IN HOC SIGNO VINCES

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Foax,

Here's a question, and accompanying answer - or at least a partial
one, which never got posted on the GRGR because I was away in India
when the relevant section was being discussed. On page 101 of GR
mention is made of the motto IN HOC SIGNUM VINCES - literally BY THIS
SIGN YOU CONQUER - as part of the description of the rocket firing
stand near to where Katje was quartered with Blicero and Gottfried:

    The Bodenplatte - concrete plate laid over strips of steel - is
    set inside a space defined by three trees, blazed so as to
    triangulate the exact bearing, 260^o, to London. The symbol used
    is a rude mandala, a red circle with a thick black cross inside,
    recognisable as the ancient sun-wheel from which tradition says
    the swastika was broken by the early christians, to disguise their
    outlaw symbol. Two nails are driven into the tree at the center of
    the cross. Next to one of the painted blaze-marks, the most
    westerly, someone has scratched in the bark with the point of a
    bayonet the words IN HOC SIGNO VINCES. No one in the battery will
    admit to this act. Perhaps it is the work of the Underground. But
    it has not been ordered removed.

The outlawed Son-God? Nails. Work of the Underground, indeed. So the
question was what was the source for that quote?

Well, I have just finished reading a history of space flight,
Countdown, by one T Heppenheimer, full of lots of very interesting
technical detail if a little short on the political background. Near
the end I encountered this description of the second launch of the
Soviet R7 rocket by the Soviet's chief rocket scientist, Korolev:

    On July 11 the second R-7, still based on V2 technology, took to
    the sky. As it rose and began to tilt the cruciform arrangement of
    its engines placed a fiery cross in the sky. The Roman emperor
    Constantine, early in the 4th century, had seen just such a
    vision, accompanied by the words *In hoc signo vinces*. But in
    that sign Korolev would not conquer, for the rocket went out of
    control and disintegrated.

So, the quote comes from Constantine, presumably at his point of
conversion. Wonder where Pynchon picked it up from. Heppenheimer gives
no source for the Constantine story in his account. Perhaps Pynchon
and Heppenheimer both saw it in something written by Korolev or some
other rocketeer?

One of the other threads I unknotted by reading this history was how
politicised the space race was and how uncritical most US citizens
(and lots of non-US citizens too, of course) were of rocketry during
the 50s and 60s. I remember details from when I was 10 or 11 but not
the political situation. While Tom was writing his magnum opus
billions were being paid to fund the manned missions, in substantial
part as a cover for research into the more important unmanned missions
used by the CIA and the military. Not surprising that, given such a
shiny ideal, Pynchon started digging round in the dirt to uncover the
program's diseased roots.


Andrew Dinn
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We drank the blood of our enemies.
The blood of our friends, we cherished.