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Not only did the V-2 program divert resources from more useful efforts, but the United States got the knowledge (and some unused V-2s) to give their space and m

Not only did the V-2 program divert resources from more useful efforts, but the United States got the knowledge (and some unused V-2s) to give their space and missile development a big boost. The first big rockets the US fired were unused V-2 rockets followed by US-built V-2 clones. That program ended up benefiting the United States much more than it did Germany. The nuclear programs of Japan and Germany, however, never got close to producing an atomic bomb, and the research done was mostly useless at the end of the war.

WalterBright 11y ago
One of Stalin's priorities in invading Germany was capturing intact the German nuclear research facilities. I wonder if that wound up helping the Soviet bomb program significantly.
- kencausey 11y ago
  You might enjoy the book Plutopia by Kate Brown.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  That and his own spies in the Manhattan Project.
- peterfirefly 11y ago
  The US got the better rocket scientists/engineers, the USSR got the better nuclear engineers. In particular, they got better centrifuge experts. The better centrifuges are the reason why the USSR could build their bombs so quickly and so much cheaper than the first US bombs. PS: would you consider releasing the source code of one of your very early compilers at some point?
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    I would, except I'm a little embarrassed by the quality of the code :-) I've learned a heluva lot in 40 years of programming.
    - peterfirefly 11y ago
      It's probably not so bad. I recently found some code that was 25 years old. It was actually pretty decent, though of course not quite as clean as what I would write today. It basically did bit-banging across a COM-port using TxD/RxD + several control lines in order to talk to an external memory card (across a level-converter). It contained two control loops two autoregulate the speed across many different PCs, work nice with Windows, etc. It autodetected first the COM-ports and then whether there was a card reader connected to it, while talking care to work well with serial mice. All this before I knew what control theory was (or even just the name!). Still, it wasn't bad code at all. Your code solved much harder problems so I would assume you were a better programmer then than I was, having only written small toy compilers. I can't imagine the objective quality of your old code to be bad in any reasonable way, even if you know you can do better now.
peterfirefly 11y ago
> but the United States got the knowledge (and some unused V-2s) to give their space and missile development a big boost. The first big rockets the US fired were unused V-2 rockets followed by US-built V-2 clones. So did the USSR -- but they were already (much) further along with rocket engine development than the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-1_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-1_(missile) At first the USSR even had V-2's produced in Germany -- Mittelbau-Dora was in their occupation zone.

WalterBright 11y ago

One of Stalin's priorities in invading Germany was capturing intact the German nuclear research facilities. I wonder if that wound up helping the Soviet bomb program significantly.

kencausey 11y ago
You might enjoy the book Plutopia by Kate Brown.
ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
That and his own spies in the Manhattan Project.
peterfirefly 11y ago
The US got the better rocket scientists/engineers, the USSR got the better nuclear engineers. In particular, they got better centrifuge experts. The better centrifuges are the reason why the USSR could build their bombs so quickly and so much cheaper than the first US bombs. PS: would you consider releasing the source code of one of your very early compilers at some point?
- WalterBright 11y ago
  I would, except I'm a little embarrassed by the quality of the code :-) I've learned a heluva lot in 40 years of programming.
  - peterfirefly 11y ago
    It's probably not so bad. I recently found some code that was 25 years old. It was actually pretty decent, though of course not quite as clean as what I would write today. It basically did bit-banging across a COM-port using TxD/RxD + several control lines in order to talk to an external memory card (across a level-converter). It contained two control loops two autoregulate the speed across many different PCs, work nice with Windows, etc. It autodetected first the COM-ports and then whether there was a card reader connected to it, while talking care to work well with serial mice. All this before I knew what control theory was (or even just the name!). Still, it wasn't bad code at all. Your code solved much harder problems so I would assume you were a better programmer then than I was, having only written small toy compilers. I can't imagine the objective quality of your old code to be bad in any reasonable way, even if you know you can do better now.

peterfirefly 11y ago

> but the United States got the knowledge (and some unused V-2s) to give their space and missile development a big boost. The first big rockets the US fired were unused V-2 rockets followed by US-built V-2 clones. So did the USSR -- but they were already (much) further along with rocket engine development than the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-1_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-1_(missile) At first the USSR even had V-2's produced in Germany -- Mittelbau-Dora was in their occupation zone.