The Mouse meets the Missile

Space was on the minds of those in America during the 1950s.  Walt Disney's park and tv programs are one reason why because Disney collaborated with a very unlikely man.

Transcript

Paula: 0:00

For the Best Aerospace Era this is mansplaining. Here is the host Anthony L. Sealey

0:09

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. We start in the United States during the 1950s. Dwight d Eisenhower was president and it was a prosperous time for the country. Many new homes were being built and the interstate highway system was being constructed to cross the continental us Many new, large and interesting cars were being built to conquer the roads across the nation. Cars like the Olsmobile Rocket 88 and the 59 Cadillac with this iconic dual rocket fins. These seen cars can be seen at drive-ins across the nation where space. Movies like Forbidden Planet Rocket Ship XM Destination Moon and Flight to Mars were being shown. This shows what was on the public's mind at the time. The dawn of the space age was becoming less science fiction and more of an inevitable time for US citizens of the 1950s. Why do you think that is? One man who helped inspire this type of thinking was Walt Disney. He did this with his park Disneyland and on his television programs in the 1950s. You may be asking yourself, why are we talking about Walt Disney? This is an aerospace channel. All will be revealed momentarily. He did not come up with this alone. He consulted with a man who just 10 years prior to their first meeting was, there's no other way to say it was the enemy. The man behind the Mouse himself. Walt Disney, one of the most recognizable names throughout the entire world today. However, prior to the 1950s, his company was not the global media giant that it is today. With his movies, it shows, and his theme parks. Mickey Mouse, of course, was a significant success. Some other notable works were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Bambi and Fantasia, but not all were hits. By the way, some of Disney Studio's characters ended up being painted on the forward sections of World War II bombers. I can only imagine what German, Italian, and Japanese pilots thought when they saw these cartoon characters like Thumper on American War machines like the B-29s nines, I have found two main inspirations for why Walt Disney. Made Disneyland in 1955. In the 1940s. After some fame, Disney received handwritten letters in the mail from his fans wanting to tour his studio in Burbank, California. As there was not much to see or do at his studio, he thought of something more entertaining for his visitors. Another motivation I found involved a visit to an amusement park with his daughters. A park was called Griffin Park in Southern California while watching his daughters ride on a merry-go-round, Disney thought of an amusement park where both parents and kids could have fun together. He must have gotten bored while watching his daughters have fun. Disney needed some themes for his park that would appeal to both kids and parents. Original themes for the different sections of Disneyland were Adventure Land Main Street, USA, frontier Land Fantasy Land, and our core topic, Tomorrowland Disneys Tomorrowland. Tomorrow can be a wonderful age. Our scientists today are opening the doors of the space age to the achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. Tourist at Disneyland will be treated to one particular all inspiring attraction in Tomorrowland. Once the doors first opened in 1955, the TWA Monnliner. One such scientist he was referring to in this quote as someone who was intimately involved with Tomorrowland was Wernher Von Braun. Now to give you some background on who Wernher Von Braun was, we need to go back about 15 years prior we the opening at Disneyland to a much different scene Europe during World War ii. Nazi Germany defeated France on the 22nd of June, 1940. The next target would be the United Kingdom in London. Great Britain's allies in Europe were defeated, however, defeated the British would be challenging as it's not just surrounded by water, but also the formidable Royal Navy. Gaining air superiority over the British Isles would be essential to an invasion, and the Luftwaffe would be called upon for that imperative task bombing raids by the much feared Luftwaffe began that same year France was defeated. After Winston Churchill's famous, we shall fight on the beaches speech. Fearless pilots flying the Spitfire or the hurricane fighters for the Royal Air Force. With stave off an invasion. this, of course, was a famous Battle of Britain. I recently watched a good movie called Darkest Hour starring Gary Oldman. That ended with that famous speech, which I do recommend. As for the Battle of Britain, we will revisit that subject in the future. Standby for that. Now, after the defeat, Nazi High Command wanted a new kind of weapon to strike at the Royal Air Force. A weapon that was blistering fast, it cannot be shot down by the persistent British pilots before striking its targets. They turned to a brilliant rocket scientist named Wernher Von Braun and his rocket team Wernher Von Braun was the lead rocket scientist in Germany at a complex in Peenemunde. Located on the northern end of Usedom Island in the Baltic Sea. It was here that a secret military rocket research and test were conducted for the Nazi war machine on October 3rd, 1942, a successful launch of the largest and most viable long range rocket took place. Major General Walter DornBerger, who oversaw the complex at Peenemunde, described the launch. It was an unforgettable sight and the full glare of the sunlight, the rocket rose higher and higher. The flame darting from the stem was almost as long as a rocket itself. The rocket kept on course as they're running on rails, this rocket. Was known at the time as the A4. The A4 was a liquid fueled rocket that stood at a height of 45 feet, 10 inches. Von Braun would be given the War service cross first class with swords for his efforts in developing the A-4 general Dornberger