Rockets, V2s, NASA

So I went to a very interesting talk last week by Dr Michael Neufeld, (Chair of the Space History Division at the Smithsonian) on the role of the Mittelbau-Dora forced labour camps that provided the unskilled labour to produce the parts for and assemble the German V2 rockets. These rockets, of course, after the end of WW2, basically laid the foundation of the US and Russian space programs, and the team responsible for sending man to the moon? German scientists and engineers that developed the V2.

He posed an interesting "challenge" for both the Space & Rocket Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center, both here in Huntsville. Namely that we can no longer pretend that the history of rocketry started in 1949. That we have to admit the role of Mittelbau-Dora and Peenmünde in the development of rocketry, and that distasteful as it may be, we have to acknowledge what exactly went on both at Dora and Peenemünde. And that the scientists and engineers, von Braun et al, were not "clean" in the sense that they had no idea of the forced labour/slave camps, that they knew what was going on, but its not entirely black and white and that there are serious shades of grey in all of this.

Now, I have to agree with him on that level. Except he misses a very major point. Namely that anybody with two braincells to rub together and who has an interest in this sort of thing knows all of this already. Its already out there. The Davidson Space & Rocket Center does have information on this in the exhibits. The books in the gift store discuss this in depth. No one is actually trying to hide anything. As a friend of mine put it, "I'm a liberal arts educated Southern Boy from Decatur. I know of this stuff.

So no one's really hiding it. Yeah, OK, its not being shouted from the rooftops, but does it really need to be? Neufeld's argument is that even if we did shout it from the rooftops, its not going to change anything. That Apollo was long enough ago, that really no one really cares. No one in academia/serious scholarship that is. And yes, 10-15 years ago, I would have agreed that OK, we probably need to be a little more "pro-active" about conveying it to the public.

But now, in the age of the blogosphere? The age of the internet, where everyone and his pet dog has a voice and can amplify it to be heard the loudest, regardless of their credentials? I'm not so convinced. I think there's a real chance of fringe elements, with an agenda, taking hold of this stuff if we shout it too loudly and making a rather big fuss about this all. And well, you can see the nutjob headlines now (courtesy of RF): NASA Born from Nazi Deathcamps" "Congress Calls NASA Administrator to Explain Agency SS Connection." "American Space Program - Jews Die So Americans Could Fly."

We all know what really happened, most people with any awareness of the Apollo program do, why rock the boat and drill a hole in the bottom too?