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Werner von Braun, "not a Nazi'??? He was a Nazi. His A-4 rocket program killed more slave laborers than it killed Londoners. He was a Nazi Party Member, wore an SS Uniform ... But what he really was was an opportunist. So when it supported his rocketry - he became a Nazi, when he was in the U.S. working for NASA... he became "I was never a Nazi." His career ended because his past caught up to him and the U.S. was sufficiently ahead in Space that he could be 'retired'. Robert Harris in his 2020 novel "V2," I think captures him fairly accurately.
I really love this deeper info about Soviet life post-stalin. All you ever hear about is the very bad things in the 20s-40s but this era interests me a lot.
Yes, Stalin was the probably the Worst dictator in terms of executions, gulags and general treatment of people. But really the Soviet Union did some pretty bad things to it's people through it's entire existence. Stalin was also (probably) the only True dictator of the Soviet Union. After his death, the polit bureau kinda maintained a position able to 'real-in' any general secretary that got too out of control, with the possible exception of Brezhnev. Yall Take Care and be safe, John
@@JohnDoe-pv2iu Also a key change, whenever someone power struggles happened losing it didn't mean your life after Stalin, just irrelevance and forced retirement.
@@quisqueyanguy120 do you know the reason why he was sent to GULAG? Read about it, there is so much people nowadays sitting in prison all over the world for the identical type of crime.
It is time to give respect to scientists from former Russian Czarist Empire and USSR. They came up with brilliant individual inspirations. So a Russian mathematician/ physicists worked out travelling to space. Another Russian scientist worked out 'stealth technology'. And many other important breakthrough.
@@rick7424 the 'the Lockheed Have Blue'. Megaproject video 📹 Apparently a Soviet scientist did all the maths behind the stealth fighter in 1964?, but the Russians /Soviets dismissed it but published it in the science journals anyway.
Nailed it!! At 20:00 you insightfully discuss the effect of the early R-7 warhead problems on allowing Sputnik to use the now-surplus military test rockets -- the timing was an accident based on the warhead reentry problems.
This was an AMAZING video. Have you ever considered doing a collaboration with, "The Vintage Space," Amy Shira Teitel dives into everything space related and has even done videos on the soviet space race. I think you two would work well together.
I remember the day when the news of the Soviet success broke the news. Our local CBS affiliate in St. Paul did some "man-on-the-street" interviews asking people their thoughts on it. Some women were crying, worrying that it meant that Soviet nuclear missiles would soon blacken the sky. A lot of the men were defiant and one woman simply said, "I wish would've beat 'em." The years afterwards redirected school curriculums to a stronger focus on math and science, including what was called, "The New Math."
In sixth grade '68-'69 we were placed into an advanced STEM program (before they called it "STEM") where we actually learned 'new' new math from the guy who had invented new math. Sadly, he died before the school year was over.
It was only a matter of time before we got the first video on the Space Race. Nicely done. Can't wait for the next one. My compliments to all those who made this video a reality.
Great video, thanks! As a 'Sputnik baby' I was born eight months before the first satellite went up. I grew up with 'the space race' though I realized early on that it had been going basically since World War II. The Saturn rocket for the Apollo program was the first of our spacecraft that was not originally designed as an ICBM so the military advantages were not lost on me. Sputnik scared the pants off the American scientists and military. If the Soviets could do that they could do almost anything! NOBODY was safe! Of course we kids all benefitted from the introduction of STEM programs in school (long before they ever called it "STEM"). It basically thrust us all into the Future. No cost was too high, no idea too far fetched. Going to the moon, by the time it was publicly announced seemed perfectly possible because we were all working so hard to do it. It was the ultimate "high frontier." We were playing catch-up with the Soviets until just before we actually got to the moon.
Great video! I have read some Soviet space history before so this video is like listening to a favourite song. Thanks for putting Tsiokovsky, Korolyov and Tikhonravov into the spotlight. These are probably the most important people in Soviet space history. A nice mention would be Keldysh too. And thanks for accurately prononcing their names!
If you didn't read Boris Chertok's "Rockets and People", you know the name now. I don't remember if Keldysh actually was at the scene at the moment for Sputnik or was it later in during the "D" satellite series construction?
I appreciate the fact that you are using the correct terminology for the german rockets, this is the only TH-cam channel, i know of, that does this. By the way A4 stands for Aggregat 4. Also i think your joke about von Braun not beeing a NAZI might have been a bit too subtle.
Yeah, I thought he was using sarcasm, but I was not sure, as I have issues with that sometimes. He was not a person of high standing for me, nor was operation Naziclip.
My impression always was that Korolev and his design bureau created an incredibly powerful launch system (the R7 - > Soyuz line), not the least because soviet warheads were just that larger, while the US had its strategic air force for nuclear delivery so lacked the impetus to create an equally powerful rocket at first. The Soyuz line, through further development enabled the many Soviet firsts, but by the mid-60s the Soyuz pretty much reached its max potential, and with Korolev's death the Soviets failed to create a more powerful successor (until Energiya that is) In contrast the US was more iterative and their early rockets were just too weak, but this approach enabled them to create the Saturn V eventually.
There was also the fact that the US had no real desire to be first in space. The Eisenhower Administration actually saw the Soviets achieving orbit first as a good thing, since it would establish the "Freedom of Space." In addition, one of the very few voices that was pushing hard for the USA to be first to achieve orbit was Von Braun, and it is not surprising that Eisenhower would not tend to follow advice from a former Nazi. Von Braun and his team at ABMA could have reached orbit in 1955 or 1956 if doing so had been a priority for National Authorities. 🖖✌
The R-7 has been continuously improved well beyond the 60's. One of the reasons the N-1 had little succes was because the soviet military did not see much use in the rocket, opposed to the UR-500/proton rockets which were proposed around the same. Those were designed for military purposes first and lunar missions as a sort of second thought.
@@ffffuchs Yes it did. The Soyuz-L, which launched in 1970 could get 5.5 tonnes to LEO, while the Soyuz-2 line, which first launched in 2004 can get 7 tonnes to LEO, proving there at least was still potential to increase the payload and range of the line.
