07/02/2019

HPS 283 - Engineering War

7 February 2019

Brief Recap:

Responses to the complexities and problems introduced by changes during the Second Industrial Revolution centered around management:

➢ Scientific Management ○ Frederick Winslow Taylor ○ The Gilbreths ➢ The Assembly Line ○ Controlled flows of materials ○ Repetitive labour ➢ Technocracy ○ Technocratic Movement (1930s) ○ Technocratic ideas/technocrat ○ “Technological fix”

Lecture Outline:

Part 1: Wernher von Braun and Rocketry ➢ American Space Program ➢ Von Braun’s background ➢ Problematic legacy

Part 2: Cold War Missiles ➢ Roots of the Cold War ➢ Nuclear arms strategy ○ Deterrence ○ Counterforce ➢ Nuclear weapons design ○ Accuracy ○ Heterogeneous engineering

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Part 1: Wernher von Braun and Rocketry

The World Wars of the 20th century ➢ “Total wars” ➢ Mass mobilizations of the means of production ○ This included scientists and engineers ○ e.g. Fritz Haber and chemical weapons in WWI

Wernher von Braun (1912-1977)

➢ After moving to the US from Germany after WWII, von Braun played a crucial role in the American rocket and space programs

➢ Space travel popularizer ○ Collier’s magazine article (1952) ■ “Crossing the Last Frontier” ○ Disney’s “Man in Space” (1955)

Cold War Space Race

International Geophysical Year ➢ July 1957-December 1958 ➢ International Earth science research program ➢ US and USSR both announce plans to launch an artificial satellite

US Satellite Program ➢ National security concerns ➢ “Freedom of the skies” ➢ Project Orbiter vs Project Vanguard

USSR Successes/US Failure ➢ Sputnik I (4 Oct. 1957) ➢ Sputnik II (3 Nov. 1957) ➢ Project Vanguard launch pad explosion (6 Dec. 1957)

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Von Braun’s Explorer I Launch, 31 January 1958

Von Braun at NASA

➢ Von Braun transfers from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency to the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ○ Appointed director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in 1960 ■ Focused on rocket propulsion systems

➢ Project Mercury ○ Von Braun-designed Redstone rockets launch the first two Americans into space (1961)

➢ Apollo Program ○ Saturn V rocket ○ Launched Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon (1969)

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Von Braun in front of Apollo 11’s Saturn V, 1 July 1969

Von Braun statue, Marshall Space Flight Center

Tom Lehrer, “Wernher von Braun”

Von Braun’s Background

➢ Early fascination with rockets and space travel stories

➢ Undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering

➢ PhD in physics in 1934 ○ Dissertation in liquid fuel rocket propulsion

➢ Joined the German amateur rocket society in 1929

➢ Recruited by German army in 1932 to work in their rocketry program

➢ By 1937, von Braun was the technical director of the German rocket program ○ Peenemünde Rocket Center

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V-2 Rockets V-2, “Vengeance” weapon ➢ World’s first ballistic missile ➢ Range: ~320 km ➢ Speeds: 2,800-5,700 km/h

V-2 as a “terror” weapon ➢ Not very precise or accurate ➢ Could not target specific locations ➢ Terror weapon ○ New and unfamiliar ○ Too fast to be able to intercept ○ Unpredictable landing locations ○ Travelled faster than sound

➢ ~3,200 V-2 rockets launched at England and the Continent ➢ ~5,000 killed ○ More died in V-2 production than deployment

Mittelwerk Factory and Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp

Mittelwerk V-2 Production Factory ➢ Underground complex ➢ Employed ~8,000 ➢ Produced ~5,200 V-2s

Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp ➢ Supplied prisoners to work in the factory ➢ Around 60,000 prisoners sent to the camp ○ Close to 20,000 died ○ ~10,000 of those deaths are believed to be linked to V-2 production ■ Only ~5,000 died from V-2 deployment

Von Braun in Nazi Germany

Von Braun and Nazi Organizations: ➢ 1933: joined SS equestrian unit ➢ 1937: joined Nazi Party ➢ 1940: joined SS ➢ 1944: arrested by the SS

Von Braun and concentration camp labour: ➢ Not responsible for initial decision to use slave labour in Mittelwerk ○ But he was aware of it ➢ Potentially arranged for the transfer of “technically qualified” prisoners from Buchenwald concentration camp to Mittelwerk ➢ No unequivocal evidence that he abused prisoners

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Von Braun’s Legacy

Operation Paperclip ➢ US operation to obtain German scientific and technical experts, equipment, and documents at the end of WWII ➢ ~120 scientists and engineers from Peenemünde migrate to the US and work in the US rocketry and space programs

Von Braun’s Legacy ➢ Nazi? ➢ Space hero? ➢ Patriotic opportunist?

