Paperclip Germans vs US industry.

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Byeman

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As far as the space program in the 1950/60s
Germans at ABMA "gave" us Redstone, Jupiter and Saturn I. Later at MSFC - conceived and managed Saturn IB and Saturn V.

Vs US industry. Edited

JPL - large solid motors, Juno upper stages, Ranger and Mariner spacecraft
GD - Atlas and Centaur
Martin - Viking, Vanguard, Titan I, II, III
Douglas - Thor, S-IV, S-IVB
McDonnell - Mercury and Gemini spacecraft
Hughes - Surveyor spacecraft, Comsats
NAA - S-II, CSM
Boeing - Lunar Orbiter, Minuteman
Grumman - LM
Lockheed - Agena and spysats
Aerojet - engines and upper stages,
RCA - Comm and weather sats
NRL - Upper atmosphere research, telemetry and tracking, spysats
TRW - VELA, Pioneer, OGO, spacecraft
APL - Transit
 
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My ears are burning...

Anyhoo Stalin wanted a direct copy of V-2, where Korolev and Glushko both could have done better out the gate....

Now, there have been authors who wanted to slime anyone who worked with individuals from Germany. Cowing has a cottage industry in doing so.

But it is Elon from South Africa that will be the new target...most people don't remember ABMA. Medaris became a member of the clergy--the opposite trajectory of Curtis LeMay...who became the running mate of George Wallace.

Medaris wasn't the one eager to glass everything...he could see beyond the military applications for rockets. LeMay on the other hand, thought only of IRBMs as a way to destroy radar sites so his B-52s could power through for that personal touch.

Anything beyond that would threaten his and Rickover's fiefdoms---the REAL reason ABMA was killed, were I to hazard a guess.

Only with the recent addition of USSF have space advocates found a voice.
 
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Byeman said:
Germans (and ABMA) were not at the center of the US space program.
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They were pretty marginal if only because Ike scorned former nazis, for obvious historical reasons.
 
publiusr said:
. Medaris became a member of the clergy--the opposite trajectory of Curtis LeMay...who became the running mate of George Wallace.
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Your golden boy wasn't all that.
 

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publiusr said:
Medaris wasn't the one eager to glass everything...he could see beyond the military applications for rockets.
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Not really. It was more WVB. Medaris was just the military sidekick.

publiusr said:
LeMay on the other hand, thought only of IRBMs as a way to destroy radar sites so his B-52s could power through for that personal touch.
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It didn't matter. He wasn't in charge of missile deployment
 
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publiusr said:
Anything beyond that would threaten his and Rickover's fiefdoms---the REAL reason ABMA was killed, were I to hazard a guess.
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Wrong, Again, Lemay wasn't in charge of the USAF missile programs and ABMA wasn't a threat to his bombers (fiefdom). Rickover couldn't care less, he didn't need Jupiter anymore and ABMA wasn't a threat either.
The head of Army R&D didn't even think the Army needed JPL and ABMA anymore.
 

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Can someone please illucidate for me what ABMA means? (Army Ballistic Missile something?) I've worked out all the other potential license plates in this thread. WVB was a huge hero of mine growing up. I had to look up Medaris.

Personal high point of my first decade of life: Writing "NASA, Cape Kennedt, Florida" to request info on S5 and Apollo program at age 9 and receiving a VERY heavy folder-in-a-box with tons of photos, posters, paperback booklets, etc...of every aspect of the moon program including signed photos of astronauts and a(n) unsigned Warner Von Braun holding a S5 model. Sweet memories.
 
Byeman said:
They always had a voice.
Anyways, space wasn't the Army's or ABMA's role.
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To Titus

Rockets can be considered artillery. R-7 launches involved Red ARMY artillery men for a long time. ABMA had Redstone, Jupiter, and Saturn I.
The United State developed big solids---the Soviet Union developed more liquid fueled missiles...TOPOL was the only solid of real size and it came out near the end of the Cold War.

R-7 was lit with wooden matches:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/sp...ctually-lights-it-rockets-with-a-giant-match/
Here are some launch keys:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buHFfvNuSSw

ABMA turned into the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), and people have always been trying to kill it like they did the ABMA.
Vanguard was more of a civilian/Navy deal---from the Wiki:
Milton Rosen's Vanguard was a project at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which was regarded more as a scientific than a military organization. Rosen and Richard Porter (IGY satellite chief and head of the American Rocket Society) both lobbied for the Vanguard and against using the Atlas or von Braun's rockets.[10]

As you can see--folks hated on Redstone/Saturn then just like they hate on SLS now.

There has been a lot of bad blood between American Army rocket men and Air Force rocket men.
The Redstone pad where Explorer I launched had a bloody Air Force Thor put on it and I have been hopping mad about it ever since.

There was a humorous tale about how--as soon it was launched--a Redstone headed straight for the Thor pad...or maybe it was vice versa.

So if you wonder why folks fight like cats and dogs over rocketry--now you know why.
 
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publiusr said:
Rockets can be considered artillery. R-7 launches involved artillery men for a long time. ABMA had Redstone, Jupiter, and Saturn I.
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Who cares what the Soviets did. They did a lot of things wrong. An army does not need to control weapons outside of the battlefield.
 
See what I mean Titus?
Huntsville Alabama's calling card has always been building rockets that actually work--rockets that wind up being canceled in favor of other peoples junk.
Vanguard, Starship---it's all the same to me.
 
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publiusr said:
ABMA turned into the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), and people have been trying to kill it like the ABMA ever since.
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Because like the Army back in the day, NASA has no need for much of Marshall's so called "expertise". And there isn't hasn't been enough work to maintain the expertise. KSC Launch Services Program has more expertise in that they have managed over 120 launches in the last 25 years and have many people from industry.
 
publiusr said:
See what I mean Titus?
Huntsville Alabama's calling card has always been building rockets that actually work--rockets that wind up being canceled in favor of other peoples junk.
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No. SA-502 didn't work. Ares I-X was a waste. SLS - one launch in 11 years, at a cost of $26 billion dollars. That is worse than F-35 and more time than Blue Origin.

What junk?
 
tomo pauk said:
There is an axe to grind?
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Well, the original theme of this thread actually seems to have been forgotten in the meantime…. I didn‘t found anything about German scientists in the last posts.
Good time to close it, I think, before it will go totally OT.
 
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