Epistle from Redstone Arsenal

Current t-shirt: lavender with green sloth hanging from my neckline. From Squidfire, http://www.squidfire.com/Results.cfm?category=8.

Current Music: Winterpills again.

There's a new Von Braun biography by Michael J. Neufeld coming out with Knopf in September. For those of you who don't know, he was a nazi adopted by the U.S. government to head our rocket program down in Alabama. One might wish the U.S. had adopted something cuter, maybe a puppy (Laika was a stray), but Von Braun, who designed the rockets that took the U.S. to the moon, also designed the ones that that made messy craters in London.

Messy with bits of people and burning houses.

I like the biography and I don't. Good historian writes well-researched book. Fine. But Neufeld seems far, far too intent on painting Von Braun as a nazi, and guilty as hell. As far as most people who know about Von Braun are concerned, he - was - a nazi and guilty as hell. It's a bit like reading a detailed argument that the sky is blue.

Personally, I find people intent on grinding the old axes of the 20th c. to be uncaring toward present needs. Yes, please, we need to know about Von Braun. Yes, please don't forget to mention he was a nazi. Don't refight the case again, please.

Please.

What we need to know about is the early culture of NASA, why it felt - alright - to a lot of people to have a nazi (actually several nazis) on board to build rockets for us. That's interesting. That's useful knowledge.

When black and white exists, it's easy. And after the battle's won, it's not useful outside of Hollywood.

Pity, because the author knows German, German history, and rocket science. Feels like he's been at whetting this ax for at least a decade, probably two. Mr. Neufeld, I'm here to inform you, you have a nice, shiny ax.

Why didn't you find useful wood to whack it with?


Love and Rockets,
(apologies to the Hernandez Brothers)

The Red Pooka!