The Most Controversial Figure in Space

wner V Brown went from meetings with Hitler about Germany's V2 wonder weapon a weapon built with concentration camp labor to one of the lead Architects behind Apollo 11 in less than 20 years his move from high-ranking Nazi to American celebrity began with a single typo how should we treat an ex Nai should Science and Technology Overlook someone's background if their most visible accomplishment is inspirational it seems like a dumb question of course people should be held responsible for l eneral war crimes but history would suggest that under the right circumstances we're comfortable turning a bit of a blind eye ven Brown is absolutely a unique case but his story raises questions of morality and Technology something that's very relevant in our increasingly technological Society I also wanted to make this video because every time I bring up FN Brown my comments explode with people explaining his backstory or arguing that he wasn't really a Nazi so I think it's worth doing a good historical Deep dive let's unpack wner V Brown as a fascinating figure in history and a case study we're going to look at his early life wartime activity Fame in America and how his image only became tarnished after death but before we start hi I'm Amy I forget to introduce myself all the time on my own channel if you're new here I'm an author and historian and I've done a ton of digging into Fun Brown over the years mostly from my first book breaking the chains of gravity which tells his story as it relates to NASA's Roots but doesn't really get into the moral side I've written about that element elsewhere but I've been wanting to do a thorough look for a while also my book has a lot more on the technical side of his early rocket test so if you're into that history I've got you covered also my German accent is terrible please refrain from commenting on it I studied German for years and I always struggled with the accent all right that said let's dive [Music] in in the early 1920s anyone experimenting with rockets was considered a weirdo Fringe scientist the term scientist usually carrying heavy quotation marks the Rockets of the era used compressed black powder a mix of charcoal sulfur and potassium nitrate that burned once lit and couldn't be controlled more than angling the whole tube to direct the thrust that lasted as long as there was powder to burn the reaction was powerful and physicists saw that it had potential but unless that power Could Be Tamed and controlled there were limits to how far rocketry could go in 1923 physicist Herman oar published a short book called deak zud planet andman or the rocket into planetary space it was the first academic discussion of liquid propulsion rockets that burn liquid fuels the rate of which can be adjusted so the rocket can fly with more or less power as needed the book changed the game for those Fringe scientists a group of whom met in the back parlor of an ale house in prow in June of 1927 with the goal of bringing Ober Rockets to life they called themselves the V Fu hamat or vfl the society for space travel progress was slow but steady in 1929 one of its members Rudolph nabal secured funding from the government sponsored Reich Institute for chemistry and technology that funding allowed the group to draw oerth into the fold and recruit two new Engineers a mechanical engineer named clous ryell and a 17-year-old student from the Berlin Institute of Technology named wner F Brown the Prussian born of Van Brown was described as handsome with blue eyes light blonde hair and manners that spoke to Noble upbringing his father Magnus was a civil servant and conservative politician and his mother Emmy could trace her lineage to European royalty wner spoke French played piano and politically held the opinion common among members of the German Noble class the German Republic was no good and the Nazis were ridiculous in the fall of 1930 Rudolph nabal found the VF a permanent home at an old ammunition dump in Berlin's Northern suburb of hinov Christian to the hakan flu plat Berlin it was a Grassroots undertaking members Bartered engineering work for materials or food they relied on generous family members they did public demonstrations to raise money but their success rate was low in a stroke of good luck one of their demonstrations caught the attention of a film company that produced a news reel about their work and that reel caught the attention of the German [Music] Army the German Army's interest in Rockets is significant for this history most most countries had abandoned Rockets as military weapons decades earlier because those black powder rockets that I just talked about made for unwieldy and imprecise cannons that by the turn of the 20th century were far inferior to newer lightweight artillery and the introduction of flight in the first world war planes were used to scout ahead of ground troops then crews in those reconnaissance planes started carrying guns to fire on enemy armies and before long they were shooting at enemy planes guns were eventually mounted on the fuselage so Pilots could shoot and aim flying the German fuer Aircraft Company debuted the interruptor gear that ensured automatic weapons always fired between the propeller blades so bullets wouldn't rip up the blades or Ricochet back and hit the pilot the era of aerial dog fighting was born Germany lost the war and the Treaty of velai which enforced the war's end limited the German military to forall a new conflict part of the terms was demobilization of flying personnel with no more than 1,000 men in Air Force positions and all vehicles and supporting infrastructure were forcibly surrendered to the governments of the principal Allied and Associated Powers but the Treaty of valai didn't say anything about Rockets they hadn't been used offensively in the Great War so when the Army's chief of ballistics and ammunition Colonel Carl Becker ammunitions expert major Ritter von harig and chief of the Army's powder Rockets development Captain Walter dornberger arrived at the hakan F plats one spring day in 1932 they were after a way to rearm the country without blatantly violating the terms of the treaty the army men weren't hugely impressed by the ragtag group but recognized there was Talent among its members specifically wner F Brown Becker offered the VF Army sponsorship just to get Fen brown but the group refused citing their preference of space exploration over weapons so Becker made V Brown a separate offer develop liquid rockets for the Army at its site cumers dwarf West with full support and get a doctorate Becker was faculty at the University of Berlin so could arrange for f Brown's military reports to stand in for a dissertation Brown accepted and began his army career at just 20 years old on October 1st 1932 so surely FN Brown knew what taking an army position would mean right maybe not remember that F Brown came from a conservative Prussian aristocratic family he was a Barren and a military career wasn't uncommon and look what he's getting at 20 he has military funding for his passion and a free PhD it was also 1932 Adolf Hitler had lost the presidential election that year to incumbent Paul Von Hindenberg whose term was set at 7even years even though the Nazi party had strong support there was no indication anything would drastically change F Brown had an incredible opportunity he took it other members of the vfl gradually filled out the ranks of the Army's new liquid propulsion rocket program led by Walter dornberger their first offering was the aggregate one or the A1 that represented a new way of doing things at the Hockett and flu plats the team put their Rockets engines in the nose with the fuel tanks behind it similarly to how a car's engine is in front Robert Ed working reclusivity on liquid propulsion in the United States at the time used a similar Arrangement which is just to say that it was common with the A1 they reversed the arrangement putting the engine below the fuel and oxidizer tanks when the rocket was standing vertically they realized that as Rockets got bigger the engine had to be the lowest element to prevent the hot exhaust from incinerating the fuselage the A1 was thus the first rocket that looks like something we recognize a giant artillery shell 1T or 0.3 m in diameter for 4.6 