Original subtitles

They were once the most advanced buildings and structures on the planet.

The best achievements in design and construction .

Today they are abandoned, polluted and dead.

On today's show, we aim for the stars and find out

why did unwanted battleship guns fire on us

gain important information about the limits of space.

I had no idea that space technology was something else,

as the rockets that are launched take off and fly away.

Shooting upwards with the big cannon does the same job.

We investigate how the shattered remains of a secret Nazi base

got with the development of the pioneering V2 rocket

first on the way to the new world.

People forget that the beginning of the space program was covered by a shadow

the plan was military and not about sending a man to the moon.

The V2 rocket was a remarkable piece of machinery,

which appeared out of nowhere and then attacked with deadly precision.

We investigate a forgotten facility in the Arizona desert,

to find out if it is the real home of America's space program.

They did something that had never been done before in this country.

We were doing science here for the benefit of humanity.

And we reveal a strange connection to an abandoned oil barrel

and between trying to survive in the Cold War era .

This soon led to the encapsulation of monkeys

and to launch into space.

Abandoned Buildings

A space mission

For centuries, mankind has been fascinated by the stars.

Many civilizations tried to understand what could be seen from Earth.

But the truth, like the stars, remained elusive.

Only by the 20th century had science developed far enough,

to provide the opportunity to escape from the grip of Earth's gravity.

One of the first space rocket programs of the 20th century

was located in Peenemünde on the German island of Usedom.

Only a few meters away from the Baltic Sea is hidden under pine trees

mounds of crumbling concrete and twisted metal.

It was once the most secret military facility in Nazi Germany

Test stand number seven.

Dr. Philipp Aumann is the director of the Historical Technical Museum in Peenemünde .

He has researched the history of these mysterious ruins.

Peenemünde was the first official rocket project.

in Germany and around the world.

The main theme of the ideology of the future was space exploration.

The engineers who worked here were nationalists and soldiers

and when they created this mighty weapon,

they had no problem with serving Germany.

Governments were willing to fund this program,

because they wanted to dominate Europe militarily.

This flow of funding and focused effort meant that

that rocket technology developed in a very short time

Creating V2 in just two years is a phenomenal result.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a young engineer, Werner von Braun

and his experience in rocketry was just what Germany needed.

The man who could create long-range weapons.

Werner von Braun oli juhtiv raketiinsener.

He and his colleagues were engineers and had a technological problem,

which they longed to solve.

He was very enthusiastic about the possibilities of rocketry

to open for space exploration.

Nothing came of it during the war years , but when he moved to America,

his work became a cornerstone of the Apollo program

and that program put people on the moon in the 60s and 70s.

Von Braun received the full support of the German military

and with Hitler's rise to power, the space program gained momentum.

In 1936, construction began in Peenemünde

the world's first missile test site.

A special launch platform was constructed,

from where the rockets were launched into the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea

and fished out for analysis.

See oli exam status seven ehk Katsestend number side.

There is a wall of sand around here.

It surrounds the entire starting point and turns it into an arena.

The rockets were launched from here.

They fired over 300 rockets,

thinking that they are hidden by a secret and no one will find them.

In 1936, the Peenemünde project was started ,

to develop a completely new type of rocket

and their first rocket was not a rocket at all.

It was a bomb. V1.

It was powered by a pulse jet engine.

The Germans released over 7,000 of them,

of which more than 2,000 reached London.

1942 in October , the rocket launched successfully for the first time,

forever associated with von Braun - V2.

Although rising to only 84 kilometers, it was still a milestone for the future.

12 meters long and 1.5 meters in diameter

The V2 weighed 62 tons and carried a ton of explosives.

The V2 rocket is an impressive weapon in itself

and is said to be the origin of all rocket technology.

But there was all this infrastructure around the rocket

and the facility that allowed the Germans to do what they did.

The rocket needs to be refueled,

this propellant needs to be prepared,

everything necessary must be delivered, everything must be monitored

and make this rocket launch at all.

But Hitler was not interested in space exploration,

he needed weapons.

The order was given to send the V2s in a deadly rain upon the Allies,

but rockets were far from perfect weapons.

The rockets did not work properly

when first used, this weapon system was far from ready.

All testing and operation of the rocket

accompanied by explosions and breakdowns.

During the development and testing of the missile, Germany was at war with the Allies.