boasted at a meeting with the top managers that evening. He said, we have invaded space with our rocket for the first time. We have used space as a bridge between two points on Earth. We have proved rocket propulsion, practical for space travel general DornBerger, however, hit home the fact that Germany needed the A4 as a weapon so long as the war was going on. Many high raking Nazis. A question whether they were making space launch vehicles or weapons for the German war machine at Peenemunde suspicion over Von Braun motives. Involving the project were so high that he was arrested by the SS along with members of his team in March of 1944. Von Braun said, a court of SS officers charged me with a statement to the effect of that the A four was not attended as a weapon of war. That I had space travel in mind when it was developed and that I regretted its imminent operational use. That sort of attitude was rather common at Peenemunde said. This accusation and their arrest may have come as a result of the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler's own agenda to take control of the project political maneuvering from Dornberger and even out of Hitler himself get Von Braun and the others released. Von Braun actually met with Adolf Hitler on a few occasions on one such occasion. In July of 1943, Von Braun gave Hitler a briefing about the A4's potential destructive power and the speed that it would impact his target. Hitler actually interrupted Von Braun and said, you will need an extraordinary sensitive fuse. So that the warhead explodes at the precise instant of impact. Otherwise, the warhead will bury itself in the ground and the explosive force will merely throw up a lot of dirt. Von Braun ordered a study of this concern that Hitler had, and later said, after receiving the results, I'll be damned if he wasn't absolutely right. Hitler may have been a bad man, but he surely was not Stupid. Hitler came away from that meeting. Confident in the project. Hitler said the A4 is a measure that can decide the war. And what encouragement to the home front when we attack England with it. He was confident in Von Braun's ability to change the course of the war. Now you may be wondering, was Wernher Von Braun a member of the Nazi party? I have heard some conflicting information on this. I do believe he had to become a part of the Nazi party, otherwise he would not be able to get into the position that he was in. This does not mean however, that he shared their ideology. Hitler needed the secret weapons programs to perform because on June 6th, 1944, American and British forces stormed the beaches of Normandy. That same month, the Soviet Red Army launched a counter offensive on the eastern front. Just a few months later, the A-4 was finally ready to be put into production. It was renamed the V-2. The V stood for vengeance. There was a V-1 weapon and I will briefly go over it here. It was originally designated the FI 1 0 3. It was a rocket powered flying bomb with wings. I believe we can compare it to the drones used in conflicts today that were designed to take off on rails and even had a mechanism that made it maneuver in the air before striking his target. The V-1 offensive began on June 12th, 1944, now with a weapon named Vengeance two. You would think that the operation to use these weapons might have a menacing sounding code name right, and you'd be wrong. The code name was Operation Penguin. Now on September 8th, 1944, the first V2 was launched from Western Holland. It impacted and detonated on the English Isle only five minutes later. A weapon that Wernher Von Braun had promised Hitler and the Nazi regime finally entered the battlefield. The V-2 campaign lasted for about six and a half months and targeted London, and for a short time Norwich. Of the 1400 V-2s that were launched into action, only about 1,115 made it to the British mainland. Though they were not accurate per say, but they are estimated to have caused 2,754 deaths and 6,523 wounded. These numbers could have been much worse had it not been for the relentless bombing raids by the allied forces that hindered the V-2 production. As we all know, the V-2 did not change the course of World War II as it was intended with its performance on the battlefield or the fear that the Nazi regime had a new unstoppable weapon. There are haunting debates on how the V weapons could have been utilized more efficiently by prioritizing just the vengeance two weapon instead of dividing resources and manpower for two programs. Another interesting. What if is, if the V weapons were ready and used in 1940? Could they have caused enough damage in a first strike operation against the Royal Air forces radar facilities, and airport bases, thus limiting the British air defenses against the Luftwaffe. Would have Great Britain fallen to the Nazi regime? The destructive and unstoppable V-2 rocket intrigued those in the military and government in both the US and the Soviet Union. The V-2 rockets briefly made an appearance in Christopher Nolan's hit movie Oppenheimer. some of you may remember, a scene where an American pilot talks to Robert Oppenheimer about the V-2 rockets that he saw flying over head while he was a fighter pilot during World War ii. The fear that his project, the most destructive weapon mankind had ever constructed. Could be installed as a warhead. Atop of such an unstoppable delivery system was a haunting fear for Oppenheimer, the unholy marriage of a nuclear warhead and a rocket capable of striking any target on earth would not happen until the creation of the first intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM, the R-7 in Soviet Russia in 1957. But we're getting way ahead of ourselves here. As the Nazi regime began to collapse, Vernher Von Braun and his team involved with the development of the V-2 surrendered to Allied Forces. They decided that was a better alternative than to fall into the hands of the Red Army and Soviet Russia. He and the others involved in the V weapons projects agreed that they'd be treated better in America than in