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Launchbox PoD 9: For Want of a Paperclip
- Thread starter Gary Oswald
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- Derbyshire
There's a fascinating situation there were they end up in Britain, and Britain can't really afford most of it, but there's just enough money to get some sort of either CANZUK or Anglo-French satellite programme working.
France had a tiny amount of germans. They went funding LRBA in Vernon, Yvelines, near Paris, still a hotbed of Ariane rocketry today - all the V- liquid rocket engines from Veronique to Vulcain were bench tested there. Veronique > Diamant > Europa / Ariane stemmed from this group.
Main issue with an anglo-french early rocketry program is that both countries were utterly ruined (in all senses of that word) at the end of WWII.
At a later date however... STS-200 did a fantastic TL at AH.com, right there. https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-selene-project.363684/
As an alternative, in the FTL / FFO -verse it would have far better chance (provided of course France staying in the war doesn't mean it pays lend lease until 2006 as happened to Great Britain OTL).
Main issue with an anglo-french early rocketry program is that both countries were utterly ruined (in all senses of that word) at the end of WWII.
At a later date however... STS-200 did a fantastic TL at AH.com, right there. https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-selene-project.363684/
As an alternative, in the FTL / FFO -verse it would have far better chance (provided of course France staying in the war doesn't mean it pays lend lease until 2006 as happened to Great Britain OTL).
I think the biggest repercussions of any shift of von Braun to the UK, or even France (or being thrown back to Germany) would be that the Soviet's would have had a better starting position in the Space Race. Without von Braun's influence in the West, would they even have tried the race at all? And if not, would Korolev (and the others) have had a better chance to unfold things more as they planned and with less pressure for "spectaculars" to upstage the West?
Finding out Von Braun might've gone to Britain made me turn and stare at my Ministry of Space comic with surprise & delight.
Whatever the fate of ze Germans - the US and Soviet rocket scientists were vastly different. America, too, had talented rocket scientists (Karel Bossart, M. Atlas Balloon Tanks) but they were scattered across the aerospace industry. Crucially they had no direct access to the President - it was a) their top boss > the industrial lobby > the military / NACA / NASA > the President.
In the Soviet Union the Yangels, Korolev and Chelomei had direct access to Stalin or Mister K. later on.
America had rocket scientists aplenty without a real need for von Braun. Viking, Redstone, Thor, Atlas, Titan, Navaho were done without the german team. Von Braun main usefulness was, well, he was different - an excellent, popular speaker through the Collier series. He tried shaking america inertia for rockets before Sputnik yet met mixed success.
The main reason why America resisted rocketry before Sputnik (and even with von Braun) relates to its military. Without NASA they were the main funding for space - NACA and the scientists were nothing by comparison. Yet the US military had bombers aplenty - nearly ten thousands of B-29s, B-50s, B-36s, B-47s, B-52s. Plus the Navy carriers and their attack planes. Intercontiental rockets ? for what ?
The Soviets had no such luxury, no aircraft carriers, no warm water ports to dock them, and their Tu-4 force was pathetic. Further atempts by Tupolev (Tu-80, 85, 95) were obsoletes before flying. Myasischchev (3M, M4) was a little more successful but then supersonic bombers raised the level of difficulty and expense again (M-50). In the end USSR hedge all its bet on rockets, with tremendous success. Although the missile gap was an idiocy and the Nedelin disaster a major setback, it took until the Saturn I (1961) before america bet the R-7 (1957).
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I agree that the Russians were naturally more predisposed to rocketry due to their circumstances.
And that there were plenty of US rocket experts without von Braun and the Rocket Team - but I do think that without his charisma and drive (and the talents they did bring, tied in to that in a synergistic package that boosted other teams as well), the US would have been automatically further behind.
von Braun had continued to push rockets via the Army, with Jupiter and Redstone, while the more natural military fits for rocketry ran into rocky roads (although Viking and Vanguard and Atlas did come a long way).
The line from V-2 to Redstone to Saturn I to Saturn V is fairly prominent. It took a long time before boosters as powerful as the Saturn V were developed (the order-of-magnitude jump to developing the F-1 engines is fairly staggering, and a jump that the USSR took a lot longer to make; the necessity for so many smaller engines in a time and location when/where automatic control and monitoring of the engines was so much more difficult is one of the things that doomed the N-1 in Russia).
I think that the US would only have been a few years behind where they were in OTL without von Braun - but perceived themselves to be even further back (as, indeed, they perceived themselves to be further back than they were in OTL). And the race definitely pulled them along in terms of rocket design and engine design.
Given that - what would their leadership have committed themselves to do if they were those few years further behind? "We will commit ourselves, before the next fifteen years are out..." doesn't work. "Before this decade is out..." only just works in US political and electoral cycles; fifteen years hence would be after four more general elections.
And that there were plenty of US rocket experts without von Braun and the Rocket Team - but I do think that without his charisma and drive (and the talents they did bring, tied in to that in a synergistic package that boosted other teams as well), the US would have been automatically further behind.
von Braun had continued to push rockets via the Army, with Jupiter and Redstone, while the more natural military fits for rocketry ran into rocky roads (although Viking and Vanguard and Atlas did come a long way).
The line from V-2 to Redstone to Saturn I to Saturn V is fairly prominent. It took a long time before boosters as powerful as the Saturn V were developed (the order-of-magnitude jump to developing the F-1 engines is fairly staggering, and a jump that the USSR took a lot longer to make; the necessity for so many smaller engines in a time and location when/where automatic control and monitoring of the engines was so much more difficult is one of the things that doomed the N-1 in Russia).
I think that the US would only have been a few years behind where they were in OTL without von Braun - but perceived themselves to be even further back (as, indeed, they perceived themselves to be further back than they were in OTL). And the race definitely pulled them along in terms of rocket design and engine design.
Given that - what would their leadership have committed themselves to do if they were those few years further behind? "We will commit ourselves, before the next fifteen years are out..." doesn't work. "Before this decade is out..." only just works in US political and electoral cycles; fifteen years hence would be after four more general elections.
Well that could have been awkward. Whilst the V2 was in the main bloody useless as a military weapon it still killed around 2,750 Londoners during its operational lifespan, not a massive number but still a much increased chance of running into people who lost family to them than in the US.