Wernher von Braun and the Saving of Huntsville Arsenal

Without Wernher von Braun, Huntsville may never have become the Rocket City.

Huntsville, Alabama, may now be known as the Rocket City, but in the early years of the 20th century, the town was dominated by the cotton industry, with several large mills in operation. World War II brought change when the United States Army established a chemical weapons facility near the town and Huntsville Arsenal began its existence. Wartime demands kept the arsenal busy and growing, and the facility received several awards for its production records, establishing itself as a pioneer in its field for the Army.(1) Smaller Redstone Arsenal sprang up nearby as an ordnance plant.(2)

After the war, however, the question of the future of Huntsville Arsenal was raised.

Some post-war tasks remained, but by 1947 the Army had declared the arsenal to be surplus and beyond its needs.(3) The Air Force considered using the property but ultimately declined. In 1949 the arsenal was announced as for sale.(4)

Though the picture looked bleak, events that had begun taking place a few years earlier would prove to make the critical difference. In 1945, Wernher von Braun and other German rocket scientists had surrendered to the United States, explaining their rationale to the press by stating “the question as to what … victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else. We … felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured.”(5) The team was taken to America and based at Fort Bliss, Texas, for a time.

Wernher von Braun team moved to Huntsville

After adjacent Redstone Arsenal was declared the Army’s facility for ordnance rocket research and development in 1948 and acquired Huntsville Arsenal in 1949, von Braun and his team were moved to Huntsville in 1950.(4)(6) The rocket program went into full swing in the 1950s, producing the Redstone Rocket among countless others. In 1960 NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center was opened on the arsenal, with von Braun as its first director,(5) and a pioneering atmosphere sprang up that would affect the Apollo, Space Station, and Space Shuttle programs. The U. S. Space and Rocket Center, a concept championed by von Braun, began operation in 1970 at the edge of the arsenal, and has become a top tourist destination for Alabama with more than a half million participants in its U.S. Space Camp activities.(7)

And so, just as the death knell had seemed to sound for Huntsville Arsenal in the late 1940s, the most brilliant part of its existence was just beginning, and Huntsville began its transformation into the Rocket City.

Charles Payne, Dynetics

Sources

1. http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/studies/iv.html
2. http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/chron1/chronapr.html
3. http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/chron1/1946.html
4. http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/chron1/1949.html
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
6. http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/cron2a/cron2a.html
7. http://www.spacecamp.com/museum/history

 

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