Russia or the uk. How Von Braun and his team came to America and were employed by the US Army is an episode in of itself, so I'll not go into details here. It was called Operation Paperclip. Standby for that in the future. However, I will say that his team was not getting the support they hoped to get from the US government to create a space program. So Von Braun looked for ways to influence the American public and sell his ideas for space. A partnership between Von Braun and Walt Disney was mutually beneficial. Disney wanted to awe and inspire both parents and children at his theme park. And Von Braun wanted to get space on the minds of the American public to pressure those in government to give him and his team the resources necessary to enter this space age. The main attraction in Tomorrowland was a TWA MoonLiner Rocket Von Braun helped design this colossal attraction. It was a towering 76 foot high rocket shaped structure. It was actually the tallest attraction at Disneyland when it first opened in 1955. It was white with red stripes on the nose cone, and on his base. The same colors as TWA For those who don't know TWA or transworld Airlines was a major airline from 1930 to 2001 and was once owned and operated by Howard Hughes. You may have heard of him before. You can imagine the impact the TWA MoonLiner had on those who saw it in the 1950s. Particularly those tourists who flew on a Lockheed Constellation airplane into Southern California to go to Disneyland here, the feeling was that airline companies in the airline industry of the 1950s, would soon advance into space transportation in the coming decades. In addition to his work on the Moon liner, Von Braun appeared on screen in Disneyland programs that aired on A, B, C in the 1950s. For example, he appears in the specials man in space Man and the Moon and Mars and beyond, man in space. Is an educational program like the others about how rockets work and is more geared towards kids at the time that included animated segments. Von Braun appears in a later segment with a four stage model rocket that would carry a delta wing, I'll just call it a shuttle with XR one written on one of its wings. He says the first stage, which is very wide in diameter at his base would've 29 Rocket Motors. He also says in the video, with an organized and well supported space program, a passenger rocket could be made within 10 years. This was an appeal to the public and more importantly, to politicians for what he and his rocket team are capable of delivering. Do you think then Senator John F. Kennedy was watching? Another video clip, I believe is from Man and the Moon, where he appears on screen to show his vision of his space station or space satellite. The model he shows looks very much like 1950s and sixties sci-fi, and nothing like the ISS or the Chinese Space Station. Tiangong in Orbit today. It is shaped like a wheel and rotates to provide artificial spin gravity. There are no solar panels because it would be nuclear powered with a crew of 50 personnel, it would serve many purposes, including weather, observation, military reconnaissance, and a hub for spacecrafts, bound for the moon, like the space station in the movie. 2001, a Space Odyssey. I'm not sure if these programs are on Disney Plus or not, but you can find clips of them on the internet. Von Braun comes off as a man who can command a crowded room, but not with this charisma or personality. But simply his intelligence. I remember learning of this partnership between Walt Disney and Wernher Von Braun in a book back at Reinhardt University while researching, for my thesis for my independent study on this space race. It was just casually mentioned in one or two sentences, I thought to myself that you can't just leave it at that. I am not a hundred percent sure, but I believe I first read about this Walt Disney and Werhner Von Braun Partnership in countdown. A brief history of space flight by TA Heppenheimer. I found this book at the Reinhardt University Library. I highly recommend this book, if you can find it. It is an excellent gateway into the history of the space race. This was incredible. I, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I find it fascinating that a man who once was the architect of a fierce weapon of war for the Nazi regime, and who even shook hands with Adolf Hitler, one of the most infamous individuals in history and responsible for the deaths of millions, less than 10 years later, would partner with and shake hands with Walt Disney, a man known to have brought laughter and happiness to millions. There are billions of Disney fans and 18 million people go to Disneyland every year. How many of these people do you think know about this story? Vernher Von Braun will continue his work and accomplish many achievements after his collaboration with Walt Disney. Beginning with launching the first American satellite Explorer one in 1958. It was launched using a Redstone rocket that was modified and renamed the Jupiter C. It was a United States answer to the Soviet Sputnik satellite. Launched a year earlier. He also worked on the most advanced, largest and most complicated space launch vehicle in history. The Saturn V Rocket. He did this as the director of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency located in Huntsville, Alabama. The Army Ballistic Missile Agency or A BMA was later incorporated into nasa. If you would like to learn more about the vengeance, weapons, Wernher Von Braun and the German Rocket team, then I recommend the book, the Rocket Team by Frederick I, Ordway III and Mitchell R Sharpe. It is not a smooth read. But it is full of interesting information. Now I mentioned many important topics from the best aerospace era in this episode, like Wernher Von Braun operation Paperclip, the Battle of Britain, TWA, and Howard Hughes. I will go into details on these topics in future episodes. Until then, thank you so much for listening, and remember, there's always a light at the end of the runway.

Paula: 28:40

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