ft or 1.4 M long with an 85 lb or 38.5 kg flywheel in the nose to keep it stable it was not stable the flywheel made it nose heavy and the only test ended with an explosion on the Launchpad so the team moved on to the A2 which was identical except the gyroscope was moved to the center of the Rocket's body two a2s named Max and morit after popular cartoon characters launched just before Christmas in 1934 they worked and brought an influx of funding that let the team move on to the A3 by this point the political landscape in Germany was changing after the first world war the position of Chancellor was appointed by the president but when multiple elections failed to form a majority Hindenburg gave in to pressure and appointed Hitler to the Post in January of 1933 the Nazi party got two other ministers in the cabinet and Hitler moved fast to make it so that only Hindenberg had the authority to remove him from the government also in 1933 fin Brown joined the SS heum at Berlin hen an SS sponsored equestrian unit he was discharged the following year he also got his Doctorate both these things suggest he had a pretty good idea of what was happening in his country to join an SS group he'd have proved there were no racial aliens in his lineage as a student at The Institute of physics at the University of Berlin he would likely have known Jewish professors were being forced out of their positions or heard of Jewish students withdrawing historian Michael newfeld also mentions that in the 1920s Brown went to school with a number of Jewish children so likely new members of the community like many German scientists and Engineers Fen Brown was likely pseudo a political and distant from Party politics in principle but as newfeld says a right-wing nationalist in reality both his upbringing and army sponsorship would have led him to a sort of pro-german neutrality in the summer of 1934 president Hindenberg got sick uncertain about Germany's future should he die in office Hitler had the cabinet enact the law concerning the head of state of the German Reich on August 1st upon the president's death the presidency would be abolished and its powers merged with the office of the chancellor Hindenberg died the next day and Hitler Consolidated his power becoming furer and he celor leader and Chancellor of the Reich the Nazi party took control of the country's assets including its military Hitler reintroduced conscription to fill out the military with 500,000 troops well in violation of the Treaty of velai all of whom now swore obedience to him rather than pledging to defend the country the new Army the E took over dor Burger's group and the LOF wafa took notice its head Herman guring wanted rockets for airplane propulsion the two Services joined forces and began constructing a new research facility on the island of usom near the village of Punda it had space privacy and access to the Baltic for test launches in 1937 F Brown and dornberger were its first residents Fen Brown also got a promotion that year to technical director but it came with a catch he had to pledge his allegiance to the Reich if he didn't he would have to abandon his work he joined the Nazi party on May first ven Brown joining the Nazis feels like he's happy with or at least happily ignoring what's happening because Hitler is making his intentions very clear in 1936 he sent troops to occupy the demilitarized Rin land and while Britain and France condemned the action neither intervened at home the Hitler yugan or Hitler Youth had grown to include an astound ing 5.4 million boys between the ages of 10 and 18 a group that fed members right into the SS the muscle behind the Nazi regime built on volunteers who believed in the cause van Brown might have been happily ensconced in the little bubble of his work surrounded by a positive prman narrative he clearly didn't mind joining the party to retain his position he might have been swayed by the idea that a stronger military could mean more funding at the end of the day F Brown's main focus was the A3 and Punda the first rocket flew from the island site in December of 1937 while a boatload of dignitaries watched it was a disaster the water soluble paint on the Rocket's body melted from condensation on the fuel tank shortening the electrical system and delaying the launch after a quick fix it flew only to reveal a misaligned guidance system it flew into the wind so when the parachute deployed for landing it was forced into the path of the exhaust rendering it useless the rocket crashed into the Baltic the A3 was a dead so F Brown and dornberger moved on to the next variant the A4 was earmarked as the first production rocket for the Army so the A5 was their next test bed but soon there was a new problem the lft vafa dropped out of Punda leaving the Army to foot the bill alone and it looked like the rocket would be requested sooner rather than later on March 12th 1938 after a prolonged propaganda campaign Germany annexed Austria in the 8 months later on the night of November 7th a 17-year-old Jewish teenager killed a counselor at the German Embassy in Paris this became the rationale behind an organized wave of violent anti-jewish prgs throughout Germany and German occupied Lands 2 Days Later Christel knock the Knight of the broken glass ended the following morning with some 20,000 Jews rounded up and carded out to the first concentration camps Germany's aggression was getting harder to ignore on March 23rd 1939 wner Brown's 27th birthday Hitler arrived at Kumer dwarf West Hitler had been in power for six years dornberger had been head of the Army's rocket development for nine it was the first time the men met dornberger and F Brown gave Hitler and his Entourage a tour of the facility showed a cutaway model of the A3 and did a static fire test Hitler seemed distant and unimpressed he just wanted to know how soon the A4 could be ready and how far it could travel both Fen Brown and dornberger felt they hadn't done enough to impress Hitler and secure more funding but the question was fast becoming could a war change [Music] that Hitler declared war on Poland on September 1st first 1939 though the aggression he used as his rationale was really an attack faked by the Nazi government in October Fen Brown and derberger had an A5 ready to launch and it's worth mentioning that the Rockets were getting bigger this one stood 21.3 ft or 6.5 M tall and 2.6 ft or 0.8 m in diameter with a 3300 lb thrust engine in its base on its first launch the A5 Rose and followed a straight trajectory before disappearing into the clouds once the fuel was spent Fen Brown released the parachutes remotely and watched alongside dornberger as the rocket appeared on time it fell softly into the Baltic in such good condition that if it hadn't been water logged they could have relaunched it Hitler remained unimpressed he wanted a weapon he could use now in February of 1940 he ordered all weapons not ready for combat be struck from the priority list work at Punda limped Along on meager funding Hitler might not have seen the potential of the A5 but the SS did it wanted a foot would hold for control of the rocket program and it wanted V Brown to be a member on the 1st of May 1940 Colonel Miller arrived in V Brown's office on behalf of Hinrich himler head of the SS chief of the gestapo and The Man Behind concentration camps Miller had orders for f Brown to join the SS but F Brown rebuffed the colonel saying he was too busy to take on a volunteer position Miller insisted that joining wouldn't demand a significant time commitment and tried to sweeten the pot by offering F Brown the immediate rank of inter fu or Lieutenant Fen Brown asked for a few days to consider and immediately shared his concern with dornberger refusing the SS would likely see him forced out of the rocket program and banished to a Work Camp dornberger agreed F Brown's desire to continue his rocket work one and less than two weeks later he became an SS Lieutenant work pressed on at Punda and on June 13th 1942 a 47t or 14.3 M tall 5 1/2t or 1.6 M diameter rocket Rose off the launch pad F Brown watched as nearly 10 years of work came together in this first successful A4 flight and so did Albert Spear Hitler's Chief Architect turned Minister for armaments and war production the rocket veered off course and crashed a second