Germany launches Manned V2 (or Woman) into space in 1944

[njslim]

By mid 1944 Von Braun and his team have gotten the V2 to operational status and would shortly begin bombarding Allied cities

Launched in vertical , the V2 could reach altitudes over 160 Km (100 miles), past the Von Karman line into outer space

What would be the reaction if a V2 was launched carrying a person ?

The V2 in question would have to be modified , the warhead section carrying the payload where the man carrying capsule would be housed would need to separate from the booster section. This is how the REDSTONE, which was basically V2 ver 2.0, employing the same fuels (LOX and 75 % ethyl alcohol) and using the same graphite carbon vanes in the exhaust stream to guide the rocket.

A parachute would be needed for the crewmember to safely land An ejection seat could be used to have to crew member land using their own parachute vs having chutes large enough to land the entire capsule This is how the early Soviet VOSTOK worked .

What would the reaction be from the German populace, the Allies if Goebbels suddenly announced that Germany had launched a person into space ?

 

[juanml82]

Isn't the idea of a Von Karman line post 1944? Von Braun can still say he launched someone into space, and the Allies would say space is higher than that. But since they are in the middle of the war, wouldn't the Germans think it was a waste of a perfectly good rocket?
I guess people would still be amazed by the pictures (if any) and it should spur manned spaceflight after the war.

 

[Michel Van]

First you need to modified the Nose Cone for a pilot, because Warhead section is to small to fit a human

Second a V2 goes up easy, but get pilot alive down returning at Mach 5, is another issue...

Third Goebbles would be delighted and make Propaganda about Aryan reach Space

For Germans in devastate Third Reich, they don't care About manned V2, all they want is that War ended and they survive it.
while for Allies reaction is more like: WTF ?!

 

[Kalga]

and the Allies would say space is higher than that.

This would actually have the most implications in the cold war & space race, as it would set a precedence of what counts for anything. With both sides refuse to give credit or acknowledgement where its due would probably spur the space race a bit more than it did OTL...

 

[Garrison]

I don't think a V2 is going to cut it for even launching someone past the Karmann line, given the designs Von Braun came up with for a an actual manned vehicle:

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[Peg Leg Pom]

The Allies claim the Germans are so desperate they're making nonsensical claims to divert the minds of their people from the inevitable German defeat. They turn it into a huge joke and start asking when the Germans will claim to have a base on the moon.

 

[jlckansas]

The question is will Winkle Brown get the "Honours" of being the first Allied man in space? Imagine post war they see the Germans were able to do it. UK gets a couple of V2's. Gets one setup to launch a man in space. Brown get to be in space.

 

[thedifference]

Honestly, it would be pretty useless for the Nazis, seeing as they are fighting a losing battle and don't care about sending people on sightseeing adventures. If they were to do such an act before the end of the war, potentially plans for the manned Aggregat line (A4b/A9) would be accelerated and maybe a couple prototypes produced before the end of the war. This might advance space exploration for the Americans and Soviets slightly (different/no X-plane program, more advanced sounding rockets, earlier ICBMs, etc.) but otherwise I don't see a purpose.

 

[Yankeewolf]

It's definitely a feather in the cap for Germany, but it wouldn't exactly be worth it.

 

[njslim]

I don't think a V2 is going to cut it for even launching someone past the Karmann line, given the designs Von Braun came up with for a an actual manned vehicle:

After von Braun with his team and captured V2 transferred to FT Bliss (El Paso TX) and later to White Sands A number of people volunteered to ride a V2 into space

Von Braun vetoed the idea 10 years later Von Braun proposed Project ADAM to launch a man into space on top of a REDSTONE using a modified Air Force Man High Gondola It fell victim to interservice and bureaucratic rivalry After creation of NASA in 1958 this was incorporated into Project Mercury with 4 scheduled flights 2 Flights (Alan Shepard/Gus Grissom) were actually launched on a REDSTONE before remaining flights cancelled to concentrate on orbital flights with ATLAS

As for Nazi Moonbase Whose to say they didnt do it .......

 

[Maniakes]

What would be the reaction if a V2 was launched carrying a person ?

Long-term, we'd likely see bad AH timelines about Germany using tens of thousands of manned V2s to invade England in 1944.

 

[Belisarius II]

The V-2 wasn't capable of even a sub orbital flight. It could go up, and almost straight down. In hitting England, it went about 60 miles up, and 200 miles out. What good would it do in a war to say you sent a man 100 miles up?

 

[njslim]

The V-2 wasn't capable of even a sub orbital flight. It could go up, and almost straight down. In hitting England, it went about 60 miles up, and 200 miles out. What good would it do in a war to say you sent a man 100 miles up?

V2 launched on vertical trajectory for maximum altitude could reach over 100 miles (160-200 km) , launched for maximum range would climb only 60 miles (100) km) The first MERCURY flights using a REDSTONE were suborbital flights with max altitude of 115 miles Germans launching a manned V2 would have been a morale rasing stunt , similar to the US - Soviet space race of the 1960's

 

[jmc247]

The V-2 wasn't capable of even a sub orbital flight. It could go up, and almost straight down. In hitting England, it went about 60 miles up, and 200 miles out. What good would it do in a war to say you sent a man 100 miles up?

