[FPSPACE] Bei Dou 2 location

[Dwayne Allen Day]

On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Phillip Clark wrote:

> What is wrong about saying "well done" in appreciation of the space
> workers in another country ?   Surely you said "well done" in the Apollo
> era, etc, etc ?

This is essentially an amoral position, but not a unique one, nor a new
one when it comes to space history and space enthusiasts.  Indeed, it has
been a major part of the early historiography (the process of writing the
history) of the space program.  The Peenemunde crowd chose to emphasize
the impressive technical achievements of the V-2, ignoring the fact that
it was built for the Nazi regime and used against civilian populations.  
They chose to cover up or ignore the use of slave labor in its
construction.  Early histories of rocketry omitted these details.  It
was only late in the space age that some scholars (such as Michael Neufeld
in his book The Rocket and the Reich) emphasized these facts.

There are in effect two primary camps who hold these opinions.  First
there are the people who were directly involved, such as the Dornbergers,
von Brauns and other members of the Rocket Team, who had a stake in
suppressing the truth.  (People developing museum displays on the V-2 in
Germany are still pressured to omit any mention of the word "Nazi" or the
fact that the V-2 had a warhead.)  The other camp are the techies, who
choose to focus on engine pressures and turbine RPM and don't care about
the concentration camp at Dora.

But this debate exists and exists in multiple historical fields.  Books
about the Soviet atomic bomb have to address the fact that the scientists
worked for Stalin.  A recent book on Heisenberg focused upon whether he
was unable to build an A-bomb for Hitler or deliberately chose not
to.  The debate is real, it is not new, and blind cheerleading and a
narrow focus on technical details are really irrelevant to its existence.


> I have no interest in politics which is the business and hobby of people
> who have had their brains surgically removed.

There there, nobody's that cynical and detached...




DDAY