled to it.

I have a feeling that vast majority of the human race disagrees.

Let's go back and re-phrase the OP's original thesis: USSR beats the USA to the Moon - impact on
the Cold War and the Future of Humanity......


Respectfully

Paul R. Ward


Oh, yeah. You left out Willy Messerschmitt - Who went to Spain, and then to Egypt, where he designed
a supersonic delta winged fighter that flew in the 1960s. And also, Kurt Tank ended up in India, where
he designed the HF-24 Marut Fighter Bomber, that was India's first indigenous military jet.