Wernher von Braun

[jbor]

on 28/7/04 12:02 AM, Jasper Fidget wrote:

> His work at Huntsville led to the development of the Redstone rocket, an
> MRBM capable of ~200 miles, which *was* deployed with thermonuclear warheads
> but which also led to the development of the Jupiter and Saturn rockets that
> put satellites into orbit, and the Saturn V that moved men to the moon.  Von
> Braun was more interested in space exploration than in Earth annihilation
> (he was the first director of NASA), demonstrated in part by his space
> station and space shuttle plans:
> 
> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980328.html
> http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/vonbraun.htm
> 
> "Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it
> to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently."
> --Wernher von Braun

      So, yes yes, this is a scholasticism here, Rocket
    state-cosmology . . . the Rocket does lead that way--
    among others--past these visible serpent coils that
    lash up above the surface of the earth in rainbow
    light, in steel tetany [...] But the Rocket has to
    be many things, it must answer to a number of different
    shapes in the dreams of those who touch it--in combat,
    in tunnel, on paper--it must survive heresies shining,
    unconfoundable . . . and heretics there will be:
    Gnostics who have been taken in a rush of wind and
    fire to chambers of the Rocket-throne . . .
    Kabbalists who study the Rocket as Torah, letter by
    letter--rivets, burner cup and brass rose, its text
    is theirs to permute and combine into new revelations,
    always unfolding . . . Manichaeans who see two Rockets,
    good and evil, who speak together in the sacred
    idiolalia of the Primal Twins (some say their
    names are Enzian and Blicero) of a good Rocket
    to take us to the stars, an evil Rocket for the
    World's suicide, the two perpetually in struggle.
                                            (726-7)

best