# Nazi space programme? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 8, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309 "2003-09-08T15:01:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![c42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a87d85/32.png) [@c42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c42)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/1 "2003-09-08T15:01:45Z")
I came upon [this](http://worldatwar.net/chandelle/v1/v1n1/ww2space.htm) website, and I was blown away…I knew that Germany was developing high powered rockets (aside from the existing V2), but had no idea that they planned ahead this far. Is there a chance that the site is bogus perhaps? In any case I’d be interested to know what kinds of predictions/information people have about Nazi satellites/space stations - allowing more time for Germany in WW2, perhaps an armstice in '41 or an outright win (at least for the purposes of this speculation)? Interestingly the space station does in fact involve a death ray…😃 ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/2 "2003-09-08T15:26:06Z")
While all theoretical, the plans were made. Check out this google search for [“antipodal bomber”](http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=%22antipodal+bomber%22&btnG=Google+Search) ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/3 "2003-09-08T15:26:12Z")
The plans were real enough, but they were also pie in the sky. The most advanced plan was probably the [Amerika Bomber](http://www.luft46.com/misc/sanger.html) which got as far a wind tunnel test. There is no way this could have been used as a weapon, it’s just too expensive for much in the way of delivery. There is a notion that Hitler planned to drop a “dirty” radioactive bomb on New York, but this is rubbish. No-one understood the concept of radiation sickness until after Hiroshima. If you want some _really_ whacky space science, then look up the work of [Viktor Schauberger](http://www.frank.germano.com/viktorschauberger.htm), the father of Nazi UFO program. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/4 "2003-09-08T15:36:46Z")
As a quick reading of the linked site shows, even that author calls several of the plans “patently ridiculous”, “delusional”, “self-indulgent” and points out the major flaws in it. In any case, straight-science considerations would have pointed to the programme getting off the ground… oh, c. 1958. After all, that’s when the guy actually in charge of Germany’s rockets DID get to launch his satellites. The lilelier possible technological way to alter the course of the war would have been to hold out starting it 'til '43, when the military services and armaments industry had expected to be introducing mundane but then-cutting-edge conventional-war technology (e.g. jet planes, guided missiles, superheavy tanks, assault rifles) in force. As it was, having to develop them with your resources otherwise tied up, factories getting bombed and lunatics in charge of the strategic decisions resulted in “too little, too late”. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/5 "2003-09-08T15:50:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tapioca Dextrin \* > \*\*The plans were real enough, but they were also pie in the sky. The most advanced plan was probably the [Amerika Bomber](http://www.luft46.com/misc/sanger.html) which got as far a wind tunnel test. There is no way this could have been used as a weapon, it’s just too expensive for much in the way of delivery. There is a notion that Hitler planned to drop a “dirty” radioactive bomb on New York, but this is rubbish. No-one understood the concept of radiation sickness until after Hiroshima… \*\*_underlining by **Bosda** _ Untrue. Various early experimenters with X-Rays and Radium died fairly early on, and the dangers were well-known by scientists prior to WW2. The Amerika Bomber _would_, however, have been a Jim-Dandy means of deploying a biowarfare agent. And little is known about Germany’s biowarfare research, although Japan knew a great deal. It would have been halfway effecting at deploying a nerve-gas bomb, too. And the Nazis _had_ gas. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/6 "2003-09-08T15:52:17Z")
> [@](#): > > There is a notion that Hitler planned to drop a “dirty” radioactive bomb on New York, but this is rubbish. No-one understood the concept of radiation sickness until after Hiroshima. For that matter, he would have liked to drop a bang-bang nuke on New York, too. But as we found out after the war, Germany’s nuclear program was so far behind ours that the bomb would have been even longer in coming than the bomber. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/7 "2003-09-08T16:12:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tapioca Dextrin \* > **No-one understood the concept of radiation sickness until after Hiroshima** Not true. Scientsits understood radiation sickness a lot better after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it was certainly a known factor many years before then. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/8 "2003-09-08T16:35:15Z")
OK, I was wrong on scientists not understanding radiation sickness prior to WWII, but I stand by my basic point which is that no-one considered using a radiological bomb until long after the war. The only known(?) test was in 1987, by Iraq for use against Iran. > [@](#): > > This weapon was found to be impractical because the radioactive isotopes in the weapon would decay quickly, rendering it useless within a week after the weapon was manufactured. Furthermore, it was found that for the radioactive material to spread, weather conditions had to be ideal. > **[Radiological warfare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiological_weapon)** > > Radiological warfare is any form of warfare involving deliberate radiation poisoning or contamination of an area with radiological sources. > Radiological weapons are normally classified as weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), although radiological weapons can be specific in who they target, such as the radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko by the Russian FSB, using radioactive polonium-210. > Numerous countries have expressed an interest in radiological weapons programs, several have actively... ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/9 "2003-09-08T17:14:37Z")
