The
V-2 (
German:
Vergeltungswaffe 2, "Vengeance Weapon 2"), technical name
Aggregat-4 (A4), was the world's first long-range
ballistic missile. It was developed during the
Second World War in
Germany, specifically targeted at
London and later
Antwerp.
Commonly referred to as the V-2 rocket, the liquid-propellant rocket was a combat-ballistic missile, now considered short-range, and first known human artifact to enter outer space. It was the progenitor of all modern rockets, including those used by the United States and Soviet Union's space programs. During the aftermath of World War II the American, Soviet and British governments all gained access to the V-2's technical designs as well as the actual German scientists responsible for creating the rockets, via Operation Paperclip, Operation Osoaviakhim and Operation Backfire respectively.
The weapon was presented by Nazi propaganda as a retaliation for the bombers that attacked ever more German cities from 1942 until Germany surrendered.
Beginning in September 1944, over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rockets by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, mostly London and later Antwerp and Liège. According to a BBC documentary in 2011, the attacks resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel, while 12,000 forced labourers and concentration camp prisoners were killed producing the weapons.
Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalyov (
Russian: Сергей Константинович Крикалёв, born August 27, 1958) is a
Russian cosmonaut and
mechanical engineer. As a prominent
rocket scientist, he has been veteran of six space flights and currently has spent more time in space than any other human being. He transliterates his name in English as
Sergei Krikalev.
On August 16, 2005 at 1:44 a.m. EDT he passed the record of 748 days held by Sergei Avdeyev. He now has spent a total of 803 days and 9 hours and 39 minutes in space.
Krikalev was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia. He enjoys swimming, skiing, cycling, aerobatic flying, and amateur radio operations, particularly from space (callsigns U5MIR and X75M1K).
On February 15, 2007, Krikalev was appointed Vice President of the S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (Russian: Ракетно-космическая корпорация "Энергия" им. С.П.Королева) in charge of manned space flights.
Krikalev was dubbed by many "the last Citizen of the USSR " as in 1991–1992 he spent 311 days, 20 hours and 1 minute aboard the Mir space station while, back on Earth, the Soviet Union collapsed. A fictional account of how Krikalev may have felt about this is described in the song "Casiopea", written by Cuban songwriter Silvio Rodríguez.
