America Tests Captured German Rocket Technology – How It Changed The World

V-2.

The final months of WWII saw many desperate attempts from Nazi Germany to drive back the invading Allied forces. They tried nearly everything they could including long-range attacks from deadly rockets which could reach all the way to London. Those rockets were not the best technology around but they did have a bright future ahead of them.

After the fall of Nazi Germany, the United States was looking to advance their own technology with the help of German scientists. So began Operation Paperclip which recruited German scientists and often gave them immunity from possible war crimes if they continued their work for the United States Government. Among those scientists brought over stateside was Wernher Von Brain, the creator of the V-2 Rocket. As many as 100 V-2 rockets were captured from the Germans, along with spare parts and technical manuals, but most importantly they had Wernher Von Braun to help innovate.

The United States never intended to use the V-2 as a weapon because it had such a low success rate, averaging two kills per rocket fired. Instead, these ballistic rockets were used as the basis for the modern day space program becoming NASA. In this video, you can see the first ever recorded images from orbit history in the making.