I found on the Internet a high-resolution image of my hometown in Siberia taken an American spy satellite "Corona" in July 1967. The image quality is amazing even today, and my hometown looks so strange for me... familiar and at the same time completely different... It's been a little over 50 years ago.
Nice gag with the N-1 footage when talking about R-7 =) As well the GIRD(ГИРД) in Russian was often jokingly described as "Группа инженеров, работающих даром" -- "A group of engineers working without pay" -- so that was way more enthusiasm than an interest by the Soviet State. IIRC they occupied a single cellar in Leningrad and they were constantly in need of things essential for their work. Nevertheless thanks for mentioning them as they and their experience got very important later (those who survived the purges and the war anyway). P.S. Langemak, for once, had some crazy ideas of the rockets using up their lower stages as fuel for the upper stages, with some kind of mills grinding the stages to in flight to serve the powder as fuel.
That's the only thing I always loved about cold war they always back with a new shabang and never disappoints us. It is always love to learn aspects of cold war with you😊😊
The information is very rich and accurate and very nicely narrated. Little note: at 14:44, that's the Soviet N1 moon rocket shown, not the R-7 which is similar to today's Soyuz, albeit shorter.
You gotta give it to the Soviets. Even though most of the west saw them as a backwards nation, they did manage to accomplish great feats in Aviation, and Space Exploration.
He couldn't have been a nazi; he signed a sworn statement that he wasn't. And a lot of SS concentration camp guards couldn't have been nazis because they would have signed such sworn statements also if they thought it would save their necks from getting stretched.
One overlooked aspect is that Korolyov identified as Ukrainian. Ukrainians still take pride of one of their compatriots being at the head of the Soviet space program, and the Ukrainian Yuzhnoye Design Bureau still participates in Western space projects. A Ukrainian joke goes [spoiler alert]: "On April 12, we celebrate the day when a Ukrainian put a Russian into a metal can and shot him into outer space". Great episode, as always, thank you!
The USA would have had the first satellite in space if they would have let Von Braun launch his German V-2 based Jupiter C rocket launch, which was ready at least 6 months before Sputnik…but the government wanted an “American” designed navy Vanguard rocket to be the first…and it failed miserably. Only after Sputnik was launched did the humiliated USA allow Von Braun’s Jupiter C to be launched with its Explorer 1 satellite on board.
The deck was stacked against Werner...with Ike as President, it was never likely that a team run by an ex-COUGH-N**i would be the preferred one for first US satellite launch. Add in the fact that Ike saw more value in the Soviets establishing the Freedom of Space than in the USA being first into orbit, and Von Braun had a almost no chance to be allowed to do what he wanted to do. But I do believe you are right...if ABMA had been given permission and funding, the USA absolutely would have orbited a satellite first....possibly in 1956, but almost surely in the first half of 1957. 💯
Well if you consider that many people still spout that Americans are morons and only German scientists got them into space, you'd realize that their concerns weren't that foolish.
The Air Force missile program was headed by the German-born USAF General Bernard Schreiver. He moved to the US as a child during WWI. There is an amazing biography about Schreiver and the space race called A Fiery Peace in a Cold War.
Very cool, a triumph of will and technology, no doubt interwoven with suffering and struggle. The launch of Sputnik 1 was about as far before my birthday in 1983 as the release of Final Fantasy 7 is to today's date. A weird perspective on the speed at which technology exploded over the last century.
I don't know if you're going to cover this in your next episode or not but and there's always a butt, the Army Redstone program and von Braun put together a rocket with an upper stage that could orbit a satellite. But as you mentioned in the episode the US didn't want to military derived vehicle to orbit a satellite so it was redirected as a test launch of the Redstone with the upper stage but instead of firing in a trajectory that would take the upper stage into orbit it was directed to fire it horizontally. Both stages functioned and had the trajectory of the upper stage been different the United States would have been first to orbit a satellite.
Just a quick correction on something. Fort Bliss is not in New Mexico it's in El Paso, Texas. White Sands Missile Range is in New Mexico near Las Cruces.
"Apollo Program" Producer: Walt Disney deceased at that time. Co-producer: Wernher Von Braun. Director: Stanley Kubrick Art Director: John Hoesli. Writer: Arthur C Clarke. Photographer: Geoffrey Unsworth. Total cost = 169.51 billion current dollars...
@@adoesntequala5871The shuttle is not in operation for a decade now. You think of the the Atlas V EELV as it uses Russian RD180s for its first stage, however its just one rocket of the many NASA and the DoD uses, and its being phased out, not the least because of ULA wanting to get rid of the need to import from Russia. As far as human spaceflight goes, the Dragon uses the Falcon 9 launch vehicle which is all-American, while the SLS first stage will use Shuttle Main Engines, also American.
You must have missed the part where technology and development of productive forces improves the quality of life of all citizens. Instead you’re complaining about a state of affairs that was handed off to the Soviet Union to resolve while protecting themselves against internal enemies, Nazis, and eventually nato.
@Flavius Ibrahimius Because this guy's Lithuanian, you gotta translate your comment to say "pochui, aš šaliava" to get your point across. (Although google translate doesn't understand these words, it's a great to tell Lithuanians that you don't care)
subscribe and press the bell button and when we release them, you'll get a notification :) We haven't done the continuation in the series, although we did do a recent video looking at the effects of the Space program on Soviet society: th-cam.com/video/m7VVH6ML8sU/w-d-xo.html
It's interesting that the USSR won the early space race but during the Cuban Missile Crisis they only had a few dozen ICBMs that could reach the US, maybe only 20. Plus the Soviets were behind in some other important technologies like bombers, nuclear submarines, computers, guidance systems and early warning systems
In fact, the Soviet Union largely relied on the introduction of Western technology by the Coordinating Committee for Export to Communist Countries to develop its economy and imported grain from the United States. Until the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, President Carter imposed blockade and sanctions on the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union closed down. In addition, the Soviet Union's mutual economic association system has been ridiculed by the Chinese people. If the mutual economic association is a market, the paper in the toilet is US dollars.😂😂😂
@BT19MEC099 Shivesh Singh:There's something wrong with my translator. I mean, the trading system made by the Soviets is the market. This is a joke, just like the paper in the toilet is money.