Even during the war where they were on paper focused on building long range weapons of war they were also interested in ushering in 'a new era of transportation' in their journals.

"The story begins on October 3, 1942, almost exactly 15 years before the momentous launch of Sputnik 1. On that day Germany’s secret V-2 rocket (then designated the A-4) achieved its first successful vertical test flight from Peenemünde, off the Baltic coast, climbing to a record altitude of 84.5 kilometers, or 52.5 miles. Later that day, Walter Dornberger, the military commander of the high-tech complex where the A-4 had been developed, remarked: “This third day of October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel...”

The First Rocket Built for Space

It isn’t what you think it was.

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[Maniakes]

The first big challenge for using a V-2 rocket to perform the office of a Mercury-Redstone is size and payload capacity: the latter is more than double the size of the former for a roughly proportional increase in capacity on the same mission profile. Even on a reduced trajectory to match the V-2's actual use, you're dropping from 4000 lbs for Redstone to 2200 lbs for a V-2.

On the other hand, a full Mercury capsule is significantly overkill for a short-range suborbital flight, as it was designed to also be suitable for the Mercury-Atlas orbital missions. A short suborbital flight probably doesn't need a heat shield for reëntry, since the cross-range velocity is going to be enormously less. Not is it going to need a thruster pack for orbital maneuvering and de-orbit burn. Likewise, a 15-minute flight isn't going to need 4-30 hours worth of oxygen. A minimal suborbital capsule would probably need only a small reserve supply of oxygen, an airtight shell sturdy enough to withstand the stresses of launch that can be opened from the inside, a contour couch or similar for the astronaut to lie on, and a parachute system for recovery: I wouldn't be surprised if you could squeeze that plus the astronaut's own weight into a V-2's payload.

Next challenge is the landing zone. Historically, the US space program had their capsules splash down at sea, while the Soviets landed in a flat, relatively uninhibited region of Kazakhstan. Germany in 1944-45 had very limited access to the sea (the Baltic Sea was hotly contested while just about everywhere else was firmly dominated by the Allies) and I don't think they had much in the way of flat, uninhibited land. Maybe they could launch out towards the North Sea and ask the Americans and British very nicely to send a ship to pick them up? Or they could aim for some farmland in the North German plains and hope for the best.

 

[vizzer]

But do they bring them back again?
As an experiment where they shoot someone into space but don't return them I could see the first man on space being a Jew.

 

[PhilKearny]

This would really mess with the plot of Gravity's Rainbow.

"A screaming comes across the score...."

 

[JanWellem]

I could imagine a couple of whisper jokes developing around the topic.
"Why just one rocket and wasted on a nobody and not five, one for Hitler, one for Himmler, one for Goebbels and two for Göring."

 

[Belisarius II]

Even during the war where they were on paper focused on building long range weapons of war they were also interested in ushering in 'a new era of transportation' in their journals.

"The story begins on October 3, 1942, almost exactly 15 years before the momentous launch of Sputnik 1. On that day Germany’s secret V-2 rocket (then designated the A-4) achieved its first successful vertical test flight from Peenemünde, off the Baltic coast, climbing to a record altitude of 84.5 kilometers, or 52.5 miles. Later that day, Walter Dornberger, the military commander of the high-tech complex where the A-4 had been developed, remarked: “This third day of October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel...”

The First Rocket Built for Space

It isn’t what you think it was.

www.smithsonianmag.com

I understand that some of the rocket scientists were visionaries, but the V-2 was incapable of even a suborbital flight. Even the Soviet SS-1 Scud B was far superior in terms of range, and altitude.

 

[jmc247]

I understand that some of the rocket scientists were visionaries, but the V-2 was incapable of even a suborbital flight. Even the Soviet SS-1 Scud B was far superior in terms of range, and altitude.

The V2 series also known as the A4 was not the class of rockets Von Braun envisioned putting satellites in orbit much less reaching the moon. His model A9 and A10 were ICBM's intended to cross continents. The A12 was designed for putting objects in orbit.

A9/A10

It was proposed to use an advanced version of the A9 to attack targets on the US mainland from launch sites in Europe, for which it would need to be launched atop a booster stage, the A10.

Design work on the A10 began in 1940, for a projected first flight to take place in 1946. The initial design was carried out by Ludwig Roth und Graupe and was completed on 29 June 1940. Hermann Oberth worked on the design during 1941, and in December 1941 Walter Thiel proposed that the A10 use an engine composed of six bundled A4 engines, which it was thought would give a total thrust of 180 tonnes.

Work on the A10 was resumed in late 1944 under the Projekt Amerika codename, and the A10's design was amended to incorporate a cluster of 6 A4 combustion chambers feeding into a single expansion nozzle. This was later altered to a large single chamber and single nozzle. Test stands were constructed at Peenemunde for firings of the 200 tonne (440,920 lbf) thrust motor...

A12​

The A12 design if built would have been an orbital rocket. It was proposed as a four-stage vehicle, comprising A12, A11, A10 and A9 stages. Calculations suggested it could place as much as 10 tonnes payload in low Earth orbit, roughly as much as the first iteration of the Falcon 9 rocket.

The A12 stage itself would have weighed around 3,500 tonnes fully fueled, and would have stood 33 m (108 ft) high. It was to have been propelled by 50 A10 engines, fueled by liquid oxygen and ethanol.[33]

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