launch on August 16th was dogged by a faulty guidance system a third flight on October 3rd was Flawless the A4 worked in late 1942 Hinrich himler arrived at Punda he told dornberger that quite a few people in Hitler's Inner Circle were interested in the A4 because it wasn't just the army rocket anymore the German people needed it for protection against the Allies himler said and since it was a War weapon he wanted some of his people to keep an eye on the base dornberger blocked the idea of Vanessa's Presence at Punda and suggested they take over Security in the nearby town instead himler agreed and left with a promise to return soon return he did on June 28th 1943 the visit started socially with dinner V Brown and dornberger among the attendees afterwards the group moved on to drinks and inevitably talk about Rockets F Brown waxed poetic about his desire to see his Rockets exploring space and admitted he felt the war was destined to end badly for Germany the next day himler watched one A4 explode on the Launchpad and another fly well he left impressed and V Brown soon got an invitation from Hitler to give a presentation about the A4 at the Army's guest house in East Prussia at this second meeting dornberger and F Brown finally impressed Hitler this time the furer had pointed questions could the payload capability be increased to 10 tons how many Rockets could penam Munda produce each month he granted the A4 the priority status dornberger had long coveted he also asked for 2,000 a4s every month a figure well beyond penam munda's own means Hitler brushed away concerns saying they'd have money to build factories and gain a Workforce now of course by Workforce he meant slave labor penam Mund was already using slave labor around the time of himmler's visit the first 600 of an eventual 1300 mostly French and Russian PR prisoners were put to work setting up production Machinery to build the Rockets the chain of command that put slave labor at the site sidestepped from Brown he wasn't involved in production just development so he wouldn't have been part of the decision though he certainly knew it was happening there was another group interested in Von Brown's Rockets the Allies it started with rumors the anonymous Oslo letters delivered to a British atache mentioning Punda Danish fishermen seeing objects streaking across the sky the Polish underground and German prisoners of War mentioning seeing what looked like rockets British aerial photography ultimately confirmed that there were long-range missiles on isdom on the night of August 17th the Allies bombed Punda but they missed the leader's housing building that was their main target the lead plane's radar hadn't been working and his visual navigation was off because of clouds so while ven Brown and dornberger woke to the sound of bombs anti-aircraft guns and fire they had time and the presence of mind to save their work V Brown ran into a collapsing building to get key documents from his office carrying them out and throwing them out windows dornberger saved guidance control and Telemetry data The Raid also told Hitler that the Allies were scared of the A4 which confirmed his idea that it was Germany's best chance to win the war he granted the program more funding and protection Hitler ordered A4 production moved underground the new site a disused mind in the hars mountains was called Central Works limited or meel work to mask its true purpose for secur he decreed that only concentration camp labor could be used on August 20th Hitler made Hinrich himler his new minister of the interior which put him in charge of organizing the new A4 Factory and gave the SS a stronger foothold in the program himler brought in Hans camer to set up the new camp to feed labor into the factory infant Brown would have been part of the slave labor moving to the new facility in the days after the raid he chaired a meeting at Punda where in leadership discussed moving the SS prisoners from the nearby production plant to the underground site it's the first time or at least the first time that historians can be sure that he was party to the inhumane conditions that were part of his program and this wouldn't be the first time he knew it was a common practice and was at the very least party to the administration allowing such conditions trainloads of prisoners soon arrived at the mountain site from buval and started widening and extending the mines tunnel as more train loads arrived bunks were added to the cave which had neither ventilation nor sanitation prisoners drank what water they could find on the floor and ate the meager food that barely kept them alive disease ran rampant and death was frequent during the winter of 1943 into 1944 an average of 20 prisoners died every day the camp supplying the labor was named Dora and one Survivor said years later that Dora made aitz look easy when Dora became too crowded a second Camp was built called Nord Housen four a4s were built at metail work before the end end of 1943 and it was immediately obvious that forced labor by unskilled workers produced a flawed product the a force coming out of metel work couldn't fly they were so poorly made and more often than not sabotaged the prisoners didn't know what they were building but they knew that peeing on an electric component could ruin it without leaving signs Hitler maintained that slave labor was the path to success himler maintained that the SS controlling da4 was the path to success in early 1944 himler called f Brown to his office and offered the engineer a chance to join his own staff VN Brown who had been receiving yearly promotions with the SS refused he said he was loyal to dornberger and the Army a month later on March 22nd the night before his 32nd birthday Finn Brown woke to find a gapo officers hammering on his door he wasn't under arrest the officers told him they were just putting him under protective custody three more members of his team were similarly collected that night including his younger brother Magnus the four men were put in individual cells as their protective custody stretched into weeks himler was punishing V Brown for his refusal to hand the A4 over to the SS though the official reason was because F Brown was giving peacetime projects precedence over wartime production tasks himler decided that F Brown's Social talk of space flight was akin to disloyalty bordering on treason dornberger successfully secured the men's release though it meant appealing to Albert Spear who took the issue to Hitler saying the whole A4 effort would be sunk if F Brown stayed in jail Hitler eventually agreed to their release adding that F Brown was to be protected only so long as he is indispensable it's here that F Brown has a Moment of clarity and it's possibly the most important moment in his story he realized that he wasn't safe even as valuable as he was at this point he started Living a dual life publicly he was a dutiful soldier of the Fatherland voluntarily wearing his SS uniform for the first time and devoting himself to the A4 privately he looked for opportunities and kept a trunk of documents packed in case he needed to run he also started formulating his post-war plans all of which centered around getting to America he figured America was the likeliest Victor in some future war and he thought it would be nice to be on The Winning Side when the Allies landed at Normandy on June 6th 1944 it marked the beginning of the end for Germany as more than 100,000 Allied soldiers were making their way toward Berlin Hitler promoted himler to head of the home Army because dornberger group reported to the home Army he now reported to himler and himler finally had control of the A4 on August 8th himler appointed Hans camer as special commissioner for the program giving him the power to deploy it in the field there was nothing dornberger could do as soon as that weapon launched he and ven Brown would be guilty of a new set of war crimes the pace picked up at meel work where Mass hangings became the norm records say that F Brown visited the factory in the second half of 1944 so why didn't he say anything Michael newfeld points out that F Brown could have lodged a written complaint saying that healthier workers would make for healthier Rockets but he probably knew that any criticism would have landed him in a striped