German

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Although Russia had done significant advances in rocketry, the Germans did far better. The German society for space travel, or VfR, was founded in early June of 1927, and it soon had around five hundred members. Its journal, "the Rocket", was the first periodical about rocketry in Germany. Oberth also published several books, each of which sold many copies. Oberth's first book, The Rocket into Planetary Space, sold instantly and many books were to follow. Some other German books included: Road to Space Travel, The Attainability of Celestial Bodies, The Flight into Space, The Possibility of Space Travel, and The Advance into Space. These books showed that Germans were very interested in the possibility of space travel.

In Germany's early Rocket efforts, experimentation took a unusual turn. Instead of making rockets that flew by themselves, they attached them to vehicles! Everything from cars to trains to sleds soon had rockets attached! This all started when Max Valier wanted to attract attention to space flight. To do this, He allied with automobile tycoon Fritz von Opel, who wanted to gain attention for his automobiles , and they soon started making rocket powered cars. At first, the car barely moved. But soon, it was going up to 45 miles per hour. Later redesigns produced speeds of 55, 70, and 125 miles per hour! After this example, many others soon followed. Another experimenter accelerated a railway car to well over 100 miles per hour using Rockets. Then, tests on rocket powered sleds and rocket powered airplanes were made. Surprisingly, the sled reached 95 miles per hour, going 35 mph faster than the airplane.

Another interesting and unusual aspect of early German Rocket efforts was Oberth's experience with the Ufa film company. The film company hired Oberth to develop rockets for a movie they were making. Creating these rockets required doing research and development, and so Oberth worked there for a while while he was developing their rocket. This is one of the most unusual sources of funding in history.

After Oberth left the Ufa Film Co., many of his helpers, many of whom later helped develop the V2 missile, got permission to use in abandoned military ammunitions dump for testing rockets. This field, near a suburb of Berlin, would play a major role for testing rockets until World War II. Among the people working at this field was Wernher von Braun (then a young student). It was at this field that the experimenters tested the Mirak series of rockets. These rockets used the liquid oxygen to cool the engine, the gasoline was contained in the tail. However, the technology used to build these rockets was to primitive, and the Mirak series of rockets had only very limited success. All eventually blew up after a small number of tests. The main problem of these rockets, and of other rockets of the time, was that's the intense heat produced by combustion quickly destroyed the engine. For a successful rocket, a much more improved cooling system had to be developed.

A new rocket, nicknamed Repulsor, had a much better cooling system. The engine had aluminum walls, and it was cooled by water instead of the rocket's own fuels. Repulsor 1 gained a height of 200 feet. On the maiden flight of Repulsor, it did remarkably well. Repulsor 2 gained a horizontal reach of 2000 feet on the 23rd May. This was also a good reach for the time. Then the Third Repulsor also went a horizontal distance of 2000 feet, and flew the same distance vertically. Unfortunately, the parachute did not deploy and it made a crash landing. After Repulsor 3, the development crew decided to make modifications to improve performance. Repulsor 4 was different from the previous replaces in that it had only a single stick as a stabilizer. This greatly lightened the rockets, and it was able to gain a height of over a mile.

About this time, five experimenters were searching for practical uses for rockets. Besides the obvious use for weapons, which the German army developed, many experimenters were testing rocket carrying payloads of mail. However, because these rockets occasionally exploded and made crash landings, these experiments were quickly put to rest.

In 1932, a severe economic depression started to crush the VfR. Its membership fell severely, and police were expressing their growing concerns of rocket tests near populated areas. In desperation, they demonstrated a Repulsor rocket to the German army, in hopes that they would pick up the project. The German army was quite impressed by the rocket, and hired Werner von Braun to work at a rocket field at Kummersdorf. The Nazis began to strongly dislike the VfR's international ties, and they soon closed it. The rocket field was reprocessed by the army, because of Hitler's rise to power and the expansion of the German military.

The new German rocket program, which Werner von Braun was hired to lead, was strongly supported by General Carl Becker, who suggested a long range bombardment rocket. The German army realized the importance of a long range bombardment rocket, and soon demanded that a missile capable of carrying a one ton war head for 100 to 200 miles be developed. In order to develop this rocket, a series of other rockets were built to research and develop the technologies needed. The first of this class of rockets was the A1 rocket. This was a relatively standard alcohol-oxygen rocket. The A2 rocket was only slightly changed, and it attained an altitude of 6500 feet (over 1 mile, almost 2 km). The A3 rocket, which required a larger airfield, was unsuccessfully tested. Its destruction grew from a failure in the guidance system. However, static tests of the 3,300 pound thrust alcohol-liquid oxygen engines were successful.

In order to develop the A4, or V2, they had one more missile to build. This missile was the A5, and it was built to test the guidance and control system of the A4. The guidance system was much more improved than the earlier A3's system. The A5 rocket used the A4's control system, and the A3's propulsion system. In the summer of 1959, it reached a spectacular altitude of 7.5 miles. These spectacular flights demonstrated the upcoming A4's great potential. However, the A4, also known as the V2, was only developed late into World War II.

Besides these advances in rocketry, the German military also made significant advances in using rockets with airplanes. The Germans made the first rocket assisted takeoff in history, using a Hydrogen Peroxide rocket. This Hydrogen Peroxide rocket, called the "Walter" rocket, developed 220 pounds of thrust and was used in many wartime applications. A important predecessor to jet assisted takeoffs (JATOs) was the He-112. This was a rocket powered plane that was powered by a alcohol-oxygen rocket that developed over a ton of thrust. Although it never became operational, it was extensively tested starting from 1955.

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