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A Nazi Rocket Scientist Becomes America’s Space Hero
Picture this: a Nazi SS officer who helped build rockets that terrorized London becomes the mastermind behind America’s greatest space triumph. It sounds like fiction, but through Operation Paperclip, approximately 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were secretly moved to the United States. The man who would later design the Saturn V rocket that took humans to the moon had spent the war creating the V-2 missile that killed thousands.
The V-2 became the first artificial object to travel into space on 20 June 1944, making Wernher von Braun both a war criminal and a space pioneer. As part of Project Paperclip, he and an initial group of about 125 were sent to America where they were installed at Fort Bliss, Texas. There they worked on rockets for the U.S. Army. Had the Soviets captured von Braun first, the Space Race might have unfolded very differently.
Kennedy’s Cold Feet About the Cosmos
John F. Kennedy wasn’t born a space enthusiast. In fact, in 1961, the nation suffered another shock when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. The United States, it seemed, was still falling behind. The young president was initially skeptical about NASA’s costly space ambitions, worrying about the enormous financial burden.
Everything changed within a span of just five days in April 1961. On April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space before the U.S. could launch its first Project Mercury astronaut. American prestige was further damaged by the Bay of Pigs fiasco five days later. These twin disasters forced Kennedy to see space exploration as a way to restore American credibility on the world stage.
The Soviets Had a Secret Moon Rocket That Should Have Worked
While Americans celebrated their eventual lunar triumph, few knew how close the Soviet Union came to beating them. Each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed in flight. At 105 meters (344 ft), the N1-L3 was slightly shorter than the American Apollo-Saturn V (111 meters, 363 ft). The N1 produced more thrust in each of its first three stages than the corresponding stages of the Saturn V.
The N1 had its first launch on 1969-02-21 and last launch on 1972-11-23. Two test launches occurred in 1969, one in 1971, and the final one in 1972. On paper, the N1 was a monster that dwarfed the Saturn V in raw power. But engineering isn’t just about numbers on blueprints—it’s about making those numbers work in the real world.
Four Catastrophic Explosions Doomed Soviet Dreams
Each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed in flight, with the second attempt resulting in the vehicle crashing back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff. The nearly 2300 tons of propellant on board triggered a massive blast and shock wave that shattered windows across the launch complex. The explosion was so powerful that debris flew as far as 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the center of the explosion.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for the Soviets. Launch took place at 23:18:32 Moscow time on 3 July 1969. Five to nine seconds after liftoff at 150 to 200 meters the engines shut down and the rocket fell back to the launch pad and exploded. This was just weeks before Apollo 11’s historic landing, effectively sealing the fate of the Soviet lunar program.
A Computer Started Screaming During the Most Critical Moment
As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended toward the lunar surface, their computer began flashing ominous warnings. The 1202 program alarm wasn’t something either Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin had seen in training. In simulations you train for the right reaction. But when they saw the 1202 and 1201 program alarms it was the real thing.
Several seconds after the first alarm Neil Armstrong, with some concern apparent in his voice, said, “Give us a reading on the 1202 program alarm.” In all, it triggered four 1202 alarms and one 1201 alarm. The 1202 program alarm is featured is just about every retelling and dramatization of Apollo 11’s lunar landing. What the astronauts didn’t know was that their lives hung in the balance of a young engineer’s handwritten notes.
A 24-Year-Old’s Handwritten Cheat Sheet Saved the Mission
Jack Garman was just 24 years old when he became the unsung hero of Apollo 11. Gene Kranz told Garman: ‘I want you to study and write down every possible program alarm whether they can happen or not.’ Garman made a handwritten list of every computer alarm code that could occur along with the correct reaction to each of them and put it under the plexiglass on his desk.
Given his knowledge of the computer systems, Garman had already advised Steve Bales that the computer could be relied upon to function adequately so long as the alarms did not become continuous. Bales, who as guidance officer had to quickly decide whether to abort the mission over these alarms, trusted Garman’s judgment and informed flight director Kranz. Within seconds this decision was relayed through CAPCOM to the astronauts and the flight continued. Without that piece of paper under the plexiglass, Apollo 11 might have aborted just minutes from making history.
The Lunar Module Almost Ran Dry
While the computer alarms created drama in Mission Control, Armstrong faced an even more terrifying challenge: running out of fuel. As he manually piloted the Eagle over a boulder field searching for a safe landing spot, the fuel gauge dropped to dangerously low levels. The tension was unbearable as everyone realized they were cutting it incredibly close.