uniform we also to borrow a modern phrase infant Brown's post arrest era a lot of the things he let slide he could justify as much as to himself as to someone else that he was acting out of fear and self-preservation in an increasingly volatile situation I've always said that self-preservation is the most charitable way to reach his action but given the situation it might be the truth in late 1944 with the Allies occupying a sizable portion of northern France and pressing ever closer to the German border Hitler ordered rocket bombardment on September 8th one group launched an A4 from huiz in Belgium at 8:34 in the morning it landed 180 Mi or 290 km away near the port diali in France a second group launched another rocket at 6:48 that evening and hit the London suburb of chisik the team at PanAm Munda learned about the launches from the newspaper headlines G London Vengeance Weapon 2 in action against London it was christened V2 by Nazi propaganda Minister Joseph gobl News of the V2 carried different weight to the Americans who read about the attacks the country was safe from the rocket but it was clear that Germany could challenge America for air superiority in the future to avoid being on the receiving end of a later Generation V weapon America needed to learn about the V2 General Henry H Hap Arnold chief of the Army Air corps figured there was was no better teacher than the men who designed it f Brown didn't know it but America wanted him as badly as he wanted to end up in America at the start of 1945 F Brown maintained appearances by working on Advanced A4 variants including a long range winged div verion called the a4b while his trunk remained packed and ready he had his staff on the same alert when the Red Army mounted an offensive at the German border with Poland the sounds of gunfire and a feeling of chaos reached paninda camer ordered the entire rocket team to evacuate and hide in bad Sasha Southwest of Berlin he also ordered ven Brown to go to meel work and oversee the factory there a third set of orders told him and his team to stay in Punda and fight the Allies to the death Germany's leaders were falling into Panic paranoia and Desperation and F Brown realized he could use it to his [Music] Advantage back in 1943 after the raid on Punda DOR was transferred from the Army's Ordinance Department and promoted to the Army's commissioner for special tasks abbreviated in German to be B His official letterhead however had the acronym misspelled as V which meant nothing F Brown's transportation coordinator Eric niman came up with a title that fit the acronym vaben Zu Bond vend roughly project for special disposition F Brown decided to trust that even the trigger happiest SS officers wouldn't dare stop stop a top secret unit of scientists moving with an SS major as their leader the team painted v b on cars trucks and rail cars filled with boxes of documents and materials the challenge was that penam Munda had grown to a team of hundreds some of whom had families the first train to leave the site on February 17th 1945 held materials and 525 Personnel it was immediately stopped at an SS roadblock but a flash of the v b orders signed by SS F Brown did the trick and the guards let them pass while his team evacuated Fen Brown traveled around Germany ostensibly looking for a new permanent rocket facility it was during one of these trips that both ven Brown and his driver fell asleep and woke up in an Airborne car careening off a 40ft high embankment V Brown instinctively raised his left arm which broke in the crash he regained Consciousness in a private hospital room in bla his arm in a heavy cast he was still confined to hospital on his 33rd birthday when he heard the Allies had crossed the rine Germany was falling fast and a desperate Hitler called for all military industrial transportation and Communications facilities to be destroyed by the retreating Home Guard the scorched Earth policy better the Allies inherit a destroyed Nation than learn any of the reich's secrets commer meanwhile moved the rocket team into hiding at Ober amaga a village in the Bavarian Alps near the Austrian border during the move two rocketeers took a detour to an abandoned mine in the hars mountains and buried three two trucks worth of material in a cavern before dynamiting the Tunnel closed the penam Munda team was settled in their new spot Finn Brown still in a cast when commer showed up on April 11th he announced without hyperbole that he intended to single-handedly win the war for Germany he transfered control of the rocket team to a major cummer then left brandishing a pistol ven Brown convinced cummer that the rocket team was safer from air strikes or Allied Forces in two different locations after a brief hospital visit to break and reset his arm in a new cast that kept it bent and raised at the shoulder when Brown and dornberger ended up at house inberg a mountain ski resort in the old German Austrian border they had a Terrace overlooking the snowcapped Alps and a staff eager to cater to their every desire they had a full wine seller and radios to listen to the war's final Dayal the problem was they were sitting ducks on April 30th 1945 Hitler took his own life in his bunker in Berlin the rocket team heard on the radio on May 1st that the fur had died valiantly in combat against the Russian army in any case Hitler's death freed Germany's soldiers and also meant that career military men like dornberger and F Brown were left in a bed of their own crimes rather than wait to be tried they decided to find some Americans on May 2 the war was declared over in Europe and Magnus V Brown left how inberg on a bicycle Magnus was sent out because he had some of the best English and he wasn't so vital that his death would kneecap the team yes wner V Brown decided his own brother was was Expendable Magnus rode toward Austria and in less than 2 miles he found an American anti-tank platoon it took almost half an hour of broken English for Magnus to convince the Americans that he really did have the rocket team nearby which turned them very friendly Magnus secured passes and that night he Warner dornberger and four other men and their luggage went to the 44th infantry's temporary Command Post in Roa they were greeted with a meal of eggs white bread butter and the first real coffee they'd had in months Brown was pleased but unsurprised by their friendly reception he knew the Americans would want him and his work and knew they'd be kept happy and healthy which if we pause and step back is a hugely vain way to feel but he knew he was more valuable alive and Cooperative than jailed or dead so they would treat him well the Americans found the whole meeting baffling dornberger was the obvious leader as the most senior man but he seemed like an old defeated General then there was a 33-year-old F Brown extremely jovial and after his time at house inberg and forced inactivity because of his injury possibly the only portly man in a starving country he didn't fit the bill of the brilliant inventor of the V2 they legitimately wondered if he wasn't Germany's best con artist but interviews in the days that followed made it clear that he was the real deal and also that he had big thoughts on a war between the United States and the Soviet Union One in which the Americans best chance was arming itself with his Rockets again very presumptuous his dreams of space flight fight only trickled out a little in these interviews the Americans and the British who met with him were interested in his military potential with the Germans help the Americans recovered everything from PanAm Munda and the dynamite of mine in the hars mountains then V Brown was tasked with picking the men he would bring to the United States under Project Paperclip he wanted 520 and their families but was forced to winnow it down to 124 his list did not include dornberger with v Brown pois to start a new chapter let's pause for an [Music] break the first recovered pieces of V2s arrived at the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico in August of 1945 eventually 300 train cars full of Hardware rocket Parts instruments documents and Warheads reached the desert in December Warner F Brown arrived and didn't find the America he dreamed of the desert was dry and Barren and he didn't get the same warm ception