I was wondering when u guys were going to get to this. I thought u might have skipped it because of all the other people who have done videos on it, but it is such a part of the cold war.
You can go to White Sands Missile Range they have a very nice museum + even a V2 rocket there. Also, one of the right hands of Werner von Braun was a German scientist born in Transylvania called Hermann Oberth. He is the scientist with the most contribution to space flight from Transylvania but he is not recognized as such because he was saxon and not romanian.
This is also the founding history of the US Space Force a half of a century before it was founded. Like how the civil war employed balloons, the US Air Force was established almost a century later.
I'm curious, and I hope there will be an episode, about the Mafia and Organized Crime in the US and Western Europe during the Cold War, and if they cooperated with these governments.
Anyone who survived Kolyma was more than lucky. Soviet physics was nearly destroyed in the 1930's purges also. David, will you cover the Germans recruited by the west for cold war duty, who could have just as easily been prosecuted for crimes stemming from their conduct during the war!
"... Korlov, despite his treatment by the authorities, continued to serve them ..." Well he can serve at a research facility, or in gulag. There is not much choice there.
The only thing the US managed to do first was put a man on the moon 🙄🙄 Even after Apollo the USSR still beat the US to a number of firsts, like space stations, rovers, and landers
@@rick7424 I do have a degree in the field. Besides, credentialism is pathetic, and hardly in line with purported efforts to make the field more "inclusive". Besides, free academic inquiry is completely verboten in most institutions. Historiography is one area where this is apparent. They want you to critique the mode of thought and perspectives of the 'bad old order', but the ideas that prevail now are made totally immune to scrutiny.
Good account and 1st time viewing your channel. The only criticism I have is that you fell into padding the video. Around the 14 minute mark, you're rolling stock footage of the N-1 rocket...something that wouldn't be in design until after 1962, as the Soviet's counterpart to the Apollo Saturn V. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
Pretty crazy how Sputnik is often spun as if the Soviets were far ahead. However, that was not the case. The U.S had already sent animals into space in late 40s and had plans to put a satellite into space a few years before Sputnik.
Dude you're the only 'youtube historian' I can stomach. The original reel footage + substantive and informative content with few to no 'jokes' or 'light content' reminds me of old school pre-reenactment documentaries. Thank you from a former History major :) Im not going to say im talking about John Green. but im talking about John Green.
This accomplishment was certainly a great achievement for humanity. That said the USA definitely ultimately won the space race by commercializing technologies related to the space race, specifically computing.
@@dave8599 The moon was never the goal. It's called the space race not the race to the moon. Might I add that the Russia went from a backwater monarchy who lost WWI, to going to space in about what, 50 years? And they did it after having a civil war and where devastated by the Nazi. They are the first one to put something in space, to put an animal in space, to put a man in space and to put a woman in space (the US put their fist woman in space in 1983, 20 years after the first soviet woman). So yea, to me it's 4-1 in favor of the USSR. What did the US do? Freak out and moved the goal post to the moon because they were outmatch. That's what Kenedy did. He moved the goal post. There was no adventage to go to the moon. It was just a costly propaganda stunt.
You frenchies are so obnoxious. The space was was about one upping the other. It was never intended to have a goal post because a goal post was never set.
@@deprogramm Upping the other? That was the US goal to up the USSR. Cause you know, the soviet where ahead the whole time before the moon landing. What the USSR manage to do is far more impressive then the US. As I said, Russia went from arguably one of the weakest europeen power with little to no industry to sending a man in space in less then 50 years. Oh and yea they got rekt by the nazi in WWII. The US where dominating the americas for over 100 years by that time and where lending money and selling stuff to a war torn europe and did not suffer any domage at home in WWII. Soooo yea. I'm not impress by the US performance in the space race. I'm more impress with their propaganda campaign. Oh and insulting people in a debate is usualy a sing of lesser intelect and a proof that you have been outmatch, so thank you my monolingual friend.
Two complaints, the first is the use of footage of the Soviet N-2 rocket while discussing the early developments is potentially misleading, as are clips of V-2 rockets scattered randomly. The second is that you established that the United States was hesitant to launch a satellite because of unresolved issues in international law. But did not point out that the Soviets were not concerned by these niceties and established the new norm. Essentially sputnik gave the other nation states of the time "permission" to ignore questions about air space and sovereignty. I assume the impact of the "October Surprise" on American society will be discussed at great length in the next instalment. ETA: Also Циолковский was a mathematician and mystic, not a scientist in the sense that we now use the word.
Sorry dude but that was N-1, N-2 was never seriously discussed and the "N" index is considered cursed in the Soviet tech culture since then... Циолковский was well-versed in math, enough to formulate a formula of his own name and several other definitive ones for the rocket science, but he wasn't a mathematician above all, he was more a philosopher. He taught math and physics, but he was a physicist way more than a mathematician since he didn't discover anything in math, but did a lot of what is considered discoveries in applied physics.
@@Раковийсупець You are correct, it was an N-1. I must have had a "brain fart." I agree he was principally a philosopher, although he was a theoretical physicist. He did derive the "rocket equation" but he neither built nor designed actual rockets.
The virgin US: "Nooooo, only competition breeds innovation, your people are supposed to be starving, you can't just build rockets and satellites!!! The CHAD USSR: "Xaxaxa, Sputnik goes beep beep"
The Soviets were starving. Probably because they were spending money that didn't have due to economic inefficiencies in a command economy on rockets and satellites.
@@badluck5647 *puts first dog into space *puts first monkey into space *puts first man into space *puts first woman into space *puts first space station into space The US: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
@@mnk9073 US: first rendez-vous, first docking, first USEFUL satellite, first probes to reach ALL planets, first probe to land on Mars and actually transmit data back, first and last lunar landing, firsr reusable spacecraft Also, Skylab > Salyut.
@@badluck5647 Nice try, USSR had a higher average calorie intake than the US back then, then y'all got fat. Also fuck the moon, it's a boring rock (just like Mars is going to be a boring rock). You dicked around on it a couple times, realised it's a boring rock and stopped going. Now satellites on the other hand...
