15. It is Apt That the Nazis Pioneered a Technology That Could Deliver Death to Any Spot on the Planet
Ballistic missiles today are carriers of frightful payloads, whose nuclear yields have the potential to end all life on Earth. It is perhaps somehow apt that such instruments of mass destruction are the direct descendants of Nazi technology. And since space rockets are basically ballistic missiles, they are also the direct descendants of Nazi technology. Indeed, both America’s NASA space program and that of Russia via its Soviet predecessor were built on the back of innovative Nazi rocket technology that broke the ground for all that followed.
After the Third Reich went down to defeat at the end of WWII in Europe, and even earlier in the midst of the chaotic period that preceded Germany’s final collapse, the victors scrambled to secure Nazi missile technology and technicians. The Americans and Soviets in particular raced each other to seize as much Nazi rocket research, facilities, and equipment, as they could. They also competed to capture or coopt all the German rocket scientists and technicians they could get their hands on.