as when he' initially surrendered as more peners arrived they were assigned to various projects only 39 were put on Project Hermes the US program to get V2s flying Hermes was about more than the V2 American Engineers wanted to learn its systems to build anti-aircraft missiles tactile missiles and even multi-stage rockets that could send a payload higher than a single rocket to this end some of the recovered V2s were classified as bumper rockets in this case mated to a jet propulsion laboratory built wack Corporal as the upper stage one test in 1949 saw payload reach almost 250 Mi or 402 km which is about where the International Space Station orbits it was the first time from Brown confirmed that multi-stage Rockets were the path to space flight but those multi-stage tests didn't get him any closer to exploring space he didn't get close to much none of the Germans did while the Americans explored the A4 they waited F Brown passed the time outlining his vision for a human Mission to Mars in DM project the worsening conflict in Korea in the early 1950s finally brought the Germans into action once President Truman pledged American involvement the United States needed new arms and F Brown was called on to develop two new surfac to- surface missiles his team was given a larger facility in Huntsville Alabama but first the US government had to make everything legal V Brown took a street car to huarez Mexico accompanied by a guard submitted his paperwork to the American Consulate had a chest x-ray paid his $18 processing fee and returned across the border with a stamp on his passport his immigration countdown had begun Finn Brown arrived in Alabama as the Redstone arsenals ordinance guided missile Center's first director his team had access to the best facilities in the country including the national advisory committee for Aeronautics as wind tunnels and government proven grounds to get the Redstone missile off the ground there was also Jupiter a longrange offshoot of the Redstone the Jupiter a served as a test bed for the new system and the Jupiter C was a composite re-entry vehicle designed to test the Rocket's nose cone the Army wasn't the only one in the missile game the US Air Force Minted as a standalone service branch in 1947 was working on the mx1 1593 nicknamed project Atlas and another missile called Titan the Navy was developing a rocket called Vanguard both were working with contractors that hadn't secured the most coveted Army contracts though immersed in missiles space flight was always on F Brown's mind at the first annual Symposium on space travel held at the American Museum of Natural histories Hayden plantarium in New York he gave a talk about rockets for space flight later during cocktail hour an editor from Collier's magazine approached F Brown and confessed that he hadn't understood a word of his talk the editor and scientist realized theirs was a joint problem people didn't understand that space flight was feasible so F Brown forged a partnership with Colliers and the March 22nd 1952 issue hit new stands with one of Chesley boney's now iconic paintings depicting a rocket staging with the Earth far below the title man will conquer space soon top scientists tell how in 15 startling Pages LED readers to a very accessible description written by Fun Brown of how to build an orbiting space station that would serve as a laboratory and jumping off point for Missions to the Moon eight issues over two years teased out the topic another major piece written by one of the founding members of the velt Willie Lei the colier stories caught Walt Disney's attention at the time he was building Disneyland and part of the funding was through ABC the network was financing the park in exchange for exclusive TV content showcasing everything Disneyland would offer in its four areas of fantasy land Adventure Land Frontier land and Tomorrowland since Tomorrowland featured a ride along a simulated moonscape Disney's production team reached out to Wily layi to help make it accurate and lay brought F Brown into the fold on March 9th 1955 the manin space episode of Disney series debuted and America met wner F Brown to come take the present day pressurized flying suit for example it has been designed for use at extremely high altitudes and there a forerunner of the suits we will wear when we make that trip to the moon he was an absolute hit he was handsome his German accent wasn't so strong that he was hard to understand or felt too foreign he explained things clearly and gently in a way that resonated with viewers the show mentioned his role in the V2 program but skirted over his Nazi and SS affiliations it's possible that Walt Disney 's own anti-semitic Tendencies softened his feeling toward F Brown so soon after the war but that's just my own opinion over three episodes Disney teased out space flight's possible future and created a link between this exciting New Era and Warner V Brown for the American people that link was about to be [Music] solidified the Space Age began I would say on June 29th 1955 when the White House announced the United States intention to launch a small satellite as part of the international geophysical year a 55 Nation study into solar phenomena over 18 months the satellite announcement was hugely celebrated so much so that the Soviet Union quickly announced it would also launch a satellite on the US side a voting committee selected the US Navy's Vanguard missile for the American shot some committee members recognized Vanguard wasn't as strong a program as the Redstone but a major selling point was its lack of ties to the V2 or the German war effort not winning the IG y bid didn't stop from Brown from developing a satellite launch configuration that he could hide in the Army's bottomless bureaucracy his stat called for scaled down Sergeant Rockets as the upper stages on an elongated Redstone first stage 11 for the second stage three for the third stage and one for the fourth it was easy to hide because swapping out the sergeant on top for a dummy stage would stop it from going into orbit but be an excellent test bed for re-entry materials and so five Redstone Sergeant configurations were earmarked as re-entry test beds if the Navy failed and he was given the green light his team could prep one for a satellite launch within 3 months V Brown's group pressed on at the Redstone Arsenal they started working on a new joint Army Navy missile program called Jupiter funding and Personnel for which expanded the site on February 1st 1956 it was rededicated as the Army ballistic missile agency with Fen Brown as director the new Jupiter was its priority on September 16th 1956 one of the Hidden orbit capable redstones was renamed Jupiter SE to imbue it with the priority of the new Army Navy program and stacked on the Launchpad the Army's excitement worried the Pentagon they were convinced when Brown was sneaking a satellite onto the rocket so sent an official to Cape Canaveral to check that the four stage was indeed loaded with structural elements and sand is ballast they needn't have the rocket lacked the attitude control system to send it into orbit the dummy for stage was lofted to a peak altitude of 682 Mi or just under 1100 km again for comparison the ISS orbits at about 250 Mi or 402 km F Brown had proof that his configuration could reach orbit but the Soviets got there first with Sputnik on October 4th 1957 Sputnik wasn't that technologically exciting it just beeped but it captured imaginations on both sides of the Cold War the rocket was the real big deal if that rocket could launch a small satellite into orbit it could easily send a warhead across the ocean space became an arena of the Cold War an arena that increasingly f favored the Soviets after they launched the dog Leica on Sputnik 2 just a month later the Soviets were clearly preparing for a human Mission and what that human might do in space was anyone's guess America's official answer to Sputnik came on December 6 with the Vanguard TV3 launch weather was touch and go with strong winds but the day calmed and Vanguard was a go America watched the live TV broadcast as Sparks from the pyrotechnic igniter appeared at the base Catching Fire as the liquid oxygen and kerosene started to flow the rocket Rose unsteadily then fell back down a fuel system malfunction killed