The early space race can be noted as the entire space race. The USSR won that race when Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. That was the dream and that was the last thing both countries wanted to do before eachother thus being the 'race'. After that the USSR focused on other worlds and scientific advancement while the US continually tried to 1:up the Soviets for little gain leading to the deaths of several astronauts.
lol. It's deluded tankie opinion to think the USSR viewed Gagarin as the end of the space race. They wouldn't have rushed the Voshkod otherwise, where they crammed three cosmonauts WITHOUT spacesuits just to upstage the US. Or the fact they too lost a cosmonaut, Komarov as they rushed the Soyuz. Or the tragedy of Soyuz 11.
xcuuuze me what? The USSR : US count of people lost in space missions was 4 to 0 before Challenger when it became 4 to 7... The USSR did have the N-1 as a Saturn competitor and the Moon landing plans -- never materialized because they were not able to build it right. Other worlds? Only Venus, which is a considerable achievement, truly, and unbeaten to this day to boot, but Mars was never really effectively worked on (although the record of the 1st soft landing is still Soviet) Moon was a US win after the early successes by the Soviets, as well as Mars. Scientific achievement? Well, well... That's why satellite tech of the USSR was decades behind the Western one...
@@rollercoasterintogiantdomo you're forgetting notable disasters in the Soviet space program with about a hundred people lost, including a military general -- and it was a civilian program officially, mind you. When I say "in space" I mean "in spaceflight, or in climb to it, or during a landing" any training and workplace accidents on the firm ground are left out.
It's crazy to think soviet or Russia of 1900 to 1940 had potential to be superior power, many ways it was strong, but 1930s purges weakened it a lot. Ofc it wasnt strong by modern standard but ahead of many others, especially in rocketry.
How the Soviets won the Space Race and the Americans couldnt stand losing so arbitrially decided that the Moon was the finish line all along There. Fixed your title for you.
Awwww is the pinko angry 🥺by the way if you win most of the laps of a race and then just give up and never finish the last one then guess what you don’t win the race
@@1whywouldi To further develop space flight and rockets for what reason? You are delusional if you think the Soviets weren't still competing with the USA after Gagarin's flight.
Sometimes I'd like to launch my cat into outer space. He goes out of his way to puke up hairball/extra liquidy vomit hybrids on my bed if it has freshly washed sheets on it. Passive aggressive asshole. How do I volunteer my fuzzy comrade for a space mission? I tried looking up the number for the Soviet embassy but the recording said that I'd reached a global superpower that was no longer in service.
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Yeah, I also grew up with Star Trek so this was very appropriate.
Very much enjoy your videos about Soviet society, et. al. Have you done a video about Soviet era Aeroflot?
Sputnik 1 has that sigma male grindset
hello kings and generals
Waiting for your videos
Up your grindset
What topic is your next video on? Give us a hint.
@@hanzup4117 history
Werner von Braun, "not a Nazi'??? He was a Nazi. His A-4 rocket program killed more slave laborers than it killed Londoners. He was a Nazi Party Member, wore an SS Uniform ... But what he really was was an opportunist. So when it supported his rocketry - he became a Nazi, when he was in the U.S. working for NASA... he became "I was never a Nazi."
His career ended because his past caught up to him and the U.S. was sufficiently ahead in Space that he could be 'retired'.
Robert Harris in his 2020 novel "V2," I think captures him fairly accurately.
The Soviets also used Nazi scientists for space
I really love this deeper info about Soviet life post-stalin. All you ever hear about is the very bad things in the 20s-40s but this era interests me a lot.
Yes, Stalin was the probably the Worst dictator in terms of executions, gulags and general treatment of people. But really the Soviet Union did some pretty bad things to it's people through it's entire existence. Stalin was also (probably) the only True dictator of the Soviet Union. After his death, the polit bureau kinda maintained a position able to 'real-in' any general secretary that got too out of control, with the possible exception of Brezhnev.
Yall Take Care and be safe, John
@@JohnDoe-pv2iu Also a key change, whenever someone power struggles happened losing it didn't mean your life after Stalin, just irrelevance and forced retirement.
@@TheBucketSkill Yep, Most Definitely!
Korolev was sent to a friggin GULAG
@@quisqueyanguy120 do you know the reason why he was sent to GULAG? Read about it, there is so much people nowadays sitting in prison all over the world for the identical type of crime.
It is time to give respect to scientists from former Russian Czarist Empire and USSR.
They came up with brilliant individual inspirations.
So a Russian mathematician/ physicists worked out travelling to space.
Another Russian scientist worked out 'stealth technology'.
And many other important breakthrough.
Invented stealth? Could you cite that one for me?
@@rick7424 the 'the Lockheed Have Blue'.
Megaproject video 📹
Apparently a Soviet scientist did all the maths behind the stealth fighter in 1964?, but the Russians /Soviets dismissed it but published it in the science journals anyway.
@@rick7424 Pyotr Ufimtsev. That would be your keyword.
Just say it and it becomes true! Russia invented Oklahoma!
@@OneOfThoseTypes wouldn’t surprise me, it’s Oklahoma
Nailed it!! At 20:00 you insightfully discuss the effect of the early R-7 warhead problems on allowing Sputnik to use the now-surplus military test rockets -- the timing was an accident based on the warhead reentry problems.
This was an AMAZING video. Have you ever considered doing a collaboration with, "The Vintage Space," Amy Shira Teitel dives into everything space related and has even done videos on the soviet space race. I think you two would work well together.
I remember the day when the news of the Soviet success broke the news. Our local CBS affiliate in St. Paul did some "man-on-the-street" interviews asking people their thoughts on it. Some women were crying, worrying that it meant that Soviet nuclear missiles would soon blacken the sky. A lot of the men were defiant and one woman simply said, "I wish would've beat 'em." The years afterwards redirected school curriculums to a stronger focus on math and science, including what was called, "The New Math."
In sixth grade '68-'69 we were placed into an advanced STEM program (before they called it "STEM") where we actually learned 'new' new math from the guy who had invented new math. Sadly, he died before the school year was over.
You really didn't go anywhere with this...
@@CantHandleThisCanYa you see Republicans under your bed at night.
@@penskepc2374 Where have I should have gone?
