The Leaning Factories 286
both mathematics and physics were important, he excelled
in both subjects. With a degree in mechanical engineering,
he began a secret doctoral dissertation for the German
army.^131
During the Second World War, von Braun directed the
development of the Aggregate series of rockets. If the war
had not ended, the rockets would have ranged from A-1
to A-12, where the A-12 was designed to carry a 10 tonnes
payload to low Earth orbit. The A-4 rocket was the first
man-made object to reach space. But the Germans realized
they could use the A-4 as a weapon. The well-known,
notorious V2 rocket was born.
The V in V2 stands forVergeltungswaffe[Retaliation
weapon]. The first in the series was the V1 – a small, un-
manned aircraft powered by a pulse-jet engine. Launched
against England, the V1 was slow and thus easy to shoot
down by British fighter pilots. The same fighter pilots
realized that the V2 was impossible to intercept and de-
stroy because it traveled at supersonic speeds. The first V2
crashed in west London in September 1944, killing three
people and injuring seventeen. More than 3 000 of these
rockets were fired against London and other targets during
the end of the war.^130
The German rocket technology was at least 25 years
ahead of everyone else. US noticed that the Soviets were
interested in these rockets, so to not get behind, they
decided to capture as much rocket technology as possible.
And since no one knew if the nuclear bomb would work,
the V2 could be useful in the war against Japan, which at