countdown was: "As If"

[Mullins, Bill]

I've heard, but have no documentation for, that the idea of a
"countdown" for a missile/rocket launch was an invention of the Germans
at Peenemuende (where the V-2 rocket was developed), and when they came
to America after the war, to support V-2 launches at Ft. Bliss
(1946-1950), and then here to Huntsville for the development of Army and
NASA rockets, they brought countdowns with them.  So the term could show
up in US technical documents as early as 1946 or so.

Contemporary accounts of the Manhattan Project show that a countdown was
used at the Trinity test, but I can't find the word "countdown" in any
contemporary accounts online.

Robert Heinlein's 1952 novel "The Rolling Stones" calls it a "count
off":

     "She answered, "Board green!  Clear from tower! Ready for count
off!"
     "Minus thirty! Twenty-nine -- twenty-eight --" He broke off and
added sheepishly, "It does feel good." "
[from Amazon.com's Inside the Book]


OED has 1953





> *In writing this, I began wondering when _countdown_ began--I
> remember it from pop/rock music radio shows, of the top n
> hits of the week or (on New Year's Eve) of the year, well
> before I heard it from those rocketry geeks over at Cape
> Canaveral, but the OED has lots of rocketry/missile launch
> cites (beginning 1953) and no entry for the pop radio usage,
> which is certainly where the "countdown" in shows like
> tonight's transferred from.  It's now very widespread--ESPN,
> for example, uses the device constantly for all sorts of
> shows ranking the top n whatevers (plays of the day, all-time
> comebacks, on-field blow-ups,...).
>