> The early rockets were primarily designed as ICBMs with peaceful payloads as secondary adaptations.
Von Braun was interested in astronomy and space exploration well before the war. He is quoted as saying "the rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet." - referring to the Sept 7 1944 launch. In essence it was a peaceful rocket turned into an ICBM and thankfully later on returned to its peaceful status.
And on a side note: imagine being Von Braun after the US handed him the keys to their state of the art space program with a cold war sized budget. Beyond a dream come true.
Luckiest man in the war. He could have been killed in any number of ways during the war, he managed to surrender to the Allies and not the Soviets, and they chose not to hold him responsible for the 12,000 slave labour deaths of the V2 programme. Not all the beneficiaries of slave labour did so well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Sauckel
Von Braun was also the recipient of big time image rehabilitation courtesy the US, in exchange for his work after scooping them up in Operation Paperclip. Not to take anything away from his instrumental role in US rocket development, but I'd take any quotes and motivations with a grain of salt.
Von Braun was interested in astronomy and space exploration well before the war. He is quoted as saying "the rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet." - referring to the Sept 7 1944 launch. In essence it was a peaceful rocket turned into an ICBM and thankfully later on returned to its peaceful status.
And on a side note: imagine being Von Braun after the US handed him the keys to their state of the art space program with a cold war sized budget. Beyond a dream come true.