It was only a matter of time before we got the first video on the Space Race. Nicely done. Can't wait for the next one. My compliments to all those who made this video a reality.
Great video, thanks!
As a 'Sputnik baby' I was born eight months before the first satellite went up. I grew up with 'the space race' though I realized early on that it had been going basically since World War II. The Saturn rocket for the Apollo program was the first of our spacecraft that was not originally designed as an ICBM so the military advantages were not lost on me. Sputnik scared the pants off the American scientists and military. If the Soviets could do that they could do almost anything! NOBODY was safe!
Of course we kids all benefitted from the introduction of STEM programs in school (long before they ever called it "STEM"). It basically thrust us all into the Future. No cost was too high, no idea too far fetched. Going to the moon, by the time it was publicly announced seemed perfectly possible because we were all working so hard to do it. It was the ultimate "high frontier."
We were playing catch-up with the Soviets until just before we actually got to the moon.
Great video! I have read some Soviet space history before so this video is like listening to a favourite song.
Thanks for putting Tsiokovsky, Korolyov and Tikhonravov into the spotlight. These are probably the most important people in Soviet space history. A nice mention would be Keldysh too. And thanks for accurately prononcing their names!
If you didn't read Boris Chertok's "Rockets and People", you know the name now. I don't remember if Keldysh actually was at the scene at the moment for Sputnik or was it later in during the "D" satellite series construction?
I appreciate the fact that you are using the correct terminology for the german rockets, this is the only TH-cam channel, i know of, that does this. By the way A4 stands for Aggregat 4. Also i think your joke about von Braun not beeing a NAZI might have been a bit too subtle.
Yeah, I thought he was using sarcasm, but I was not sure, as I have issues with that sometimes. He was not a person of high standing for me, nor was operation Naziclip.
10:15 It's not just the size of your rocket, it's how you use it.
My impression always was that Korolev and his design bureau created an incredibly powerful launch system (the R7 - > Soyuz line), not the least because soviet warheads were just that larger, while the US had its strategic air force for nuclear delivery so lacked the impetus to create an equally powerful rocket at first. The Soyuz line, through further development enabled the many Soviet firsts, but by the mid-60s the Soyuz pretty much reached its max potential, and with Korolev's death the Soviets failed to create a more powerful successor (until Energiya that is)
In contrast the US was more iterative and their early rockets were just too weak, but this approach enabled them to create the Saturn V eventually.
There was also the fact that the US had no real desire to be first in space. The Eisenhower Administration actually saw the Soviets achieving orbit first as a good thing, since it would establish the "Freedom of Space." In addition, one of the very few voices that was pushing hard for the USA to be first to achieve orbit was Von Braun, and it is not surprising that Eisenhower would not tend to follow advice from a former Nazi. Von Braun and his team at ABMA could have reached orbit in 1955 or 1956 if doing so had been a priority for National Authorities. 🖖✌
The R-7 has been continuously improved well beyond the 60's. One of the reasons the N-1 had little succes was because the soviet military did not see much use in the rocket, opposed to the UR-500/proton rockets which were proposed around the same. Those were designed for military purposes first and lunar missions as a sort of second thought.
@@jlust6660 improved in regards to avionics, guidance, safety, yes. but it never became basis for a larger rocket.
@@ffffuchs Yes it did. The Soyuz-L, which launched in 1970 could get 5.5 tonnes to LEO, while the Soyuz-2 line, which first launched in 2004 can get 7 tonnes to LEO, proving there at least was still potential to increase the payload and range of the line.
@@jlust6660 not substantial compared to what a Saturn V could do vs a Saturn I
I found on the Internet a high-resolution image of my hometown in Siberia taken an American spy satellite "Corona" in July 1967. The image quality is amazing even today, and my hometown looks so strange for me... familiar and at the same time completely different... It's been a little over 50 years ago.
Yes, strangely, after 2020, naming space stations “Corona”kind of fell out of favor!
It's amazing how the USA saw USSRs achievement as a threat and not a huge leap in technology and science
Nice gag with the N-1 footage when talking about R-7 =)
As well the GIRD(ГИРД) in Russian was often jokingly described as "Группа инженеров, работающих даром" -- "A group of engineers working without pay" -- so that was way more enthusiasm than an interest by the Soviet State. IIRC they occupied a single cellar in Leningrad and they were constantly in need of things essential for their work.
Nevertheless thanks for mentioning them as they and their experience got very important later (those who survived the purges and the war anyway).
P.S. Langemak, for once, had some crazy ideas of the rockets using up their lower stages as fuel for the upper stages, with some kind of mills grinding the stages to in flight to serve the powder as fuel.
That's the only thing I always loved about cold war they always back with a new shabang and never disappoints us. It is always love to learn aspects of cold war with you😊😊
"Tihonravov" literally means "silent character", "silent personality".
The information is very rich and accurate and very nicely narrated. Little note: at 14:44, that's the Soviet N1 moon rocket shown, not the R-7 which is similar to today's Soyuz, albeit shorter.
You gotta give it to the Soviets. Even though most of the west saw them as a backwards nation, they did manage to accomplish great feats in Aviation, and Space Exploration.
Its crazy to think how much more powerful they would have been if it weren't for the Communists.
and they managed it without von Braun too
@@rotarydude9737 lol
I always enjoy how russian inferiority complex bankrupted them.
@@gogrape9716 certainly didn't go bankrupt because the US bankers control the world economy
Def one of the best videos so far. Good job guys
So many superb scientists & engineers this region had.
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown
"Nazi, Schmazi!" says Wernher von Braun
nazi-stazi
He couldn't have been a nazi; he signed a sworn statement that he wasn't. And a lot of SS concentration camp guards couldn't have been nazis because they would have signed such sworn statements also if they thought it would save their necks from getting stretched.
"...Here's the butt" is my all time favorite quote now
One overlooked aspect is that Korolyov identified as Ukrainian. Ukrainians still take pride of one of their compatriots being at the head of the Soviet space program, and the Ukrainian Yuzhnoye Design Bureau still participates in Western space projects. A Ukrainian joke goes [spoiler alert]: "On April 12, we celebrate the day when a Ukrainian put a Russian into a metal can and shot him into outer space".
