After WW2, where did the idea of going to the moon came from?
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People had always wanted to go to the moon, that’s not super new. What was new was Germany’s massive investment in Rocket technology during WW2. Rockets are pretty dang hard to design and figure out, especially the math involved. The math requires fancy calculus being done on the fly, *on board the rocket*, and pre-computer chips this was tricksy, but the Germans figured out how to do a lot of it with ingenious analogue devices and sensors while bombing London.
Of course war didn’t end with the WW2, it was the just the start of the Cold War and the US and Russia both wanted rocket technology, and US the got this first by taking most of Germany’s scientists. You see, there was another piece of WW2 tech everyone was drooling over – the atomic bomb.
So now you’re seeing it – “Going to the moon” was a sort of scientific/political metaphor for “we can strap nuclear weapons to rockets and bomb the living fuck out of your country before you even realize we don’t like you”.
Of course there were plenty of good reasons to the go to moon, but it was really a massive investment in ICMB technology wrapped in phallic, jingoistic, propaganda campaign.
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