So while the V2 wasn't used for a cause that could be praised,

the engineering behind it was thorough and very impressive.

1944 a historic start took place on the seventh test stand

and the vertically launched V2 entered space.

Traveling at four times the speed of sound,

von Braun's rockets soon screamed at the people of London and Antwerp.

However, despite the missile's powerful destructive power,

it was not enough to turn the war in the Nazis' favor.

Hitler was taken in by miracle weapons , and all the money was spent on them.

It benefited both the US and the Allies,

because there was not enough money to build tanks and infrastructures,

bicycles were ridden and there was nothing modern on the battlefield

and therein was the irony of the matter.

After all, history shows

that the Nazis were thoroughly defeated by the end of World War II

and V2 launch sites, such as Test Stand Seven, were destroyed.

But the technology lived on as scientists like von Braun

started working for the Americans, taking secret missile plans with them.

Abandoned Buildings

A space mission

Abandoned Buildings

A space mission

Alamogordo in the middle of the US military's White Sands Proving Ground

another V2 launch site is located.

This is launch complex number 33.

This 22 meter long structure stands abandoned in the desert

and its beams have been eroded by flying sand for decades.

How did White Sands become the place where America's road to the stars began?

At the beginning of the space program

there were no grand plans like sending a man to the moon,

the program was military. Rockets were sent vertically into space

and became interested and studied how they come down,

to understand how this information could be used to attack the enemy

this was the beginning of the space program.

At the end of World War II, there was a group of visionaries,

who had become clear that the key to future success is knowledge,

knowledge is the key to survival in a nuclear world

and backwardness in missile or nuclear technology

can mean total defeat.

White Sands made history,

when on July 16, 1945 the very first nuclear bomb was tested here .

Just a week earlier, a facility had been created on 7,770 square kilometers,

which was then called the White Sands Test Site.

When comparing the V2 to America's first rocket design,

then the V2 was technologically very far ahead.

At that time, our rocket could carry about 15 kg of payload

and take it to a height of 100-110 km into the atmosphere.

The V2 could lift 900 kilograms to a height of 160 kilometers.

Wagons with missile parts arrived at White Sands

and dozens of scientists who had led.

Germany's V2 program.

The ultimate secret of Nazi Germany - the deadly rocket bomb V2

assembled for testing by US engineers .

White Sandsi polügoonil New Mexicos Las Cruceses

an ingenious lifting arrow raises 14 m of death and destruction,

which essentially compete with the atomic bomb.

But the most important part of the V2 program that arrived,

was not a rocket detail, but the father of the V2, Werner von Braun.

But was the creator of Hitler's revenge weapon the right man for the job?

Werner von Braun led the German rocket program.

Or in other words: how to shoot other cities on Earth?

When he switched to the US side,

he gave their program an incredible boost.

Without him, it would have taken them decades.

Without him, they would n't have gotten anywhere.

I don't think von Braun was an ardent Nazi,

he created the V2 because he was the man who invented rockets.

America had everything it needed for a successful missile program .

They had rockets to learn from, to rebuild,

their engineers could study and analyze them

and they had experienced German engineers.

The experience of the German V2 program showed that

that the technology was far from perfect.

As a result, the US military constructed an observation tower,

where you could safely watch every start.

The building was covered with 8 meters of concrete

and withstood a V2 explosion at a distance of 90 meters

or a collision with a V2 falling from a height of 160 kilometers .

This building was built because of the power of V2

the rocket carried about 8600 kg of fuel,

which is extremely explosive.

Failed to release a pair of V2,

something ignited one tank and the other tank exploded

and this explosion was colossal.

To protect people, the room had reinforced walls 3 meters thick.

The presence of people in space was essential for the success of the V2 launch .

There were management experts, control and combustion experts,

the facility's military superiors.

During the starts, it was located in this room

the brain trust of the entire V2 program.

The rocket takes off!

At first it seemed that the military was right to expect disaster.

America's first V2, launched in 1946. in April,

rose to a height of only 5.6 kilometers and then turned into a ball of fire.

Everyone was looking forward to the next launch a few weeks later

and this time the rocket climbed to a height of 144 kilometers

and then fell 56 kilometers away.

An Air Force film shows a missile in flight

and then the flight camera automatically takes over.

The huge rocket leaves the Earth behind at a speed of 1.2 kilometers per second.