Great episode, as always, thank you!
The USA would have had the first satellite in space if they would have let Von Braun launch his German V-2 based Jupiter C rocket launch, which was ready at least 6 months before Sputnik…but the government wanted an “American” designed navy Vanguard rocket to be the first…and it failed miserably. Only after Sputnik was launched did the humiliated USA allow Von Braun’s Jupiter C to be launched with its Explorer 1 satellite on board.
The deck was stacked against Werner...with Ike as President, it was never likely that a team run by an ex-COUGH-N**i would be the preferred one for first US satellite launch. Add in the fact that Ike saw more value in the Soviets establishing the Freedom of Space than in the USA being first into orbit, and Von Braun had a almost no chance to be allowed to do what he wanted to do. But I do believe you are right...if ABMA had been given permission and funding, the USA absolutely would have orbited a satellite first....possibly in 1956, but almost surely in the first half of 1957. 💯
Well if you consider that many people still spout that Americans are morons and only German scientists got them into space, you'd realize that their concerns weren't that foolish.
I sorta wish we had a modern day space race. The things we could do if we really wanted to would be incredible.
The Air Force missile program was headed by the German-born USAF General Bernard Schreiver. He moved to the US as a child during WWI. There is an amazing biography about Schreiver and the space race called A Fiery Peace in a Cold War.
Ft Bliss is in El Paso, TX, not New Mexico.
Fascinating!
Very cool, a triumph of will and technology, no doubt interwoven with suffering and struggle. The launch of Sputnik 1 was about as far before my birthday in 1983 as the release of Final Fantasy 7 is to today's date. A weird perspective on the speed at which technology exploded over the last century.
I don't know if you're going to cover this in your next episode or not but and there's always a butt, the Army Redstone program and von Braun put together a rocket with an upper stage that could orbit a satellite.
But as you mentioned in the episode the US didn't want to military derived vehicle to orbit a satellite so it was redirected as a test launch of the Redstone with the upper stage but instead of firing in a trajectory that would take the upper stage into orbit it was directed to fire it horizontally. Both stages functioned and had the trajectory of the upper stage been different the United States would have been first to orbit a satellite.
short answer: Korolev. super lucky for the space industry that he avoided execution
Just a quick correction on something. Fort Bliss is not in New Mexico it's in El Paso, Texas.
White Sands Missile Range is in New Mexico near Las Cruces.
Thank you for another fascinating episode! I would very much enjoy further episodes on the space race too!
God be with you out there friends! ✝️ :)
"Apollo Program"
Producer: Walt Disney deceased at that time.
Co-producer: Wernher Von Braun.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Art Director: John Hoesli.
Writer: Arthur C Clarke.
Photographer: Geoffrey Unsworth.
Total cost = 169.51 billion current dollars...
Us: they had us in the first half I’m not going to lie
They still have you. U.S. Shuttles apparently use Soviet engines.
@@adoesntequala5871The shuttle is not in operation for a decade now. You think of the the Atlas V EELV as it uses Russian RD180s for its first stage, however its just one rocket of the many NASA and the DoD uses, and its being phased out, not the least because of ULA wanting to get rid of the need to import from Russia.
As far as human spaceflight goes, the Dragon uses the Falcon 9 launch vehicle which is all-American, while the SLS first stage will use Shuttle Main Engines, also American.
They had us in the second half too ngl
@@adoesntequala5871 the last Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, what are you talking about?
@@adoesntequala5871 LOL, russia only makes two things - vodka and immigrants.
Ahh can’t wait for the next one!
My grandmother lived in Lithuanian SR, could only have one meal a day and had to walk 7km to school, while USSR sent people to space.
You must have missed the part where technology and development of productive forces improves the quality of life of all citizens. Instead you’re complaining about a state of affairs that was handed off to the Soviet Union to resolve while protecting themselves against internal enemies, Nazis, and eventually nato.
By the way, I know plenty of people in the u.s. right now that can only afford one meal a day.
@Flavius Ibrahimius Because this guy's Lithuanian, you gotta translate your comment to say "pochui, aš šaliava" to get your point across. (Although google translate doesn't understand these words, it's a great to tell Lithuanians that you don't care)
@@adoesntequala5871i was up with you until this. what does the US have to do with Lithuanian grandparents?
and in the US black people sang "whitey on the moon", similarly complaining about the space programme while they lived in guts.
Computer Technology has advanced so much, but Space and Air has been at a standstill.
"Educated Prisoners" Why do I see that becoming a thing again?
Thank you, professor!! 😎📚
Sorry if a dumb question but how can I find the next three installments of this great documentary?
subscribe and press the bell button and when we release them, you'll get a notification :)
We haven't done the continuation in the series, although we did do a recent video looking at the effects of the Space program on Soviet society: th-cam.com/video/m7VVH6ML8sU/w-d-xo.html
@@TheColdWarTV many thanks I am a subscriber and I do get the notifications. I really enjoy the channel
This was the only D waving contest that reached into the cosmos. Waved em so hard they reached escape velocity.
It's interesting that the USSR won the early space race but during the Cuban Missile Crisis they only had a few dozen ICBMs that could reach the US, maybe only 20. Plus the Soviets were behind in some other important technologies like bombers, nuclear submarines, computers, guidance systems and early warning systems
Going to space helps develop technologies for ICBMs, not actually make them
In fact, the Soviet Union largely relied on the introduction of Western technology by the Coordinating Committee for Export to Communist Countries to develop its economy and imported grain from the United States. Until the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, President Carter imposed blockade and sanctions on the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union closed down. In addition, the Soviet Union's mutual economic association system has been ridiculed by the Chinese people. If the mutual economic association is a market, the paper in the toilet is US dollars.😂😂😂
@@可爱包-c4v Well, the chinese economic miracle and manufacturing sector were also sponsored by the American Dollar.. ya know.
Just saying. No offense.
@BT19MEC099 Shivesh Singh:There's something wrong with my translator. I mean, the trading system made by the Soviets is the market. This is a joke, just like the paper in the toilet is money.
When I input my mother tongue, it was an ironic remark. I don't know how to translate it
Low key, hearing that beeping sound thru your radio must have been so cool, I mean nuclear apocalypse fear aside..
