Eighty years ago this month, the war was still raging, but the January 1945 issue of the British magazine Practical Mechanics takes an interesting look at one of the German’s instruments of war, namely the V-2, rocket that was terrorizing London. The article begins, “forgetting for a moment its sinister purpose, let us admit directly that “V-2″ is an engineering achievement of indisputable brilliance. It is an achievement, too, that will have great bearing on scientific progress in the years of peace to come, by penetration to great altitudes to return with data of conditions existent in the so far uncharted reaches of the atmosphere, and later, by excursions into space itself.”

The article notes that the rocket on a ballistic trajectory toward London achieved an altitude of about 60 miles. That number exceeded by far the prior altitude record of a mere 98,000 feet.
But if it was instead pointed straight up, it could achieve an altitude of 750 to 800 miles. Indeed, it could escape the gravity of the Earth entirely, never to return.

The article concludes, quite correctly, “V-2 is without doubt a first practical step toward the conquest of space.”