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The V-2 ((ドイツ語:Vergeltungswaffe 2), "Retribution Weapon 2"), technical name ''Aggregat-4'' (''A-4''), was the world's first long-range〔'Long-range' in the context of the time. See (NASA history article. )〕 guided ballistic missile. The missile with liquid-propellant rocket engine was developed during the Second World War in Germany as a "vengeance weapon", designed to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities. The V-2 rocket was also the first artificial object to cross the boundary of space. Beginning in September 1944, over 3,000 V-2s were launched by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, first London and later Antwerp and Liège. According to a 2011 BBC documentary, the attacks resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel, while 12,000 forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners were killed producing the weapons.〔''Am Anfang war die V2. Vom Beginn der Weltraumschifffahrt in Deutschland.'' In: Utz Thimm (Hrsg.): ''Warum ist es nachts dunkel? Was wir vom Weltall wirklich wissen.'' Kosmos, 2006, S. 158, ISBN 3-440-10719-1〕 As Germany collapsed, teams from the Allied forces—the U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union—raced to capture key German manufacturing sites, guided missiles, rockets and jet powered aircrafts. Wernher von Braun and over 100 key V-2 personnel surrendered to the Americans. Through a lengthy sequence of events, a significant portion of the original V-2 team ended up working for the US Army at the Redstone Arsenal. The US also captured enough V-2 hardware to build approximately 80 of the missiles. The Soviets gained possession of the V-2 manufacturing facilities after the war and proceeded to re-establish V-2 production and move it to the Soviet Union. The Redstone team, led by von Braun, was transferred to NASA on its formation in October 1958. For NASA, this new Marshall Spaceflight Center (MSFC) helped design a series of rockets in the Saturn family. ==Developmental history== In the late 1920s, a young Wernher von Braun bought a copy of Hermann Oberth's book, ''Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen'' (''The Rocket into Interplanetary Spaces'').〔Wernher von Braun#Early life.〕 Starting in 1930, he attended the Technical University of Berlin, where he assisted Oberth in liquid-fueled rocket motor tests.〔 Von Braun was working on his doctorate when the Nazi Party gained power in Germany.〔Wernher von Braun#The Prussian rocketeer and working under the Nazis.〕 An artillery captain, Walter Dornberger, arranged an Ordnance Department research grant for von Braun, who from then on worked next to Dornberger's existing solid-fuel rocket test site at Kummersdorf.〔 Von Braun's thesis, ''Construction, Theoretical, and Experimental Solution to the Problem of the Liquid Propellant Rocket'' (dated 16 April 1934), was kept classified by the German Army and was not published until 1960.〔''Konstruktive, theoretische und experimentelle Beiträge zu dem Problem der Flüssigkeitsrakete. Raketentechnik und Raumfahrtforschung, Sonderheft 1'' (1960), Stuttgart, Germany〕 By the end of 1934, his group had successfully launched two rockets that reached heights of .〔 At the time, Germany was highly interested in American physicist Robert H. Goddard's research. Before 1939, German engineers and scientists occasionally contacted Goddard directly with technical questions.〔 Von Braun used Goddard's plans from various journals and incorporated them into the building of the ''Aggregat'' (A) series of rockets,〔 named for the German for mechanism or mechanical system.〔Christopher, John. ''The Race for Hitler's X-Planes'' (The Mill, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2013), p.110.〕 Following successes at Kummersdorf with the first two Aggregate series rockets, Wernher von Braun and Walter Riedel began thinking of a much larger rocket in the summer of 1936, based on a projected 25-metric-ton-thrust engine. After the A-4 project was postponed due to unfavourable aerodynamic stability testing of the A-3 in July 1936,〔 English translation 1954.〕〔 〕 von Braun specified the A-4 performance in 1937, and, after an "extensive series of test firings of the A-5" scale test model,〔Christopher, p.111.〕 using a motor redesigned from the troublesome A-3's by Walter Thiel,〔 A-4 design and construction was ordered c1938/1939. During 28–30 September 1939, ''Der Tag der Weisheit'' (English: ''The Day of Wisdom'') conference met at Peenemünde to initiate the funding of university research to solve rocket problems.〔 By late 1941, the Army Research Center at Peenemünde possessed the technologies essential to the success of the A-4. The four key technologies for the A-4 were large liquid-fuel rocket engines, supersonic aerodynamics, gyroscopic guidance and rudders in jet control. At the time, Adolf Hitler was not particularly impressed by the V-2; he pointed out that it was merely an artillery shell with a longer range and much higher cost. In early September 1943, von Braun promised the Long-Range Bombardment Commission〔 that the A-4 development was "practically complete/concluded",〔 but even by the middle of 1944, a complete A-4 parts list was still unavailable.〔 Hitler was sufficiently impressed by the enthusiasm of its developers, and needed a "wonder weapon" to maintain German morale,〔 so authorized its deployment in large numbers. The V-2s were constructed at the Mittelwerk site by prisoners from Mittelbau-Dora, a concentration camp where an estimated 20,000 prisoners died during the war.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Dora and the V–2 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「V-2 rocket」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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