Neal Stephenson asserts that the existence of rockets big enough to hurl significant payloads into orbit was contingent on the following radically improbable series of events:
- World’s most technically advanced nation under absolute control of superweapon-obsessed madman
- Astonishing advent of atomic bombs at exactly the same time
- A second great power dominated by secretive, superweapon-obsessed dictator
- Nuclear/strategic calculus militating in favor of ICBMs as delivery system
- Geographic situation of adversaries necessitating that ICBMs must have near-orbital capability
- Manned space exploration as propaganda competition, unmoored from realistic cost/benefit discipline
Stirling Newberry finds Stephenson wrong on almost every point:
1 is wrong, the rocket was already developing rapidly, in the USSR as well as the US. The real motivation for Germany’s immediate push wasn’t madness, it was the Versailles restrictions on artillery, and the very realistic understanding that bombing costs pilots. Neither of these have to do with Hitler’s madness. In addition von Braun’s prototypes were not developed under Nazi sponsorship, and when he joined the Nazi’s to further rocketry, it was 1934, well before total control had occurred in Nazi Germany. The V-2 was already there, on the drawing board, for whoever wanted it. Much of the work had already been done by Goddard and Oberth, and had been incorporated by von Braun. Finally, Hitler was not impressed with the weapon for most of the war, and grasped on it as a way of improving German morale and a total lack of expendable pilots. It was a hail mary weapon, ready two years before it was used, but only deployed late. So much for the “Manhattan Project” mad man theory of the V-2. Unless you mean that the madman was Werner von Braun.
2 is also wrong, as can be shown, the key technologies for atomic advancement are the same that made engineering of rockets practical.
3 would there have been a nuclear arms race absent Stalin? We see nuclear weapons races today between Pakistan and India, neither of which are run by Stalin. Israel developed atomic weapons, and Israel was a democracy during the entire time pursuing them. Why did the US pursue atomic weapons? Because of the leverage they offered: the US was facing not one, but two, enemies who were presumed not to be willing to surrender without a shattering invasion.
4 is also wrong: missiles offered two other legs of survivability, naval and missile launches, in addition to aircraft. Missiles have the advantage of being supersonic, and therefore difficult to stop by military means, or for civilians to get out of the way of. In addition, hardened targets can often only be destroyed by a small number of means. Atomic weapons fill this bill. In fact, over time, atomic weapons have grown smaller, not larger.
5 is wrong: the first and only large scale use of rockets is by Germany on the UK, and the distances there are short. The reality of the ballistic missile, is that even relatively short flights, reach sub-orbital space, and are a breath away from orbit.
6 is harder to say whether it was “wrong,” but a quick inventory of the results of spaceflight, including the internet you are using to read this, shows that of the investments of the 1950′s and 1960′s, it was one of the most productive. The hidden “wrong” is what “ordinary cost benefit” is. Stephanson, trapped in a “next quarter” horizon universe, does not see that entities with longer horizons, and with easier recapture, can make different calculations than, say magazines and book publishers.
(Hat tip to Nyrath.)