When the Eagle finally touched down in the Sea of Tranquility, estimates suggested they had as little as 25 seconds of fuel remaining. Armstrong’s split-second decision to fly over the boulder field and find a safer landing site had nearly cost them the mission. A few more seconds of hesitation, and the first moon landing would have ended in either an emergency abort or a catastrophic crash.
A Felt-Tip Pen Became a Makeshift Rocket Switch
After their historic moonwalk, Armstrong and Aldrin faced a new crisis that could have stranded them forever on the lunar surface. Buzz Aldrin accidentally broke the engine arm circuit breaker—the switch needed to fire their ascent engine and return to Earth. In the cramped confines of the lunar module, with bulky spacesuits limiting their mobility, this kind of accident was all too easy.
The solution was brilliantly simple: Aldrin jammed a felt-tip pen into the broken switch, creating just enough electrical contact to complete the circuit. This improvised fix allowed them to ignite their ascent engine and lift off from the moon. Without that ordinary pen, which Aldrin happened to have in his suit pocket, the Eagle’s crew would have been stranded 240,000 miles from home.
Nixon Had a Backup Speech for Lunar Disaster
Behind the scenes, the White House was preparing for the very real possibility of disaster. President Nixon’s speechwriter William Safire had drafted a contingency address titled “In Event of Moon Disaster,” which began with the haunting words: “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.”
The speech went on to compare Armstrong and Aldrin to ancient explorers who knew they might not return, and it included plans for the president to telephone the “widows-to-be.” The document remained classified for years, a sobering reminder of how close Apollo 11 came to tragedy. Thankfully, it was never needed, but its existence shows just how uncertain the mission’s success really was.
The Moon Landing Almost Didn’t Happen in the 1960s
Kennedy’s famous deadline of “before this decade is out” was more of a political gamble than a carefully calculated timeline. They were consciously a little bit vague about the deadline. What is the end of the decade? Is it 1969 or 1970? You can make a case for both … and so they felt, quite frankly, that they could have a little wiggle room of another year if needed.
They [the Soviets] would have to build a new, larger rocket to send people to the surface of the moon. And so the moon became the first thing where the United States had, as [famed rocket designer Wernher] von Braun said, a sporting chance to be first. Kennedy presented the ambitious moon goal just six weeks after Gagarin’s flight. The Apollo program was essentially a massive, expensive bet that American engineering could overcome a significant head start by the Soviets.
A Simple Radar Switch Nearly Prevented History
The cause was a rapid, steady stream of spurious cycle steals from the rendezvous radar (tracking the orbiting command module), intentionally left on standby during the descent in case it was needed for an abort. In the actual hardware, the position of the rendezvous radar was encoded with synchros excited by a different source of 800 Hz AC than the one used by the computer as a timing reference. The two 800 Hz sources were frequency locked but not phase locked.
This technical malfunction created the computer overload that triggered the 1202 alarms. The problem was not a programming error in the AGC, nor was it pilot error. It was a peripheral hardware design bug that had already been known and documented by Apollo 5 engineers. The engineers had decided it was safer to fly with known problems than to introduce new, untested hardware. Sometimes the devil you know really is better than the devil you don’t.
The Conclusion: A Chain of Near-Misses That Made History
The moon landing succeeded not because everything went according to plan, but because brilliant people made split-second decisions when everything started going wrong. From von Braun’s controversial past to Kennedy’s political calculations, from Soviet rocket failures to computer alarms and fuel shortages, the path to the moon was paved with unlikely events and narrow escapes.
Each link in this improbable chain had to hold for humanity to take its first steps on another world. A different decision by any one person—from a Nazi rocket scientist to a young NASA engineer with a handwritten cheat sheet—could have changed the course of history. The moon landing wasn’t just a triumph of engineering and courage; it was the result of an almost impossibly fortunate series of events that somehow all aligned at exactly the right moment.
When you look up at the moon tonight, remember that our footprints are there not because the mission was perfectly planned, but because when things went sideways, extraordinary people found extraordinary solutions. What other “impossible” achievements might we accomplish if we’re willing to take the same kinds of calculated risks?
Besides founding Festivaltopia, Luca is the co founder of trib, an art and fashion collectiv you find on several regional events and online. Also he is part of the management board at HORiZONTE, a group travel provider in Germany.
