High-Altitude Research with V—2 Rockets’ 
By Ernst H. Krause, Naval Research Laboratory 
[With 6 plates] 
The study of the heavens is an an- 
cient science. It began with specula- 
tion about the movement and consti- 
tution of the sun; later it moved into 
the greater universe of the stars (1);? 
and more recently it expanded into 
that small but very interesting region 
of space represented by the earth’s 
atmosphere (2). It seems fitting that 
a review of the more modern aspects 
of this subject should be made here 
since Franklin himself, the founder of 
the American Philosophical Society, 
made some of his more important 
contributions to science in this field (3). 
The atmosphere of the earth is a very 
complex affair. Many things are 
known about it and yet the over-all 
picture is beclouded by lack of 
sufficient information of the various 
mechanisms involved to tie all the 
observed phenomena into one unified 
picture. The presence of the lower 
atmosphere makes the study of phe- 
nomena in the upper atmosphere very 
difficult and in many cases impossible. 
Similarly, the existence of the atmos- 
phere sets very definite limitations on 
studies in such fields as astrophysics 
and cosmic rays, while on the other 
hand the atmosphere provides us with 
many new phenomena to study, such 
as the ionosphere, the aurora, etc. 
The answer to many of these diff- 
culties is to study the phenomena with- 
1Read April 25, 1947. Reprinted by 
permission from Proceedings of the American 
Philosophical Society, vol. 91, No. 5, De- 
cember 1947. 
2 Numbers in parentheses refer to literature 
cited at end of article. 
in the atmosphere at those points 
where they occur and to make astro- 
physical and other studies from above 
the atmosphere. A step in this direc- 
tion was the exploitation of the balloon 
as a vehicle. The balloon, however, 
has two serious shortcomings. First, 
it has a maximum ceiling between 30 
and 40 km. Many observations have 
been made up to these altitudes by 
means of balloons, but a great deal 
of data is desired above these altitudes. 
Second, the payload capabilities of 
balloons are limited to the order of 
100 pounds, unless one makes use of 
complicated balloon formations or of 
very large balloons such as were used 
in the Explorer flights (4, 5). Both of 
these difficulties can be solved by the 
use of rockets which are not limited 
in ceiling, and, although there are 
payload limitations, the problem of 
carrying 1,000 pounds to altitudes of 
200 km. or more is perfectly feasible. 
Although rockets themselves date 
back many centuries, the utilization of 
one which would carry sufficient 
weight to conduct an experiment did 
not seem practical up to the beginning 
of the last war. However, with the 
advent of the war, a tremendous im- 
petus was given to rocketry because of 
its usefulness as a military device, so 
that several rocket-powered vehicles 
emerged from the war which could 
reach altitudes greatly in excess of 
any that had been reached before. 
Of these devices, the V—2, designed 
and built by the Germans, was well 
out in front. Not only did it reach 
altitudes much greater than any 
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