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In the 1930s, in the town of Peenemünde on the northern edge of the Usedom Island in the Baltic Sea, the Germans established a military research centre to work on rocket engines. In Peenemünde, the Aggregat 4 – the first ever rocket to cross the space frontier – was constructed and launched. However, it went down in history under the name V-2. This weapon was the world’s first ballistic missile used in combat. At the end of World War II, V-2 rockets were a technological marvel of the time. Reaching supersonic speeds, they were an unrecognized design for the Allies in terms of control and targeting principles. They were a weapon almost impossible to shoot down. The RAF’s destruction of the Peenemünde facility in 1943 was the reason for its relocation to the Heidelager military training ground in the village of Blizna, Subcarpathian province, out of the range of Allied aviation. Threatened by the Soviet Army’s offensive, it was moved again in 1944 to the Heidenkraut training ground in Wierzchucin, Kuyavia-Pomerania province. As a result of archaeological work in the area of Chodzież, in northern Greater Poland province, the so far unknown site of the fall of a German V-2 rocket fired from the Heidekraut training ground, from a distance of 108 kilometres, has been located. Analysis of the finds, the appearance of the fall site and GPR surveys lead to the conclusion that a version of the rocket with little or no explosive material exploded in Chodzież. The current state of research into the active use of the Heidenkraut training ground at the end of the War leads to the conclusion that the Chodzież region, located in northern Greater Poland, was a zone of not very intensive experimental firing of V-2 rockets. Much more intensive was the firing of the Kalisz region located in southeastern Greater Poland. Further research into the sites of V-2 rocket falls both in Greater Poland and in other parts of Poland may contribute to a better understanding of the poorly known German experiments with ballistic missiles. The Polish lands are particularly interesting in this regard, as they were training grounds for rocket experiments at the end of World War II.

V-2 technology was transferred from Germany to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and then on to China. The USSR imitated the captured German V-2 rocket, and independently developed the R-2. Later, China imitated the R-2 rocket provided by the USSR, and independently developed the Dong Feng-2 (DF-2). The imitation or localization of foreign products is a key stage prior to independent development. Independent development of new models, in turn, is not only indicative of an upgrading of the transferred technology and the mastering of foreign technology, but also an illustration of innovation. Talent is the crucial resource on which technology transfer relies. The administrative system and domestic collaboration network required to coordinate the necessary tasks, including research, experimentation, design, and manufacture were established both in the USSR and in China.

This is the emotional story, told for the first time, of two men, on opposite sides of the Cold War, racing against each other to design and build the most powerful rocket and dominate the world. An extraordinary co-production from the makers of Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, this fast-paced, action-packed factual drama unmasks the true heroes and villains behind one of the most extraordinary times the world has ever known. At the heart of this multi-million dollar battle for the moon lie incredible tales of betrayal, rivalry and soaring ambition, fuelled by the ruthless competition between two recklessly daring scientific leaders: the charismatic ex-Nazi Wernher von Braun in the American team, and the enigmatic Soviet project leader, known mysteriously as 'The Chief Designer'. Each despised the ideology of the opposition and was prepared to stop at nothing in pursuit of the ultimate prize.

Rarely has a war produced such clear-cut reasons to fight as World War II. On the one hand were the totalitarian dictators Tojo, Hitler and Mussolini. On the other were the great democracies of the Western World who were gradually regaining their feet after the Great War of 1914-18 and the Wall Street Crash. Suddenly, ordinary men and women from all walks of life found themselves thrown into fearsome, nerve tingling situations worthy of any Hollywood movie. The untold stories are now examined in detail for the first time.

In 1946 a seized German V-2 missile was mounted on the side of a rocket and launched into space from the brown sands of New Mexico. The mission of this launch, on the cusp of the Cold War, had no malicious intention. The rocket was loaded not with explosives but with a small automatic camera the sole purpose of which was to photograph images of Earth from outer space. High above the beloved American South West, the grainy black and white imagery revealed, for the first time, the curve of the Earth from outside the atmospheric cradle.

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading

When they met again four years later at Wolfsschanze, [Hitler]'s headquarters, the Third Reich required a wonder weapon. [Wernher von Braun] brought along a movie of a missile he was perfecting that could carry one ton of TNT across the English Channel. Hitler ordered 12,000 of them. Around 6,000 V-2's were eventually built, at an average cost of about $18,000 each (some 20,000 slaves died to make this bargain rate possible). More than 500 hit London, killing more than 2,700 civilians. They did not save Hitler's hide, but they later guaranteed von Braun's safe passage across the Atlantic, where he found wonder-weapon work again under the auspices of the U.S. Army. From then on, the moon's unblemished days were numbered. Von Braun always maintained that the Wehrmacht was just a \"golden cow\" he had milked for the sake of scientific advancement, an evidently acceptable excuse to his American colleagues. He was also fond of quoting Oswald Spengler, the Weimar-era reactionary modernist who preached that \"history knows only the success which turns the law of the stronger into the law of all.\"

Project RAND report examines the feasibility of obtaining Weather intelligence from Satellites using Cloud photography and information on Weather based on tests carried out using [Viking Rocket Vehicles; V-2 Missiles]