I was wondering when u guys were going to get to this. I thought u might have skipped it because of all the other people who have done videos on it, but it is such a part of the cold war.
You can go to White Sands Missile Range they have a very nice museum + even a V2 rocket there.
Also, one of the right hands of Werner von Braun was a German scientist born in Transylvania called Hermann Oberth.
He is the scientist with the most contribution to space flight from Transylvania but he is not recognized as such because he was saxon and not romanian.
I really love the Space Race very much & Yuri Gagarin is my favorite spaceman😁🚀
This is also the founding history of the US Space Force a half of a century before it was founded. Like how the civil war employed balloons, the US Air Force was established almost a century later.
Why were you showing N1 when talking about the R7?
"Werner fon Braun, who was totally not a Nazy..." sarcasm at its best.😁
Please honour Venus-9 in your future videos on a space race!
I was born two days later - and my Dad worked at Cape Canaveral ... so I have always been interested in Rocket Science.
I'm curious, and I hope there will be an episode, about the Mafia and Organized Crime in the US and Western Europe during the Cold War, and if they cooperated with these governments.
“Academy Of Artillery Sciences”
Nice.
Anyone who survived Kolyma was more than lucky. Soviet physics was nearly destroyed in the 1930's purges also. David, will you cover the Germans recruited by the west for cold war duty, who could have just as easily been prosecuted for crimes stemming from their conduct during the war!
Any chance to show the french and brittish space program? I know the french launch a cat in space.
"... Korlov, despite his treatment by the authorities, continued to serve them ..."
Well he can serve at a research facility, or in gulag. There is not much choice there.
Space program for Korolyov was a dream of all his life, so it wasn't question of "serving the authorities", that was a chance to make his dream true.
title should be "how the soviets ran the first mile of a marathon faster, then lost"
The only thing the US managed to do first was put a man on the moon 🙄🙄
Even after Apollo the USSR still beat the US to a number of firsts, like space stations, rovers, and landers
You have to feel for these history channels having to deal with so many hateful comments.
Sometimes the comments branded “hateful” are just facts that are societally taboo or disliked by the video creator.
@@Miquelalalaa If you, as someone without a degree in this field, disagree with someone with a degree in that field about basic facts, you can leave.
@@rick7424 I do have a degree in the field. Besides, credentialism is pathetic, and hardly in line with purported efforts to make the field more "inclusive". Besides, free academic inquiry is completely verboten in most institutions. Historiography is one area where this is apparent. They want you to critique the mode of thought and perspectives of the 'bad old order', but the ideas that prevail now are made totally immune to scrutiny.
"We must make a journey around the world to see if a back door has perhaps been left open"
- Heinrich von Kleist
Good account and 1st time viewing your channel. The only criticism I have is that you fell into padding the video. Around the 14 minute mark, you're rolling stock footage of the N-1 rocket...something that wouldn't be in design until after 1962, as the Soviet's counterpart to the Apollo Saturn V. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
The Soviets have successfully launched a first satellite Sputnik and a first man in space named Yuri Gagarin. (Юрий Гагарин)
"But one cannot live in a cradle forever."
Hope we'll understand it one day.
He was the man who first described how we would eventually go to the other planets.
One of the greatest channels on TH-cam right now
As someone with gastro-esophageal reflux disease. GERD means something very different to me.
Why no mention of the French and British space program?
Yeah, von Braun wasn't a Nazi. He was so deep in Hitler's back pocket he had difficulty breathing!
What about the story of Laika The Dog can you make a story of her😢
There's powerful rocketry at work here...
Pretty crazy how Sputnik is often spun as if the Soviets were far ahead. However, that was not the case. The U.S had already sent animals into space in late 40s and had plans to put a satellite into space a few years before Sputnik.
1957 USA still had segregation!!!!!!
1957 USSR won the space race
Just have think about it
@@brianmilosevic8400 There was no space race in 1957
@@FloofyMinari well it's what USA calls it
Sputnik=travel companion=...Trabant :-)
Dude you're the only 'youtube historian' I can stomach. The original reel footage + substantive and informative content with few to no 'jokes' or 'light content' reminds me of old school pre-reenactment documentaries. Thank you from a former History major :) Im not going to say im talking about John Green. but im talking about John Green.
Enjoyable! I'll also highly recommend the 2005 BBC series 'Space Race': en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race_(TV_series) .
Miracle on ice!
Braun later would go on to invent the shaver, and hence saved many a people from hair issues. 🤣😂🤦♂️🤷♂️
My, that's a big missile you got there. Hehehe...
This accomplishment was certainly a great achievement for humanity. That said the USA definitely ultimately won the space race by commercializing technologies related to the space race, specifically computing.
12:32 lol
Fort Bliss is in Texas, not New Mexico
Einstein said that time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
1:33 NEEEERD
The URSS won the space race. The US just moved the goal post when they lost.
The USSR gave up on their moon mission once Americans beat them in 1969.
@@dave8599 The moon was never the goal. It's called the space race not the race to the moon.
Might I add that the Russia went from a backwater monarchy who lost WWI, to going to space in about what, 50 years? And they did it after having a civil war and where devastated by the Nazi.
They are the first one to put something in space, to put an animal in space, to put a man in space and to put a woman in space (the US put their fist woman in space in 1983, 20 years after the first soviet woman). So yea, to me it's 4-1 in favor of the USSR.
What did the US do? Freak out and moved the goal post to the moon because they were outmatch. That's what Kenedy did. He moved the goal post. There was no adventage to go to the moon. It was just a costly propaganda stunt.
You frenchies are so obnoxious. The space was was about one upping the other. It was never intended to have a goal post because a goal post was never set.
@@deprogramm Upping the other? That was the US goal to up the USSR. Cause you know, the soviet where ahead the whole time before the moon landing.
What the USSR manage to do is far more impressive then the US. As I said, Russia went from arguably one of the weakest europeen power with little to no industry to sending a man in space in less then 50 years. Oh and yea they got rekt by the nazi in WWII.
The US where dominating the americas for over 100 years by that time and where lending money and selling stuff to a war torn europe and did not suffer any domage at home in WWII.