The rotation of the rocket causes the Earth to spin in front of the lens

and the camera films the Earth from an altitude of 104 kilometers.

The horizon is 1158 kilometers away

and the curvature of the Earth is amazingly apparent on film.

It was the first successful launch of a large rocket from American soil,

which pushed the United States into the space age.

I would have liked to have seen those first launches of the V2 from the White Sands base.

For me it was a time of great unknown and great excitement.

I can't imagine how engineers and scientists like me felt,

who touched space with these amazing rockets.

We wanted to see the stars and planets without Earth's atmosphere interfering.

As the experiments became more and more complex,

it was clear that the systems of the 33rd launch site could not cope with them.

A completely new structure had to be created for the V2 launches .

It soon became a standard fixture at all launch sites.

For the first V2 flights, the rocket was delivered by Meillerwagen,

with the original German transport vehicle.

It was driven up onto the launch pad

and by means of a pair of small ladders it was prepared and fueled,

instruments were placed on top of the rocket.

The problem was that by 1947 they had changed

instruments became more complex, their installation took longer.

It became clear that something stronger was needed.

In 1947, a gantry crane was delivered from California.

It could move around on rails, place platforms,

to do everything necessary at the rocket and when everything was done,

the platforms were raised, the crane moved away, and the rocket sent off.

But White Sands didn't just boost rocketry,

it was also the first place from which living things were sent into the atmosphere.

Live monkeys.

Testing of V2 rockets

to radiation in space developed over time.

In the beginning there were simple things like an ant or a grain of corn,

to see the effect of cosmic radiation.

However, this soon led to the monkeys being put in a capsule

and to launch into space.

Today's animal rights activists would surely be out of their minds,

but back then nobody cared, nobody knew.

The problem was that in those distant times monkeys did not survive,

the parachutes that were supposed to bring the vehicle down never worked.

Abandoned Buildings

A space mission

Abandoned Buildings

A space mission

By the early 1950s, White Sands had made great strides

and initiated the further development of space exploration.

The successful V2s had exhausted themselves,

but the engineers and scientists of the 33rd launch complex could be proud.

These first missiles from the White Sands base

has been overshadowed by the phenomenal success of the Apollo missions ,

however, these early projects were extremely important.

After the end of the V2 program there was an effort,

which ended with the Soviets winning the space rally.

In my opinion, the most important thing was the novelty of the whole thing.

They did something that had never been done before in this country.

We were doing science for humanity there

and I think that's what made scientists work hard.

V2 may have failed as a weapon,

but it triumphed as the first spacecraft.

No more rockets were built in places like White Sands ,

but at the Barcroft Research Station in the White Mountains of California

there were also experiments with monkeys.

They wanted to see how living things could withstand space travel.

Picture the picture: it's the 60s, the sexual revolution.

How many Americans knew

that the monkeys were taken to a mountain 4.2 km high and experimented on,

to get an idea of ​​how to start a space program?

If they had known, they would have been horrified.

The use of animals was very necessary to send humans into space.

Such experiments could not be avoided.

And, of course, they were constantly accompanied by deaths.

Of course , it wouldn't have been so easy for humans,

it could have ended the entire space program.

In the early 1950s, Barcroft Station was a classified research facility for the US Navy.

When the decision to close it was made,

the facility was taken over by the University of California.

With NASA's help, Barcroft began to play an important role in the space program,

using a unique chimpanzee colony.

University historian Daniel Pritchett revealed their forgotten story.

It was built in 1951. and started collecting meteorological data,

then they started breeding laboratory animals,

began to study the physiology of chimpanzees,

because it was planned to send chimpanzees into space before humans.

It was necessary to understand the physiology of chimpanzees and create tracking devices,

so that the health and condition of chimpanzees in space can be monitored .

The Saga of Ham: This chimpanzee has been selected and thoroughly studied

and patiently taught to help mankind understand,

can living things survive space travel.

Doing things with animals on Earth can provide valuable information,

when simulating the conditions as they might be in space.

Much can be learned from controlled experiments on Earth

and there is no need to send out expensive missiles that may not return.

If you want to test high acceleration, you can do it with animals.

If you want to test a hard landing, you do it with animals.

Although there was knowledge of people at high altitudes,

did not know how the human body behaves under conditions of weightlessness.

Such experiments can be carried out on animals

and of course this should be done before human trials.