What is an engineer’s responsibility? ➢ Should engineers be concerned only with technical details, or do they have a responsibility to think about the broader social/political/economic/moral implications of their work?

Part 2: Cold War Missiles

Potsdam Conference, 17 July 1945 From left to right: Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister), Harry Truman (US President), and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union’s Communist Party General Secretary)

Cold War: “Iron Curtain”

Eastern Block: ➢ Soviet Union WWII deaths: 20-27 million ➢ Established a “buffer zone” around Soviet territory after WWII ○ Direct annexation ○ Installation of Soviet-friendly regimes

Western Block: ➢ Western Europe, the US, and other allies ➢ Truman Doctrine ➢ Containment

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Nuclear Arms Race

➢ The US monopoly on atomic weapons ended in 1949, when Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb. ○ Beginning of the nuclear arms race

➢ Military-industrial complex ○ President Eisenhower’s farewell address, 1961 ○ The interconnected network of public and private forces that combine a profit motive with the planning and implementation of public policy.

➢ Arms industry ○ Major employer of engineers during the Cold War

Nuclear Strategy: Deterrence

Two broad types of nuclear strategy: ➢ Deterrence ➢ Counterforce

Deterrence: ➢ Stockpile nuclear weapons to discourage an enemy from attacking ○ A defensive strategy ➢ MAD ○ Mutually assured destruction ➢ Second-strike capability ○ The ability to retaliate ○ “Soft” targets ➢ Survivability ○ Civil defense measures: bunkers, “duck and cover” drills, de-urbanization, funding infrastructure

“Duck and Cover,” National Civil Defense Film

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Effects of explosion of “Little Boy,” 15 kt yield, Toronto

Effects of explosion of “Tsar Bomba,” 50 Mt yield, Toronto

Nuclear Strategy: Counterforce

➢ First-strike capability; preemptive strike capability

➢ An offensive strategy

➢ The capacity to target specific, military locations ○ “Hard targets”

➢ Requires nuclear weapon delivery vehicles (i.e. missiles) to be highly accurate

“How accurate one strives to make one’s missiles is related intimately to the targets one envisages.” Mackenzie, Inventing Accuracy (1990)

Accuracy Design Criteria

Mackenzie argues that increasing accuracy was not necessary for missiles. ➢ He is against “technological determinism” ○ Against the idea that technologies must develop in a single, particular way

Accuracy “bifurcation” ➢ There was a split in guidance system development: ○ Industries that sought ever-increasing accuracy ■ Ballistic missiles ○ Industries that were satisfied with a certain level of accuracy ■ Civil aviation

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Heterogeneous Engineering

Successful technologies require more than just “metal and equations” ➢ There are also important human and organizational components

Charles Stark Draper (1901-1987) ➢ Pioneer in inertial guidance ○ Apollo Guidance Computer ➢ Founded MIT Instrumentation Laboratory in 1930s ○ In 1973, the lab left MIT and became the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory ➢ Heterogeneous engineer ○ Draper built up a client base for an inertial guidance system of increasing accuracy ○ Maintained widespread contacts in the military ○ Fought critics of inertial guidance ○ Constant promotion

Conclusions?

Issues of responsibility: ➢ These issues gained prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when new industries emerged and new engineering disciplines began professionalizing. ○ The issues then involved engineers employed by large, profit-driven organizations.

➢ These issues resurfaced as a result of the links between engineers and the military that greatly increased during WWII and continued into the Cold War, when they became even more pronounced. ○ The issues involved not just working for profit-driven organizations, but undertaking contracts with military links.

Questions: ➢ To whom are engineers responsible? ➢ Should engineers concern themselves with issues that go beyond the technical? ➢ Are engineers responsible for the conditions under which the technologies they design are constructed? ➢ How do the design criteria of technologies have implications beyond the technical?

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