Perhaps it has always been the case that nations have measured each other, probably mostly in battle. The battle on the battlefield, bloody and deadly, the battle in the arena against animals. Or for the more intellectually elevated, since, it is thought, 2000 BC, the pan-Hellenic games, which in modern times are fought out all over the world. How do you compete in the Cold War? Physical fighting is not possible. Many animals give up in time when it is clear who is the stronger. With humanoids, the winner is the one who doesn’t stay down permanently. This is bad for the two largest nations, the USSR and the USA, because everyone still wants to exist after such a fight. The Second World War, the starting point of globalisation, when the spoils were divided up by the two big nations, it was not clear which system was better or more dominant. Like in Monopoly, the fields were occupied and cultivated. The Second World War ended with Japan’s surrender. Immediately, the eight or so more local wars began, motivated by decolonisation and bloc formation to define the local power structure as well. The last of these wars, the Korean War, made it clear that the two great powers did not have to face each other, but that a smaller country could be found where the conflict could be fought out by proxy. Currently, such a kind of war is being worked on in Ukraine.

Scalemate presentiert Revell’s German A4/V2 Rocket

After this historical excursion we come back to the year… Now this is difficult to define. After the foundation for space travel had been developed in the German Reich, albeit in order to carry warheads as far as possible into the enemy’s playing field, the technology and technicians were in high demand. The two great victorious powers tried to grab what they could. The loot was shipped home and both great nations now tried to do something with it. The USA was able to get hold of some of these missiles, plans, but above all the technicians, who themselves tried to get into American captivity. The USSR gained access to the workshops through the division of Germany, the Soviet occupation zone. Few technicians ended up in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, mostly those who preferred to remain in the eastern part of Germany. Both major nations quickly realised the potential of this technology and went to great lengths to occupy as much as they could in the wartime confusion of the German Reich. One must probably mention Sergei Pawlowitsch Koroljownennen, der für die sowjetische zielorientierte Requirierung im Deutschen Reich federführend war, zumal er selbst sich seit den 1930ern mit der Raketenentwicklung beschäftigte, wusste er, worauf es ankam. Die USA, mit ihrer Operation Overcasthaben alles mitgenommen, was nach Rakete aussah. Sicherlich auch unterstützt durch die freiwilligen Kriegsgefangenen, die daran gearbeitet hatten und vorsorglich Material der Roten Armee vorenthalten hat. Koroljow, ein exzellenter Techniker, gelang es, sich die in die fehlenden, in die USA abtransportierten Puzzle zu erarbeiten. In den USA wurde das eroberte Material inklusive der Personen vorerst eingelagert. Zu sehr war Mensch und Material mit dem Faschismus kontaminiert, der Stolz zu groß.

Da man auch in den USA bestrebt war, die Rakete als Waffe zu benutzen, war die US-Air Force damit beauftragt. Sie entwickelten die Atlas-Rakete von 1946 bis 1957, es gab eine Unterbrechung, weil Gelder für den Koreakrieg benötigt wurden. Dennoch hob die erste dieses Raketentyps vier Monate früher, am 21. August 1957 in der Nahe des kasachischen Baikonur ab. Die sowjetische Rakete, damals R-7 benannt, ist noch heute als Sojus-Rakete bekannt, eine über die Jahre weiterentwickelte Familie von Raketen und noch im Einsatz. Mit bislang 1936 Starts, ein solides Arbeitspferd. Eine Rakete aus dieser Familie brachte auch die Sputnik-Stateliten 1957 ins All, was aus Angst der Zündfunke war, die USA endgültig in das Rennen um den Weltraum eintreten zu lassen. Dort war immer noch die US Air Force beauftragt, den Wettlauf aufzunehmen und zu gewinnen. Doch es gelang der US Air Force nicht, an die erfolgreiche Atlas Rakete anzuknüpfen. Mit dem Amtsende des 70 jährigen 34. Präsidenten der USA hielt ein 27 Jahre jüngerer und dynamischer Präsident Einzug in das Weiße Haus, der nicht diese kategorisch ablehnende Haltung gegenüber der geschichtlichen Herkunft der inzwischen in Huntsville (Alabama) angesiedelten Deutschen mit ihrem Team hatte. Der bereits auf deutscher Seite forschende Pionier der Raumfahrt, Wernher von Braun, who was already conducting research on the German side and whose early goal was to travel to the planets, did not remain idle in the USA either. If he was able to advance his dream through the armament projects in the German Reich, he also managed to get funding in the USA. Thus, the Redstone missile, based on the “Aggregat 4 / Retaliatory Weapon 2”, was developed in parallel with the US Air Force’s Atlas. It was not only to transport warheads, but also the first satellite of the USA and, in the course of the Mercury program in 1961, the first American into space.

Scalemate presentiert Revell’s U.S. Army Redstone

The Sputnik shock in 1957, was followed by the first dogs in space, the first man and first woman as cosmonauts in space, the first spacewalk (leaving the spacecraft), much longer stays in orbit than the US, the first pictures from the far side of the moon, the first probe on the moon, the first robot on the moon and the first space station into earth’s orbit. Korojov’s consistent work until 1966 had clearly paid off here in the race.

In the USA, this Soviet superiority was not to be accepted. Attentive observers also realised that the US Air Force was overburdened by its military tasks to also advance space flights, especially since Wernher von Braun’s group worked more efficiently compared to the resources made available. Thus, the civilian US National Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded in 1958, and von Braun’s team was quickly integrated. As early as 1959, the first studies on the Saturn rocket were made, two years before Kennedy’s famous speech: We choose to go to the Moon.

Dr. Wernher von Braun, der NASA-Direktor des Marshall Space Flight Center, und Präsident John F. Kennedy in Cape Canaveral, Florida, am 16. November 1963. (Foto: NASA) Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der NASA

Und nach dieser einleitenden Vorgeschichte soll dann Teil 2 folgen, mit der in Bünde 1956 gegründeten Firma Revell und den schönen Modellen um die Raumfahrt.

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