A POW was the first astronaut aboard a V2/A2

[witcher]

[Split from "Little known facts..."]

Heard many years ago from a source in Huntsville that a POW was the first astronaut...aboard a V2/A2.

It was a one way trip in exchange for safety of family.

Any truth to this? Were any animals ever launched? Was the derrived data used on any post war space programs?

[Helmut0815]

Heard many years ago from a source in Huntsville that a POW was the first astronaut...aboard a V2/A2.

It was a one way trip in exchange for safety of family.

Any truth to this?

Sounds like pure fantasy to me.

Were any animals ever launched?

In 1948 the americans sent four monkeys into space using modified V2 rockets. All monkeys died in the experiment.

--> http://www.spacechronology.com/1940s.html#1948

The first ever manned manned vertical take-off rocket flight occured on 1 March 1945. Luftwaffe test pilot Lothar Sieber took off in a Bachem Ba 349 Natter but his rocket crashed and Sieber got killed.

regards


Helmut

[stellung]

Information connects the German A-9/A-10 combination with a test pilot. A modified V2 was also built. A man with no official connection to anything involving space flight, Joachim Kuettner became the head of the Mercury Redstone project by request of Wernher von Braun in 1958. Mr. Kuettner was involved in the design of the first "American" space capsule.

[phylo_roadking]

Information connects the German A-9/A-10 combination with a test pilot.

:roll: You should know by now how it works around here...

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After you...

[phylo_roadking]

Any time soon'll do...

[Marcus]

Any time soon'll do...

He has not been logged in here since he posted the above message so he has probably not even read your message yet.

/Marcus

[witcher]

Gentlemen, Sorry I have just seen this. The question was a serious one and not fantasy. It was spurred by my interest in 2005-8 in the art of former Peenemünde draftsmen that went on to work for NASA in Huntsville , Al.

Seeing a Wasserfall in Aberdeen and also reading on Nader design made it just somewhat possible. The POW aspect is only from a old search. Yes that is hard to believe.

So here is a token scan 'A9 influenced' by Wiley Lee to make things better. Also one of me in front of a well maintained 'gate guard' in Aberdeen.

Best Wishes

-

[witcher]

I have found the artwork previously mentioned. Attached here

[T. A. Gardner]

There's so many things wrong with this. I doubt there is a single piece of viable evidence to back any of the OP's assertions up.

What was the name of the "astronaut?"
Where did the launch take place from?
What date did it occur on?
How was the V-2 modified to take this person? Is there any physical evidence of the craft in existence?
What was the source at Huntsville's name and job there?

There doesn't appear to be anything to back the claim up whatsoever.

[witcher]

Of course you are correct, if records ever existed they have been lost forever. However it would be inaccurate to say alternative (human) payloads were never considered. The first time I read the description of A4 ie specifications , it seemed silly to go to such extreme cost and drain during wartime to deliver a 1 ton explosive warhead.
Can you agree a manned verision was always the real ‘mission’ ?

I have no hard proof of a planned human piloted rocket.
Its all speculation on my part.

-

[T. A. Gardner]

Of course you are correct, if records ever existed they have been lost forever. However it would be inaccurate to say alternative (human) payloads were never considered. The first time I read the description of A4 ie specifications , it seemed silly to go to such extreme cost and drain during wartime to deliver a 1 ton explosive warhead.
Can you agree a manned verision was always the real ‘mission’ ?

I have no hard proof of a planned human piloted rocket.
Its all speculation on my part.

-

But, it would be accurate to say it never happened, and there is no proof of such a flight beyond anecdote and rumor which makes this the stuff of science fiction and conspiracy theories not history. I don't think a manned mission was ever the intent beyond some fantasy in someone's mind.

[witcher]

-[/quote]

But, it would be accurate to say it never happened, and there is no proof of such a flight beyond anecdote and rumor which makes this the stuff of science fiction and conspiracy theories not history. I don't think a manned mission was ever the intent beyond some fantasy in someone's mind.[/quote]


https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducat ... berth.html

Sir, Prior to the take-over of the Berlin club, the goal was always manned space travel.

This cannot be disputed. It is a historic fact, ie Oberth and Tsiolkovsky.

-

[T. A. Gardner]

Sir, Prior to the take-over of the Berlin club, the goal was always manned space travel.

This cannot be disputed. It is a historic fact, ie Oberth and Tsiolkovsky.

-

That's not the question on the table. The issue here is providing proof of a manned V-2 flight and the construction of a V-2 capable of carrying a pilot / astronaut. Just because the goal of those involved was manned spaceflight doesn't validate that a V-2 with a cockpit or capsule was built. In fact, the desgin of the V-2 was such that it would have been very difficult to provide a detachable payload or manned capsule on the rocket.

[witcher]

I’m still looking at this, based on my own early rocketry behavior. Like so many I started launching model rockets at a young age eventually working up to Flight Systems F100 motors. (35lb thrust)
Living specimans were frequenly “sent up” just to see ‘what happens’.

So I’m on the trail of an interview that Aurthor C. Clarke had with someone form the Peenemünde team. Difficult to locate but they were already sending up live specimans (no details yet) . The discussions had already moved to manned launch by 1942. The A2 was not ready so they must have been using one or more of the sounding rockets.

I may have to go to Huntsville and research there.

regards

[PF]

In the post world war II Comedy farce Hogan heros The Pows send a German scientist to London in a V rocket!

Seriously
There was a plan in regarding V2 man rockets But.....Megaroc project
http://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/megaroc
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2015082 ... n-in-space