the thrust and the rocket landed back on its engine before collapsing the tanks ruptured spilling Fuel and oxidizer onto the ground that turned into an inferno that engulfed the pad somehow in the brief moment of weightlessness before the rocket collapsed the Vanguard satellite registered it was in space ejected and when the dust settled was proudly transmitting its signal from a nearby puddle in the wake of the very public failure Eisenhower science adviser James Killian recommended continuing Vanguard but also giving the Army a launch window F Brown's team had 2 months to get a Jupiter sea out of storage and at a live four stage the right guidance system and a 30 lb satellite called Explorer 1 F Brown's 3-day launch window opened on January 29th on the evening of January 31st 1958 he was in Washington at the Army's Communication Center at the Pentagon if the launch was successful he would need to be in Washington to speak to the Press so he couldn't be in Florida there was no Clos Loop television so he had to follow the countdown via a teletype machine it was a stressful setup the teletype update came that the firing commands had started and then that the main stage had lifted off but there was no confirmation for the stages working they would know it worked depending on when they established communication with the satellite if they did it all the expected time for a signal from Explorer 1 came and went marked by nothing but coffee cigarettes and donuts the team was settling into defeat when word came from four tracking stations simultaneously on the west coast that they had a signal America's first satellite was in orbit this is the picture of the three men most responsible for America's success that night Dr William H Pickering of JPL who built the satellite Dr James Van Allen who designed and built the instruments on board and wner F Brown who built the rocket this was the press conference at the National Academy of Sciences this is the F Brown that Americans saw jubilant over his success representing his new home country in the background of this very public satellite race lynen Johnson was leading the country's policy response to Sputnik while every military branch developed its own human space flight program the flurry of activity ended with the National Aeronautics and Space act creating a civilian agency NASA which brought all space related programs together Under One Roof separate from the military though it wasn't stated as such NASA's goal was to launch an American into space before the Soviets launched one of their guys underpinning this new agency was the national advisory committee for Aeronautics America's leading Aviation research body that managed the most advanced wind tunnels and Aviation programs like the X15 the one thing NASA didn't have was rockets and it immediately started eyeing wner F Brown NASA moved faster in its earliest days than most people realize agency representatives were at the Redstone Arsenal on October 6th less than a week after NASA became NASA to discuss using the Redstone and Jupiter missiles as launch vehicles for what was was then called the manned satellite project on October 7th it announced that program would be called mercury in February of 1959 it awarded a contract for the Mercury spacecraft to the McDonald aircraft corporation on April 9th it introduced the men that would fly in it the pieces of the first program were in place the Army agreed to make its resources available to NASA as needed and even granted the space agency authority to bypass the Department of Defense in discussions with Huntsville but it still wasn't ideal NASA wanted F Brown the Army didn't want to let him go but space was a Cold War battlefield and NASA won the transfer created the Marshall space flight center with f Brown as its director he brought with him his team a million pound thrust rocket engine still under development and a new family of rockets called Saturn on July 29th 1960 NASA started letting study contracts for its next Generation spacecraft provisionally called Apollo that might go to the moon in November John F Kennedy was elected president and his vice president Lyndon Johnson was appointed as head of the National Aeronautics and Space Council the Mercury program forged ahead against the backdrop of changing National leadership because no one knew what would happen to a human in space or how the body would react to microgravity the missions would be simple the first launches would be suborbital going up and down like a pop gunshot which meant the rocket specifically F Brown's Redstone was The crucial element so it's not surprising that wner and brown spent a lot of time with the astronauts and I think how they recall him is very interesting for a conversation today Dee Slayton remembers in his Memoir that there was a very small group in the Block House the day NASA launched its first redstone on November 21st 1960 a group that included the Seven astronauts and ven Brown John Glenn recalls that Redstone inspections often took the Seven astronauts to Huntsville where they went to F Brown's house as he wrote years later the german-born engineer then in his late 40s was a handsome broad shouldered man with thick dark hair F Brown had been a devoted Nazi during World War II whatever anyone thought of f Brown's previous allegiances he had a well-deserved reputation for Heading an effective rocket team his Library showed him to be a man whose interests were not confined to rocket science I wandered into the book lined room expecting to find nothing but tomes on engineering astronomy physics and other technical matters there were many of those but I was impressed to find even more extensive collections in fields such as religion comparative religion philosophy history and government both these Recollections came decades later after fin Brown had passed but some astronauts shared the feelings during the early Mercury days the seven men had deals with Life Magazine to tell their stories under their own by lines in one of these articles Gordon Cooper wrote about F Brown I remember particularly two meetings which adjourned to the homes of Dr wner F Brown and Dr Jack hner in Huntsville Alabama where we sat and drank coffee and talked about space until the wee hours of the morning both of these men had given a great deal of serious thought to space since they were young students in Germany and they were full of fascinating ideas about what can be done in space and what we may may find out there I bring up the astronauts remembrances because they were the rock stars of the era they're admittedly skewed Slayton and Glenn writing years later and Cooper likely had his manuscript checked by NASA public affairs before life printed it regardless their positive feelings and overall Praise of V Brown possibly helped shape public opinion at least a little bit it's also possible they were able to separate themselves from fun Brown's past of the Seven astronauts only John Glenn had served during the second world war they had all served in Korea they might have felt that Nazis weren't part of their own military history there's only one instance where the astronauts had beef with Van Brown on January 31st 1961 ham the champ launched on a redstone missile on a suborbital flight exactly the same suborbital missions the astronauts would fly it wasn't a good flight the rocket didn't perform optimally and the spacecraft was sent 42 Mi or 67.5 km higher and 125 Mi or 2011 km further than planned this came with a physical penalty ham pulled more than seven G's or seven times the force of gravity at launch that was survivable the 15 GS he pulled on his twoo fast re-entry almost weren't in training the astronauts blacked out starting at about 16 G's the fast Landing was so hard that a bolt was forced through the bulkhead and caused the spacecraft to leak and because the landing was off Target it took recovery Crews longer to collect the stressed out chimp add to that issues of the onboard electronics and ham was a lot less happy after the flight than he seems in pictures the space task group wanted to go ahead with an astronaut on the next Redstone Mission despite these issues but F Brown said no he wouldn't allow it he wanted one more Redstone test to make sure it was safe which NASA granted but labeled mrbd Mercury