This is an authentic relic from the early 60s,

from the time we trained

chimpanzees and macaques to go into space.

It is a 200 liter drum with a small plexiglass seat

and this is a space capsule simulator.

It is insulated from the inside, it is equipped with catheters,

which were surgically implanted in animals

and within it they got used to what they had to do in space.

The chimpanzee was sealed in a capsule

and flown by helicopter to Barcroft Station.

This was the beginning of a long series of experiments,

where their response to stress and changes in air pressure was recorded.

We are on the first floor of Barcroft station.

In the 60s, there were animal colonies on the first floor,

here were chimpanzees and macaques,

here the physiology of these animals was studied

and telemetry equipment was developed

to monitor their bodies and health.

Here, the effect of altitude on these animals was investigated.

Here they were trained, practiced sitting on small chairs,

because they had little space in the space capsules.

The American approach was that animals can be trained to do things,

what people can do in space - push buttons, pull levers, etc

and thus data can be collected to help design the cabin,

which can eventually be used to send humans into space.

Different countries sent different animals.

Sometimes for obvious reasons, sometimes not so obvious.

If you know that the animal will not come back, you can send, for example, a mouse.

But if you want to experiment with bigger animals too,

then the Russians sent the dog Laika into space with Sputnik 2 .

And they had such an order that the dogs were taken from the street.

The idea was to take animals that lived in harsh conditions

they have received little food and water and are therefore better suited

for an experiment that wanted to be tested.

Can simulate temperature changes,

can create heavy loads with a centrifuge, but not everything can be done.

We are still doing experiments on the International Space Station today.

Astronauts are guinea pigs in this sense.

We try to understand how weightlessness affects the human body,

how cosmic radiation affects us .

We are still trying to understand many of these things.

Abandoned Buildings

A space mission

Abandoned Buildings

A space mission

Chimpanzees were one thing, but what about human astronauts?

Since the start of V2 launch tests in New Mexico

scientists tried to find out if manned flights were possible.

This 9 m high apparatus provides information about the human reaction

to the effects of height change, weight and vertical acceleration.

The physical and physiological effects of prolonged vibration are investigated

and the breathing apparatus measures the response of the lungs and other organs.

In 1961, Soviet Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth on Vostok 1

and became the first person in space.

In the USA, the need was immediately felt to compete with Nsvl's achievement.

But they were n't just competing in space.

One of the US Army's largest research facilities

is the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.

In the middle of the desert stands a lonely big cannon.

This is the record-breaking Harp super cannon,

which was forgotten for decades

and its important role in space exploration is only now being revealed .

I had no idea that space technology

wasn't just about sending state-of-the-art rockets into space.

It wasn't like that. Centuries-old technology was also used :

cannon. Take a huge charge and send it straight up.

Using a cannon to launch something into orbit is not a stupid idea.

In fact, it's a cheap and surefire way to launch something into orbit.

The cannon was an important part of the series of tests that took place in the 60s ,

which was called the High Altitude Research Project, or Harp.

The project was the brainchild of ballistics expert Gerald Bull

and its goal was to make spaceflight a reality.

In my opinion, Dr. Gerald Bull was first and foremost a genius.

As both an engineer and a scientist , he was constantly experimenting.

When he began to think about the technology of launching a cannon into orbit,

many made Jules Verne jokes about him,

others said that even if it could be done it would be of no use,

unless you have some kind of telemetry kit to send data to Earth.

But Bull proved them wrong.

He thought that supercannons could be used to get into space cheaply

and a lot was learned with the help of this program .

The target of Bull's cannon was the ionosphere.

This layer of electrically charged air

plays an important part in the possibility of ultra-long distances

and can affect the flight of spacecraft leaving Earth .

At a time when rockets were very expensive and extremely unreliable,

Bull believed that the information from the sensors released by his cannons was cheaper.

If you want to know the space conditions before launching a rocket,

you put up cheap sensors and find out what's going on

right where you 're going to launch the big rocket

and you will definitely get very valuable data.

The Bulli Harp cannon project paid off in many ways.

Yes, of course, you can collect information about the upper atmosphere.

But you also gain a strategic military advantage,

as you will learn how to launch missiles at your enemy

and that was what interested them the most.

Since it was the dawn of the space age, both technology choices were important.

Technology emerged from World War II and found use in new frontiers.

