countdown was: "As If"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, Mullins, Bill wrote:

> 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.

According to Cassell's Movie Quotations, "It is said that the backward
countdown to a rocket launch was first thought of by [Fritz] Lang. He
considered it would make things more suspenseful if the count was
reversed--5-4-3-2-1--so in this silent film [Frau im Mond, 1928] he
established the routine for future real-life space shots."

Fred Shapiro


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