Redstone booster development to make it clear that it was Finn Brown's Mission and not something the agency felt it needed mrbd also meant pushing back the first human Mission Al Shepard's flight by a month mrbd flew flawless ly on March 24th 1961 and Shephard was livid delaying his flight he felt had opened the door for the Soviets to get Yuri g garan into space first on April 12th it's about the only negative story you hear about fun Brown from the era but it's more frustration than real anger van Brown couldn't have known the Soviets were so ready to launch gagaran when he requested the mrbd test and it's likely that had shepher gotten up first the Soviets would still have said that suborbital doesn't count and claimed first man in space with gagaran gagaran becoming the first human in orbit was the first embarrassment Kennedy suffered early in his presidency the second was the absolute Fiasco at the Bay of Pigs just Days Later Al Shepard's flight on May 5th wasn't a salv on the wound his 15 suborbital minutes weren't an orbit Kennedy needed to save face he put the task to lynon Johnson who took the question to NASA who said that the moon was feasible Kennedy pledged demand landing on the moon within the decade on May 25th 1961 Apollo was officially on the books on July 28th ven Brown was delighted with Apollo's announcement not just because going to the Moon excited him personally but also because the program would use his team's Rockets ensuring they had work for years to come and the rocket not all that indirectly shaped the entire Mission how Apollo would go to the moon the decision called the mission mode was the first problem NASA had to solve on this journey a spacecraft going to the moon is big there's no appreciable atmosphere on the moon so Landing would have to be done by retro Rockets small Rockets to slow the landing craft to a stop this meant an upright Landing which was convenient because it was set up to launch again on its path back to Earth it had to be since there were no ground Crews to help landing on and launching from the Moon both take fuel which is heavy and had to be taken from Earth because the time frame of Apollo didn't allow for any exploration into mining materials to make fuel on the moon this created a hugely heavy mission one early proposal called for launching each piece of the spacecraft separately and assembling it in Earth orbit before going to the Moon a Mode called Earth orbit rendevu this famous sketch famous among nerds shows that it could take up to 10 launches though most proposal said it could be done with two smaller Saturn class Rockets the C1 that's insane that's so many failure points in an era where space flight is still super new not to mention assembling a spacecraft in orbit properly rendevu and docking was a total unknown so an arguably simpler option was just go straight to the moon on a single rocket using a Mode called direct Ascent F Brown calculated that such a rocket would require around 12 million pounds of thrust at liftoff provided by eight engines from a massive rocket called Nova this was insane in its own way Nova was a massive technological leap from the Rockets as they existed at the time a third mode was the outlier pitched by engineer John Hubble lunar orbit Rendevous got away from the heavy lunar Landing spacecraft by leaving the gas tank in orbit if you don't land with the whole vehicle you don't need to launch it again so why not just land with a little purpose built bug it meant figuring out how to rendevu and to spacecraft in the alien lunar environment but this Mission could fly on a single rocket smaller than Nova from Brown's biggest Saturn class rocket the C5 NASA eventually committed to lunar orbit rendevu and with it the Saturn 5 to start things off NASA also selected a smaller version the Saturn 1B to launch the Earth orbital Apollo missions in either case Apollo was riding on V Brown's scale it was from Brown Saturn 5 he was firmly one of the space AG's Golden Boys as he gained more more widespread Fame his path started to come back just a little bit in the 1960s the French magazine p match published a piece celebrating his genius that Drew protest from Dora survivors in a response in 1966 I felt ashamed that things like this were possible in Germany even under a war situation where National survival was at stake F Brown never said anything directly about himself or his own actions the incident did little to affect his status in the United States as Apollo near the moon Fen Brown was by then among the top NASA managers dining in private clubs in DC and rubbing elbows with the movers and the Shakers when the decision was made to go to the Moon with Apollo 8 to make up time because the leaner module was behind schedule the top players met in from Brown's office in Huntsville to discuss whether the rocket was up to the challenge when the early Apollo missions were successful Finn Brown pushed for the landing to be attempted earlier than planned Apollo 11 instead of 12 he was in the Block House the morning Apollo 11 launched of course he was it was his rocket going to the Moon he was right at the heart of Apollo as Apollo became emblematic of American technological dominance over the Soviet Union and an expression of American exceptionalism and his importance didn't end with Apollo the Apollo applications program started in 1966 to explore what other missions NASA could mount with Apollo hardware and one of the big goals was a space station there were two concepts both of which used the Saturn 5's third stage the s4b as the basis the first was a wet lab launching the Saturn 5 and then turning the s4b into a quarters in orbit the other was a dry lab turning an s4b into a full science lab on the ground and then launching it separately so it could be ready for arriving Cruise it was V Brown who championed for the dry lab ensuring the station could meet science and human factor goals right off the bat wal Cunningham who flew on Apollo 7 and moved to the sky laab program relatively early recalls in his Memoirs going to Huntsville to see early plans of the station and tearing them apart with v Brown over lunch one of the small benefits of sky laab was the opportunity for periodic contact with rer f brown one of the pioneers of rocketry and a man I had come to enjoy admire and respect F Brown was one of these people who could fill a room a large man with great self-confidence ven Brown was as important to the architecture of American's first space station as he was to the country landing on the moon the press the astronauts the space agency all lowed from Brown for his work which as we've just seen was both remarkable and pivotal for the Apollo era programs that laid America's foundation in space his past wasn't hidden but it also wasn't discussed kind of brushed away because he was useful to America and the American Shield was useful to him he's linked to the creation of the A4 but not to its deployment as the V2 his own books were all forward-looking with plans for Missions to Mars or more accessible looks at how space flight works and how the lessons from Apollo can apply to exploring other planets but the people who had suffered in the mines and the hars mountains wouldn't stay silent forever but first we're going to take another quick ad break [Music] in 1970 NASA leadership asked F Brown to move to Washington and head the strategic planning office he left Huntsville for DC but didn't stay long he retired from NASA in 1972 and worked for Fairchild industries of Germantown Maryland he died in Alexandria Virginia on June 16th 1977 he only made a few statements in his later years in 1969 in a witness statement in a trial against three former SS officers he admitted he had seen the deplorable conditions at metail work in a 1976 TV interview he again kept himself out of wartime Recollections the work conditions at metail work were absolutely horrible I saw the metail work several times once while these prisoners were blasting new tunnels in there and it was a pretty hellish environment I'd never been in a mine before but it was clearly worse than a mine but his story doesn't end with his death in the 1990s former concentration camp prisoners came forward saying under sworn affidavits that when Brown had not only seen the conditions in Dora and meel work