June 20, 1944: The Nazis Beat Everybody Into Space -- and They Never Knew It

A V-2 rocket

June 20, 1944: The Nazis beat everybody into space -- and they never knew it.

Theodore von Kármán (1881-1963), a Hungarian mathematician and aerospace engineer, who came to America and helped found the famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1936 -- calculated a theoretical limit of altitude for airplane flight at 83.8 kilometers -- equivalent to 52.1 miles -- above Earth. 

With this in mind, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) defines the Kármán Line at an altitude of 100 kilometers, or 62.1 miles, above mean sea level. Why have this boundary at all? The Kármán Line is mainly used for legal and regulatory purposes of differentiating between aircraft and spacecraft, which are then subject to different jurisdictions and legislations.

While international law does not define the edge of space, or the limit of national airspace, most international organizations and regulatory agencies, including the United Nations (and all its members, including the United States), accept the FAI's Kármán Line definition, or something close to it.

On June 20, 1944, from its base in Peenemünde, on the Baltic Sea, from which it had been launching V-2 rockets against Britain, Nazi Germany launched MW 18014, a V-2, as a test, to see how high they could get it. It was unmanned, and the idea was to see if they could get it high enough that the British -- and the Americans, and the Soviets -- couldn't stop it: Nobody on the ground was thinking, "Can we get this bad boy into space?"

They measured it at a peak of 176 kilometers, or 109 miles. Since Kármán -- then in New York, recovering from cancer surgery -- hadn't yet come up with his definition of "where space begins," and the Kármán Line hadn't yet been established, either, the Nazis thought no more of it than, "This is the best that any rocket has yet done."

It wasn't as if they were going to take this information to the Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, and he was going to do what John F. Kennedy later did, and say they were going to put a man with a swastika flag on the Moon by the end of the decade. All they were thinking was, "Can we use this to inflict more damage on our enemies?"

The answer was, "No": Britain's Royal Air Force had already been dropping bombs on the place for a year, and the Allies had invaded at Normandy 2 weeks earlier. Priorities changed, and the Nazis abandoned the rocket launches to defend Der Vaterland with conventional weaponry. The Red Army captured Peenemünde on May 5, 1945.

Peenemünde became East Germany's top naval base in 1952, and a museum for the reunited Federal Republic of Germany in 1992. The museum acknowledges what the Nazis themselves appear not to have realized: They were the first government to launch an object from the surface of the Earth into "outer space."

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June 20, 1944 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 3-1 at Yankee Stadium. Hank Borowy, of Bloomfield, New Jersey, went the distance for the win. Bud Metheny hit a home run.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 7-6 at Ebbets Field. Luis Olmo hit a home run for Dem Bums, while Joe Medwick, a former Dodger, hit one for the Jints. Mel Ott, now also the Giants' manager, went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Philadelphia Athletics swept a doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox at Shibe Park. The A's won the opener, 5-4, when Ed Busch singled Dick Siebert home with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning. They won the nightcap, 2-0, when Louis "Bobo" Newsom pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Bucky Walters pitched 2-hit shutout.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-1 at Briggs Stadium (now Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 2-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Stan Musial went 1-for-4.

* And a doubleheader was split at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The Chicago White Sox won the 1st game, 4-3. Ralph Hodgin doubled Thurman Tucker home in the top of the 10th inning. The St. Louis Browns won the 2nd game, 5-0. Al Hollingsworth pitched a 5-hit shutout. The Browns went on to win their only Pennant.

* And the Boston Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at Braves Field in Boston. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on August 25, the day of the liberation of Paris. The Phillies scored 5 runs in the top of the 9th inning to win the 1st game, 9-7. The Braves came back in the 2nd game, scoring a run in the 7th and another in the 8th to win, 4-3.