There seem to have been some few pie-in-the sky projects going on at the end of the war. Just in the vicinity of where I live there was[a nuclear reactor that did not get to be critical](http://www.haigerloch.de/stadt/keller_englisch/EVERSU.HTM) in a beer cellar at Haigerloch and [the world’s first manned rocket launch](http://www.stetten-akm.de/seiten/gemeinde/stadt_rakete.html) (fatal to the pilot) on 1 March 1945 ([page on the craft by a modeler](http://m2reviews.cnsi.net/reviews/axis/luft/kusters349.htm)). Of course the people working on the projects could not but know that their products could not be deployed before the end of the war (what they reported to the government was another matter…). But the projects were obviously useful to the research teams: a) to get the research funding while it was still to be had b) to keep their draft deferments. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/10 "2003-09-08T17:37:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tapioca Dextrin \* > **There is a notion that Hitler planned to drop a “dirty” radioactive bomb on New York, but this is rubbish. No-one understood the concept of radiation sickness until after Hiroshima.** Maybe no one in the mainstream media, but the concept was well understood in the scientific community, and even in the science-fiction community. Check out Robert Heinlein’s _Solution Unsatisfactory_ for an example. (This story, written in the late 1930’s, described the use of radioactive dust as an “ultimate” weapon. While Heinlein may have gotten the technology of the ultimate weapon wrong, he accurately predicted the nuclear standoff that was the basis of the Cold War.) ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/11 "2003-09-08T17:39:17Z")
> [@](#): > > OK, I was wrong on scientists not understanding radiation sickness prior to WWII, but I stand by my basic point which is that no-one considered using a radiological bomb until long after the war. Robert Heinlein wrote a science fiction short story, “Solution Unsatisfactory”, about radiological weapons (a radioisotope “dust”) that was published in _Astounding_ magazine in May 1941. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/12 "2003-09-08T17:46:31Z")
Curse you, **BrotherCadfael**. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/13 "2003-09-08T17:47:10Z")
MEBuckner, you owe me a Coke! ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/14 "2003-09-08T18:23:52Z")
Personally, I find a nazi coal powered hypersonic vehicle super cool. ---
**Author:** ![ouisey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9fc29f/32.png) [@ouisey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouisey)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/15 "2003-09-08T18:32:49Z")
I was just at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS on Saturday. They have a huge exhibit on Nazi advances in rocketry. The crux of it was that Nazi’s were friggin’ geniuses when it came to the field and god knows what would have happened if they hadn’t been stopped in time. America’s space program was built on their defecting scientists and enginers. BTW, if you ever get stuck in the middle of Nowhere, KS (i.e. Hutchinson), GO GO GO to the Cosmosphere. Its a great museum, and I still can’t figure out what its doing out there, miles away from civilization as I know it. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/16 "2003-09-08T18:32:54Z")
Not as cool as a Nazi coal-powered “Death Ray” though. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/17 "2003-09-08T18:41:23Z")
With all due deference, **MEBuckner** and **BrotherCadfael** , a story is just a story. It’s doubtful that even the über-nuttiest Nazi used Heinlein stories as the basis for a WMD program. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/18 "2003-09-08T19:32:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tapioca Dextrin \* > \*\*With all due deference, **MEBuckner** and **BrotherCadfael** , a story is just a story. It’s doubtful that even the über-nuttiest Nazi used Heinlein stories as the basis for a WMD program. 😃 \*\* With all due respect, I seriously doubt that either **MEBuckner** or I were suggesting anything of the sort. We were disputing the claim in the OP which suggested that “No-one understood the concept of radiation sickness until after Hiroshima.”, which our citation of the Heinlein story definitively refutes. ---
**Author:** ![c42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a87d85/32.png) [@c42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c42)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/19 "2003-09-08T21:24:11Z")
So the general gist of what people are saying is that because of the Germans lack of understanding of some of the technology issues, this would have prevented them from getting a man into space much before 1958? Remember, I’m assuming here that the Nazi’s either win WW2 or get an ‘out’ in such a way to allow reasonable progress in their space efforts post 1941/42… I had always assumed that they would have a man in space by '49 or '50, if they were allowed to, and even onto the moon by the late 50’s… Check out Stephen Baxter’s fun short story on the subject [here](http://www.cix.co.uk/~sjbradshaw/baxterium/firstmoon.html). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309/20 "2003-09-08T21:41:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DreadCthulhu \* > \*\*Not as cool as a Nazi coal-powered “Death Ray” though. \*\* Everyone knows that the basic “Death Ray” research was done long before the Nazis’ era, and that twenty years prior numerous functional models had been developed and marketed. None of them coal-powered, granted, but only because coal is not the correct fuel source for something so energy-intensive. The Nazis may have claimed the original science as their own, but those claims are absurd on their face. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-space-programme/200309.md?page=2)