A-4/V-2 Replica
- Huntsville, Alabama
U.S. Space and Rocket Center
(Photos
by Jim Jenkins, Michel van Best and Rod
Givens)
Huntsville was still a cotton
market town in 1950 when U.S. Sen. John
Sparkman brought a band of German rocket
scientists to Redstone Arsenal to
develop rockets for the U.S. Army. By
the end of the decade, Wernher von
Braun's team had developed the rocket
which orbited America's first satellite. Several of its agencies
were migrated
to NASA's
George C. Marshall Space Flight Center
in 1960, where they eventually
put the first American in space and
transported the first astronauts to the
Moon. Redstone
Arsenal remains
one of the U.S. Army's most important
strategic posts.
Shown below are images of the A-4/V-2
replica on exhibit at the U.S. Space and Rocket
Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
This V-2 was originally restored by the
workers at the Kansas Cosmosphere
and Space Center a few decades ago and was
in storage for several years prior to
coming to Huntsville. It was again
refurbished by group at Huntsville in the
early 2000s, along with the construction
of an impressive new display area. In
recent years the display has been moved
and altered.
In
the exhibit you will see the V-2
replica, four display cases (three have
A-4 artifacts such as the program device
and a pendulum test device), and 18
panels to tell the A-4/V-2 story from
the 1920s up to Ft. Bliss/White Sands.
The replica has
no engine, but there is an engine on
display at the complex.
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