It was not known exactly what would come out of it.

In this way, it makes more sense to finance two outputs at the same time

both rockets and large cannons.

The Harp Cannon demonstrates Bull's genius for designing large cannons.

has researched the history and construction of this record-breaking weapon.

The program received two 400 mm gun barrels from the Navy .

One was 21 meters long, the other about 15 meters long.

They were welded together in the middle and supported by the superstructure.

The two pieces are welded together here where the big bolts are.

The superstructure was built to make the tube more rigid,

the pieces would not come loose and it would be stronger in a vertical position,

as the cannon may move a little while firing

and you don't want the tube to sag.

Bull's cannon had to have a special design in its foot,

which would allow it to fire at an 85 degree angle.

The first cannon was built in 1963. on the island of Barbados.

Because it was north of the equator,

could launch the rockets into the atmosphere beautifully and later pick them up from the sea.

Local historian Trevor Marshall is aware of the reactions in Barbados

to the huge cannon that is still rusting on the beach.

From 1962 to the 70s

this cannon was fired more than 2000 times.

Its sound was quite loud, the bang was loud.

Barbadians also felt the bang on the other side of the island.

The aftershocks were terrible.

Houses shook on their foundations, cracks appeared in some houses.

Barbadians felt that this was not good for the island,

although it had seemed to raise Barbados

into the stratosphere of world prestige.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to send something into space .

It can also be done more easily - for example with the Harp cannon.

This almost primitive technology

had just become powerful enough,

to send the rocket 178 kilometers straight up.

While the big cannon has its pros, it also has its downside.

It takes a very high acceleration to send something high up quickly

and as experienced, the object may not be able to withstand this acceleration.

And then there's the mass problem,

since very heavy things cannot be sent out using this technique ,

so only small objects can be launched.

To bring information from the upper atmosphere,

Bull designed a revolutionary javelin-shaped rocket.

The rocket, called the Martlet, took advantage of a World War II invention

which was used for a high-speed anti-tank missile - a sleeve.

The martlet had a streamlined shape, it looked like an arrow with fins.

The purpose of the sleeve was to fill the void inside the tube.

In this case, plywood was used, each third was called a pedal.

The gases pushed it out of the tube and the pedals fell off.

What remained was a streamlined shape with a telemetry package in its nose

and different materials could be placed in the stern according to the purpose of the experiment .

It was a detailed technique and what I like about it,

how modern technology was added to primitive technology ,

to achieve something record-breaking by sending the rocket high .

It took a tremendous amount of thrust to send the Martlet into the ionosphere .

Each launch was achieved with enormous forces in the Harp cannon.

You can see the size of this opening and the screws to lock it.

Its very length indicates that the mass of its opening

had to deal with the charges and pressures of firing.

During the tests, the pressure could reach 3400 atmospheres.

You have to think about the materials,

upon the necessary explosion to obtain the required thrust ,

one must make sure that the recoil does not tear the cannon to pieces

and that you have a pipe long enough to send something like that up high.

There is a lot to think about

and it takes a lot of thought and construction to achieve it,

but deep down, this technique is simple and I love it.

After the success in Barbados

the second Harp was established at the Yuma proving ground of the US military

and there Gerald Bull set a record that stands to this day.

On November 18, 1966

the Arizona cannon gave the Martlet a speed of 2.1 kilometers per second

and it rose 178 kilometers into space.

But today it sits greased and ready to fire in the Arizona desert,

so when the time comes it can aim for the stars again.

Even now life at high altitudes is being studied at Barcroft Station ,

but the space program using chimpanzees has long since been abandoned.

Rocket technology has left the V2 far behind

and the historic Test Stand 7 and Launch Complex 33 have been abandoned.

Space exploration now has new goals.

The current focus in space is cost reduction

and we use space every day in so many ways,

that it helps to deal with it.

Space X keeps costs down with reusable rockets.

The future of space exploration may depend

from investing in technologies we don't know anything about yet.

However, it can also depend on something simpler,

perhaps even from something as primitive as the Harp cannon.

I'm not saying that man will be sent to Mars with a cannon, it won't happen,

but when it is necessary to send payloads and objects into orbit,

which is assembled there to be sent further

and if there is a need to explore space more than we have done,

and it makes them happy when they get together

a combination of technology and the technical era,

to give us something that currently does not exist.