Nazi Rocket Monkeys - The First Astronauts

[Music] before we begin a quick word from our sponsor these days internet privacy is a major concern to us all all sorts of snoopers want to monitor and collect data about your online activities nordvpn shields you from them internet service provider monitors the whole internet traffic that pours through its servers and stores logs of your online activity your data such as financial information interests and passwords and emails might be valuable to third parties hackers and even government when you browse the internet using a vpn your communications are encrypted allowing you to stay private online vpn also allows you to access content not normally available in your location and connect to hundreds of remote servers in different locations securely sign up today at nordvpn.com mark felton and enter the promo code mark felton who gets 68 percent off a two-year plan and an extra month for free protect yourself online today with nordvpn the v2 was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile developed by a nazi design team including vernafon brown of later nasa fame the missile was used to bombard london and targets in northwest europe from september 1944 until april 1945 killing 4490 people and injuring over 11 000 but the v2 was also the first man-made object that could reach space and after the war a series of extraordinary tests were conducted by the americans using captured german v2s to launch monkeys into space these unfortunate creatures and the captured rockets would eventually pave the way for humans to follow them into space the v2 had been developed and tested at the panamunda facility in northern germany until the british launched a massive air raid on the 17th to 18th of august 1943 codenamed operation hydra thereafter it was decided to move v2 production underground at a new facility called mitovec or central works near the town of nordhausen slave labour from the nearby middle baudora concentration camp helped produce the rockets twenty thousand slave laborers dying in the process the allies knew the significance of the middleware complex and on the 11th of april 1945 the facility was captured by elements of the us third armored and 104th infantry divisions mitoverk was a veritable aladdin's cave of high-tech missiles and components and the americans were keen to snatch as much material as possible for themselves to the exclusion their british and soviet allies particularly the latter fernavon brown and his large team of scientists and technicians were not captured at mittelvec they had gone into hiding on the 15th of april after fleeing the area as u.s forces moved in two days after hitler's suicide on the 30th of april 1945 von braun's brother magnus went out looking for u.s troops the rocket scientists knew their value to the americans and would duly taken prisoner agreeing to cooperate with u.s scientists all culpability for the deaths and maltreatment of slave laborers were deliberately downplayed by the americans who effectively bleached these war criminals records clean and shipped them off to the states the americans had to move quickly at mittelweck as the area was supposed to form part of the soviet zone of occupation in germany and red army troops would arrive by the 5th of may 1945. special mission v2 was created and the mittelwerk site was stripped of anything of value shipping out train loads of complete v2 missiles tons of components and launching apparatus just before the soviets were due to arrive the americans permitted the british to pick over what was left the uk managing to salvage parts sufficient to construct eight v2s for their own research program codenamed operation backfire it gives some idea of the scale of the middleware complex that the british were still able to remove 400 railway freight wagons full of v2 parts after the americans had already taken all the best stuff the vast amount of v2 material and documents plus von braun and his team were shipped to the white sands test facility in new mexico where america's rocket program had been established in 1944. by 1946 the americans were ready to begin testing the v2 many different projects involve the v2s but the one that we are focusing on is project blossom the project to place the first biological organisms into the upper atmosphere and space it was an important stage in eventually placing a human into orbit the first astronauts were four recess monkeys that rode modified v2 missiles to the edge of space during the war von braun had wanted to explore putting a man into space and had drawn up plans for man-carrying versions of the v-2 but as the missiles were urgently required to bombard london and other targets little progress was made in this direction a few rocket tests were made going for altitude records and on the 20th of june 1944 a german v2 reached 108 and a half miles or 174.6 kilometers above the earth becoming the first man-made object to officially enter space this is detailed in my video nazis in space link in the end screen the british came up with a practical man-carrying design for the v2 in 1946 codenamed megarock though budgetary constraints meant that it was never built if it had been scholars believe that the first man in space would have been british at least a decade earlier than yuri gagarin i've also made a video about mega rock link in the end screen at white sands v2s were used as sounding rockets carrying scientific instruments into the upper atmosphere as part of a series of tests the americans constructed 75 rockets from parts using them until 1952. the first animals sent up were fruit flies on the 20th of february 1947 to explore what happened to biological material exposed to radiation at high altitude this v2 reached space passing the then 50 mile or 80 and a half kilometer united states air force and 62 mile or 100 kilometer international boundaries for space soaring to 68 miles or 109 kilometers above the earth the nose capsule successfully ejected and deployed its parachutes the flies surviving to land safely the decision was then taken to launch an animal closer in physiology to a human as part of project blossom the blossom v2 was a specially modified version of the wartime weapon its fuselage was longer by 65 inches or 1.6 meters seven blossom v2s were created the first attempt to get a monkey into space was made on the 11th of june 1948 carrying a recess monkey named albert the first the animal was strapped to a special frame placed in the rocket's nose cabin it was not intended to be a one-way mission as the cabin would eject and float down to earth by parachute as with the fruit flies experiment the launch of albert the first was successful the v2 climbing to 39 miles or 62.7 kilometers but then a valve failed cutting off fuel to the engine it is believed that albert the first was already dead by this stage due to breathing problems inside his tiny cabin the cabin ejected from the rocket but the parachutes also failed which would have killed the monkey anyway but the americans persevered just over a year later on the 14th of june 1949 a second monkey equipped blossom v2 was launched carrying albert ii again the v2 lifted off fine and climbed probably reaching apogee at 83 miles or 133 kilometers altitude but even though the cabin ejected successfully from the v2 again the parachutes failed to open and albert ii plunged to his doom dying on impact but albert's death was not in vain throughout the flight biomedical data from the monkey was successfully transmitted by radio to ground control giving scientists valuable insights into the problems human astronauts would face a third test was made on the 16th of september 1949 with animal astronaut albert iii aboard this time the v2 malfunctioned from the early stage of the launch 10.7 seconds into flight and at three miles high the tail exploded killing albert and destroying the entire missile the last recess monkey v2 astronaut was albert iv he was launched on the 8th of december 1949. all systems work perfectly [Music] six five four three two one zero rocket away now radar tracking devices swing into operation albert iv reached 79 miles or 127 kilometers high before his cabin ejected from the rocket but once again the parachutes failed and albert iv plunged to his death transmitting biomedical data all the way down project blossom demonstrated that the us still had a long way to go before it could attempt to place a man into space and bring him back alive experiments using monkeys and later apes continued until the 1960s using u.s rockets even after man had made it into space the first monkeys to survive were a rhesus monkey named miss abel and a squirrel monkey named miss baker they were launched on the 28th of may 1959 atop a jupiter ballistic missile they reached an altitude of 300 miles or 480 kilometers above the earth and were weightless for nine minutes misable died four days after the flight after a reaction to anesthetic while an infected medical electrode was being removed miss baker however lived on until 1984 with no ill effects she was awarded a certificate of merit for distinguished service by the aspca for supporting controlled scientific use of animals as space pathfinders for the mutual benefit of man and animals when she died at the age of 27 she was also the world's oldest squirrel monkey the first non-monkey american astronaut alan shepard entered space in may 1961. aboard mercury redstone 3. please don't forget to subscribe join my channel and together we will rule the historical galaxy please also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton and you can help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 446,602

Rating: 4.91326 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Space Monkeys, NASA, V-2, Chimps in Space

Id: IUmVP4A2LI4

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020

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Baker ascends