Soooo yea. I'm not impress by the US performance in the space race. I'm more impress with their propaganda campaign.
Oh and insulting people in a debate is usualy a sing of lesser intelect and a proof that you have been outmatch, so thank you my monolingual friend.
@@marc-andretrudeau4412 you don’t believe the americans were on the moon let me guess you leftist
Looking forward for the next episodes
The US and USSR were in a rush to whip their missiles out.
Vonce ze rockets go up, who cares vere zey come down? Zat's not my department, says Werner Von Braun
-Tom Lehrer
Wernher Von Braun is also a great Tom Lehrer song.
Back in the USSR,
You don't know how lucky you are, boy! Lennon & McCartney 1968.
it's about americans ?
Fort Bliss is actually in Texas.
There is a V-2 ROCKET on base there.
What's Lenin doing in a red bodysuit in the background?
Two complaints, the first is the use of footage of the Soviet N-2 rocket while discussing the early developments is potentially misleading, as are clips of V-2 rockets scattered randomly. The second is that you established that the United States was hesitant to launch a satellite because of unresolved issues in international law. But did not point out that the Soviets were not concerned by these niceties and established the new norm. Essentially sputnik gave the other nation states of the time "permission" to ignore questions about air space and sovereignty. I assume the impact of the "October Surprise" on American society will be discussed at great length in the next instalment. ETA: Also Циолковский was a mathematician and mystic, not a scientist in the sense that we now use the word.
You liked your own comment, didn’t you.
You must have been really bored.
@@uhhhhh262 No, but you did.
Sorry dude but that was N-1, N-2 was never seriously discussed and the "N" index is considered cursed in the Soviet tech culture since then...
Циолковский was well-versed in math, enough to formulate a formula of his own name and several other definitive ones for the rocket science, but he wasn't a mathematician above all, he was more a philosopher. He taught math and physics, but he was a physicist way more than a mathematician since he didn't discover anything in math, but did a lot of what is considered discoveries in applied physics.
@@Раковийсупець You are correct, it was an N-1. I must have had a "brain fart." I agree he was principally a philosopher, although he was a theoretical physicist. He did derive the "rocket equation" but he neither built nor designed actual rockets.
The virgin US: "Nooooo, only competition breeds innovation, your people are supposed to be starving, you can't just build rockets and satellites!!!
The CHAD USSR: "Xaxaxa, Sputnik goes beep beep"
The Soviets were starving. Probably because they were spending money that didn't have due to economic inefficiencies in a command economy on rockets and satellites.
@@badluck5647 *puts first dog into space
*puts first monkey into space
*puts first man into space
*puts first woman into space
*puts first space station into space
The US: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
@@mnk9073 US: first rendez-vous, first docking, first USEFUL satellite, first probes to reach ALL planets, first probe to land on Mars and actually transmit data back, first and last lunar landing, firsr reusable spacecraft
Also, Skylab > Salyut.
@@mnk9073 Meanwhile, Americans were eating three meals a day and still were the first to get to the moon.
@@badluck5647 Nice try, USSR had a higher average calorie intake than the US back then, then y'all got fat.
Also fuck the moon, it's a boring rock (just like Mars is going to be a boring rock). You dicked around on it a couple times, realised it's a boring rock and stopped going. Now satellites on the other hand...
The early space race can be noted as the entire space race. The USSR won that race when Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. That was the dream and that was the last thing both countries wanted to do before eachother thus being the 'race'. After that the USSR focused on other worlds and scientific advancement while the US continually tried to 1:up the Soviets for little gain leading to the deaths of several astronauts.
lol. It's deluded tankie opinion to think the USSR viewed Gagarin as the end of the space race. They wouldn't have rushed the Voshkod otherwise, where they crammed three cosmonauts WITHOUT spacesuits just to upstage the US. Or the fact they too lost a cosmonaut, Komarov as they rushed the Soyuz. Or the tragedy of Soyuz 11.
Russia lost the space race, understood.
xcuuuze me what? The USSR : US count of people lost in space missions was 4 to 0 before Challenger when it became 4 to 7...
The USSR did have the N-1 as a Saturn competitor and the Moon landing plans -- never materialized because they were not able to build it right.
Other worlds? Only Venus, which is a considerable achievement, truly, and unbeaten to this day to boot, but Mars was never really effectively worked on (although the record of the 1st soft landing is still Soviet) Moon was a US win after the early successes by the Soviets, as well as Mars. Scientific achievement? Well, well... That's why satellite tech of the USSR was decades behind the Western one...
@@Раковийсупець you're forgetting about notable disasters in the US space program like Apollo 1
@@rollercoasterintogiantdomo you're forgetting notable disasters in the Soviet space program with about a hundred people lost, including a military general -- and it was a civilian program officially, mind you.
When I say "in space" I mean "in spaceflight, or in climb to it, or during a landing" any training and workplace accidents on the firm ground are left out.
It's crazy to think soviet or Russia of 1900 to 1940 had potential to be superior power, many ways it was strong, but 1930s purges weakened it a lot. Ofc it wasnt strong by modern standard but ahead of many others, especially in rocketry.
They call it Sputnik!
How about late space race? How about all the stuff the soviets continue to do first after Apollo 11.
You pronounced Sputnik
correctly
How the Soviets won the Space Race and the Americans couldnt stand losing so arbitrially decided that the Moon was the finish line all along
There. Fixed your title for you.
How the soviets lost the space race. The actual title.
This is so overlooked.
Awwww is the pinko angry 🥺by the way if you win most of the laps of a race and then just give up and never finish the last one then guess what you don’t win the race
@@1whywouldi if the point was to go to space why did the Soviets continue?
@@1whywouldi To further develop space flight and rockets for what reason? You are delusional if you think the Soviets weren't still competing with the USA after Gagarin's flight.
Sometimes I'd like to launch my cat into outer space. He goes out of his way to puke up hairball/extra liquidy vomit hybrids on my bed if it has freshly washed sheets on it. Passive aggressive asshole. How do I volunteer my fuzzy comrade for a space mission? I tried looking up the number for the Soviet embassy but the recording said that I'd reached a global superpower that was no longer in service.
The French like to launch cats into space.