he'd been part of the problem one testimony comes from joelan who was in the bush andal Dora Camp he said that sometime around early May 1944 he was struck by FN Brown while the engineer was visiting the site historians note that this was around the time when Fen Brown was meeting about enslaved workers so it could fit and it's possibly symptomatic of his different treatment of prisoners there's another story from around the same time about a prisoner named Charles sadon who was fairly well cared for because he was a middle-age physic professor and highly useful to the A4 program Joel Janan a 22-year-old nobody wouldn't have warranted the same care a second major story and the one most often cited comes from G Moran who gave a notorized testimonial in Khan in 1995 he says that in the fall of 1944 he witnessed F Brown order another prisoner flogged for a sabotage attempt over a missing chronometer the dates bring the testimony into question for historians in September of 1944 Brown assigned his younger brother Magnus as his special liaison to Meo work for Servo motor production the department where this incident happened the timing aligns with magnus's assignment and mohan's testimony doesn't give the fun Brown in question a first name historians think that this F Brown was Magnus and not verer another Survivor Robert cazaban said he saw F brown stand by as prisoners were hanged Adam cabala who survived binval claims when Brown went to camps himself to pick out laborers one thing historians point to with all these testimonies is a pretty obvious question why did these survivors wait until the 1990s when F Brown had been dead for 20 years and the war over for 50 to come forward with their stories why not bring it up when he was NASA's golden child or when he was at least still alive and could answer for the charges it's odd timing to bring out notorized testimonials there's also the problem that 50 years is a long time it's hard to discern whether they remember the right man or if they filled him into their memories because of his Fame unfortunately the testimonies are hard to line up with Van Brown's verified movements van Brown never made any definitive statements His official biographers Ern Stringer and Frederick orway relate a story in their 1996 book that Fen Brown was threatened with a stripe uniform if he said anything negative about what was happening in connection with metail work but there's no direct anecdote from him to back this up and the hardest part about these testimonials is that by the time they came out thenn Brown's image was pretty solidified he'd had 50 years to point to the airtight defense of his actions his fear of rearrest as I said earlier from Brown's arrest might be the most important and luckiest thing that happened to him if we want to simplify this in modern verbiage and give him the least charitable reading it gave him the perfect opportunity to play the victim in that sense his arrest was absolutely an asset it gave him a shield it gave him an event to point to and say look the regime arrested me I wasn't one of them coupled with the multiple asks for him to join the SS and coercion to join the Nazi party it Paints the picture of a man who didn't want to be involved with the Nazis practices but had to go along with it and who was thrilled to leave his traumatic paast behind which leaves him I think in the most realistic spot he was hugely opportunistic not really immoral I don't think he loved seeing prisoners die for the sake of his Rockets but he also wasn't willing to risk his neck to defend them and risk harming his work he's deeply amoral void of decisions about right and wrong in favor of his self-interest his guiding principle which I think can be argued governed his moral compass as well was his obsession with space flight and he was so celebrated that he didn't really need to develop anything beyond that love of space flight and we saw going back to the second world war that he didn't hate a celebrity status he was louded in Germany for his rocketry skill and the same privileged treatment followed him to America people argued then as they do now that he wasn't a real Nazi that he did what he had to do but at the end of the day I'm not sure he was selfless enough to risk his neck to do the right right thing a lot of people would say they'd stand up for Injustice and a lot of people would but that's easier said than done performative action is very real when the party in question stands to gain from it so let's think about F Brown in this context if he'd spoken out about the mistreatment of prisoners at Dora or meel work he wouldn't have died a martyr's death he wouldn't be louded in the history books as the brilliant engineer tragically murdered because he did the right thing he'd be a footnote camer would have kept the Concentration Camp labor flowing the V2 would have gotten off the ground and some other engineer would have ended up in America with enough technical knowledge to help the Americans get satellites off the ground werneran Brown had he spoken out would probably be someone only World War II enthusiasts and Rocket nerds would know about kind of like how they know about Walter dornberger how many of you still watching this video have forgotten about him as important as he was to the A4 program dornberger has largely become a footnote in popular retellings but to close his story he was tried for war crimes imprisoned for a few years then moved to America in 1947 where he worked on some space adjacent programs Warner V Brown I think we've seen was not the type to let himself become a footnote so back to the original question how should we treat a Nazi not ignoring their past and acknowledging crimes against humanity is a start but humans don't always think like that I think ven Brown's story highlights that in times of war and high tension which World War II and the Space Race certainly were morality takes a holiday it's easier and often feels better to turn a Blind Eye to unsavory parts of someone's actions or past if they also Inspire awe and speak to progress or frankly if they become really useful the thing with Vin Brown is he's not unique in this regard yes he's unique in his specific history and background but is he that different from Tech Giants today his overwhelming amorality and laser focus on space flight feel similar to the bottomline focused companies and Tech Giants who aren't thinking about the repercussions of the things they're building big developments in science and technology often come with moral and political responsibilities AI is a big one that stands out to me right now a technology plenty of people will use even knowing that it plays a huge part in public misinformation destroying people's livelihood and has a devastating ecological impact but people turn a blind eye to that because it makes reading an article easier or because they want to make YouTube content but don't want to think of an idea and write it AI has some incredible applications but killing art and creativity in the name of hustle culture so we can be the people from Wall-E is about the worst use and it feels like that's where we're going and no one's answering for these huge negatives the engineers coding it the politicians not regulating it and the companies footing the bill aren't held responsible for what's come from their work I'm going to end with Michael newfeld here because he puts it so beautifully succinctly if the human race is to survive its own rapidly advancing technology in the 21st century and beyond scientists and Engineers will have to take moral and political responsibility for their actions something wner F Brown and his colleagues signally failed to do that's going to do it for me for today if you've stuck with me this far I hope this not only clarified a few things abouten brown but helped put him into context in the modern day if you've enjoyed this deep dive be sure to give the video a like and the channel a sub it really helps me grow in the landscape that's increasingly saturated with the aforementioned AI content huge shout out to my members and patrons who make it possible for me to keep working on these giant videos and also the shorts that keep things active between these videos okay be mindful out there everyone and I'll see you in the next one [Music]