On November 25, 1944 a V2 rocket hit a crowded Woolworths in New Cross, south London, killing 168 people. The store had been unusually busy that day because saucepans, a scarce wartime commodity, were on sale.  There was no warning—the rocket had arrived at supersonic speed so that the detonation of its warhead was the first and only indication of its existence.

The V2 was entirely von Braun’s creation. […]

Von Braun’s Nazi past had always been an open secret. Stanley Kubrick modeled Dr. Strangelove after him and Tom Lehrer lampooned him hilariously on That Was The Week That Was while Walt Disney tried to make him a national hero. And the U.S. military needed him, needed him so desperately that a Faustian bargain was struck. […]

In 1975 Wernher von Braun was awarded the National Medal of Science