After WW2, where did the idea of going to the moon came from?
In: 233
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.
The Space Race in general was just an extension of the Cold War between USSR and USA. It was seen as a necessity for national security, but presented to the public as national pride and achievement.
Where did you get it from that it was after ww2? I have a feeling that humans have wanted to go to different planets for many, MANY millennia.
The art of flexing.
Basically the cold war was time when the US and USSR were trying to show their military might without directly coming to blows.
Who has the biggest navy, most bombers, etc. When the Soviets sent the first satellite in space, the US had to play catch-up. Then the Soviets also beat them to sending a man first because the US sent a monkey just days before.
So the US decided to one-up the Soviets by sending man to the moon.
All these require money and technical skills so it speaks “we are better and richer than you”.
The Soviets collapsed, US won. Then it became scientific research instead.
Ideas about traveling to the Moon predate World War 2, see Jules Verne’s Journey from the Earth to the Moon. However, what really sparked the space race was nuclear weapons. See, at some point in the 1950s, the US and USSR realized that nuclear weapons can be delivered via rockets. This led to a race to develop ever bigger rockets with ever larger ranges to send bigger bombs from further away.
This eventually led to the Soviet Union launching Sputnik 1 into orbit on October 4th, 1957. The US, not to be outdone, sent Explorer 1 to orbit just three months later, on January 31st, 1958. The Soviet Union had issued a challenge, and the US had accepted it. The race was on.
And it didn’t look good for the US.
January 2nd, 1959, Luna 1 becomes the first lunar flyby mission. Launched by the Soviets.
April 12th, 1961, Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in orbit. Launched by the Soviets.
These, aswell as many other successes by the Soviet Union, put the US under a lot of pressure. The Soviets, it seemed, had outpaced them technologically. So the US set a goal so ambitious, they weren’t sure if it was possible. Flying a man to the Moon and bringing him back before the end of the decade.
As for why the Soviet Union never flew to the Moon, quite frankly, political interest just wasn’t there. The US had already landed. They’d won the race. And the N1, the rocket that was supposed to bring a Soviet to the Moon, was in its infancy. Now that they could only shoot for second place, the Soviet Union decided that continuing its development was too expensive, and focused its space program on the construction of stations instead, which was well within its capabilities.
The idea existed even before WW2. During the interwar period scientists from Great Britain and Germany were kind of involved in their own little space race, although severely lacking in technology and funds. But you do see this in both plans from this period as well as the science fiction in both movies and cartoons.
They did not manage to get to the moon in the interwar period but the technology progressed far enough that during WW2 the same scientists would develop various weapons, including anti-tank rockets, cruise missiles, short range ballistic missiles and even rocket ships.
After the war the scientists and technology were captured by the US and USSR. The main mission was still to develop weapons to be used if the cold war became hot. So they continued developing larger missiles to carry warheads further. When you get to intercontinental ballistic missiles the difference between hitting a target half way around the globe and missing the target and end up in orbit is more of a rounding error then a significant improvement to the rocket. So the way you would demonstrate to the other side that you had a working intercontinental ballistic missile that could deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere in the world would be to launch a satellite. And the way you would demonstrate that you actually had capsules which could ensure the nuclear warhead could survive reentry was to replace the warhead with an astronaut and show they would survive.
This was actually how the first people got into space. Civilian rockets were almost identical to the military ones except for some life support systems and such. The two sides would use civilian space missions to demonstrate their military capabilities and their ingenuity and technological advancements. If civilian scientists could send live pictures from orbit imagine what the military scientists could do. Of course there were military orbital missions such as spy cameras, communications satellites and even proposed weapons staged in orbit that could be launched at any time.
The moon mission concept was reintroduced by Kennedy. At the time the US was quite a bit behind the Soviets in space technology so to promote this technology within the US and to disguise the future failures a bit he set a goal that was so far out that they would be able to catch up. To put this into perspective a lot of the Apollo scientists were not even High School graduates when he made this speech. Buzz Aldrin was still in collage working on his masters while Neil Armstrong was working as a test pilot for the X-15 program. So the Moon was still a far away target that would require a new generation of scientists but was considered just possible, and it turned out that it was just possible within the timeframe.
The Moon had always been a target. A Trip to the Moon or Le voyage dans la lune is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure film directed by Georges Méliès, it was one of the most popular films of the early black and white film era. After WW2 the V2 rockets had already basically got into space (just) so it was thought we a little bit more effort reseasch and investment going to the Moon was possible.
The idea of going to the moon came from the first caveman who looked up at the moon.
Probably from several other animals too.
If you’re into podcasts, Moonrise is a 12-part series that does a good job examining a lot of what you’re asking.
It came from the USSR and from the fact that the West was trying to outrun the East at any cost. Any stupid idea the USSR would have had, the US would try to make it first 😉
Latest Answers