V2

[Monte Davis]

Robin quotes:

> the V2 research effectively began the space race. Most of the 
> V2 engineers were snapped up at the 	end of WWII by the 
> U.S. and the Soviet Union to run each country's nascent 
> space programs.

Too much historical foreshortening: there were no "nascent space programs"
in 1945. In the first postwar decade it was all about blowing shit up
quickly and unstoppably from far away -- pursued more aggressively by the
USSR at first, because it lacked the forward bases and proven heavy bombing
capablity the US had.

It was one of those Kute Korrespondences that the technology needed to throw
a nuclear warhead 8,000 miles at 15,000 mph -- and the associated
technologies of guidance, telemetry, warhead re-entry etc. -- are also those
needed to put a satellite or spacecraft into orbit at 18,000 mph. In
1953-1963 the US spent 2 to 3 times what it would spend on the space race on
ICBMs, and on spysats intended above all to get better intel on *their*
ICBMs.

That doesn't mean that space was "nothing but" more Cold War competition and
dick-waving. It does mean that without the arms race, it would have taken
decades longer for purer motives to drive the same costly R&D.