Chapter 856 Talent
After hearing Lindbergh's words, everyone in the conference room looked at each other in bewilderment.
The Germans actually started to recruit talents in this area as early as ten years ago? !
"These stupid guys!" The vice president cursed angrily. On the surface, this "space expert" Goddard was poached by the German "Zeus" company, but the boss behind "Zeus" is the German crown prince. The person who can be poached by the German crown prince must be an outstanding top talent, and such a talent is actually ridiculed by a group of ignorant media in the country. It is equivalent to these bastards squeezing out such precious talents! It is not an exaggeration to label these bastards as traitors!
While the vice president was cursing these media people, Marshall sighed deeply. "I am afraid that he is not the only talent poached by the Germans."
More than ten years ago, the United States suffered a huge economic crisis, and the domestic economy suffered a severe blow. The lives of Americans who were originally immersed in wealth and the vision of a better life have undergone tremendous changes. According to an estimate by Fortune magazine in September 1932, there were 34 million adult men, women and children in the United States who had no income at that time, which was close to 28% of the total population. This figure does not include the 11 million farmers at the bottom of society.
Since 1931, the number of immigrants leaving the United States has exceeded the number of immigrants entering the United States for the first time. Throughout the 1930s, the United States accepted only 80,000 new immigrants, while in the 1920s, the number was 70,000.
During the Great Depression, the Soviet Union set up an agency called the "Soviet-American Trade Company" in New York, which received an average of 350 applications for immigration to the Soviet Union every day. According to this calculation, there should be as many as 120,000 Americans who applied to immigrate to the Soviet Union from this "Soviet-American Trade Company" alone each year. If calculated based on the four years from 1929 to 1933, it should be more than 500,000.
At this time, the Germans only needed to pay a little money or guarantee food and clothing conditions to attract a lot of talents to work in Germany. Moreover, at that time, there was no war between Europe and the United States, and the relationship between the two countries was still harmonious. The Germans could freely go to various parts of the United States to recruit talents.
How many talents did the Germans take away? Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. There is no way to count them.
But this happened ten years ago. What's the point of pursuing these now? There are more urgent issues before them. "That means Goddard's research has been successful." If the thing in space was really put up by the Germans, then it is obvious that Goddard's research is correct. The Germans have made extraordinary achievements in the field of space. If they develop some space weapons to attack the United States, can they resist it?
Obviously, they can't.
They can't even intercept German bombers, how can they resist attacks launched from space? !
"Do we have to conduct space research as well?"
Everyone looked depressed. Now that the land, sea and air can't stop the German army, we still have to study space?
Not to mention the financial, human and material resources to be invested, it's impossible to have enough time.
The Germans started research as early as ten years ago, and we have no technical reserves or talent reserves in this regard. At this time, even if we use the power of the whole country to pursue it, it will take several years. Even if it only takes five years, can they hold on to this war for five years?
"Don't think about space anymore, let's win the war on Earth first. As long as we beat Germany, we can take in all their advanced technologies, and we will still be a powerful country."
"..." Everyone had the same question in their minds. This is the truth, but can they really beat Germany?
A celebration banquet was being held at the Algerian Space Launch Base.
"Everyone, our pace of conquering space has taken another step forward, thanks to the unremitting efforts of you and the engineers." Surrounding him were a group of top scientists. Hermann Oberth, Wernher von Braun, Hubert Straughold, Ludwig Plant, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, Theodore von Karman, etc., any one of them is a national treasure. And Yannick was full of pride in being able to gather so many people together.
"Our next goal will be the moon, and then Mars."
Speaking of Mars, one has to marvel at Goddard's foresight. In the 1920s and 1930s, he envisioned a spacecraft that would fly 1,000 miles above the surface of Mars—a strange historical coincidence that the altitude he envisioned was exactly the lowest altitude that the Mariner 9 and Viking spacecraft would orbit Mars decades later.
Goddard had calculated that from any vantage point at this altitude, with a reasonably sized telescope, it would be possible to photograph the surface of the red planet for tens of meters in length and breadth, and the Viking orbital photography did just that. He also envisioned a slow interstellar flight, with speeds and time scales that were just the same as those of the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft.
In addition, he talked about the best place for humans to station on the moon as early as 1920, at the south or north pole of the moon. In the craters there, crystalline water could be found, which could be used as fuel after being decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen. The only omission of this dreamer was that he did not foresee the dangers of exposure to high-energy particles.
It is a pity that despite Goddard's great contribution to rocket and space science research, he was not valued by the government and the military during his lifetime, and he was not as lucky as Tsiolkovsky was when he was alive (recognized and honored). He did not live to see the dawn of rocket astronomy and high-altitude meteorology, let alone the feat of flying to the moon or other planets.
In the original time and space, Goddard was almost alone in developing rockets to fly into space, while Germany on the other side organized a large group of people to intensively develop the "Avengers" - V-1 and V-2 rockets, which became the largest and highest-flying weapons ever launched by humans.
After the end of World War II, a large number of German scientists were taken to the United States. When a German Air Force general was interrogated by the Americans and asked about rocket technology, he was surprised and asked back: "Why don't you ask your own Dr. Goddard?"
"You must pay more attention to your health. A healthy body is the capital of everything. Your health is the most precious wealth of the empire."
In 1945 in the original time and space, Goddard was found to have cancer after the tumor in his throat was removed, and he died soon after. Unfortunately, in later generations, the cause of the disease "laryngeal cancer" has not yet been determined, and there is no definite prevention plan. Yannick was naturally helpless about this. All he could do was to let the medical team give these scientists regular health checks.
For talents who have contributed to the empire, Yannick has never been stingy with his enthusiasm and care, and the effect is also good. After a few words, the people around him were moved to tears.