WI: Von Braun dies in WW2

[SpaceGeek]

What if Werner Von Braun died at the end of WW2? The V-2 rocket would already have been developed and used as a weapon during the war. The V-2 would also fall into the hands of both the Soviets and Americans. However Von Braun's expertise and genius would not be availible to Americans. How would this effect the development of ICBMs and the Space Race?

The Soviet Union managed to develop a robust space program without Von Braun mostly thanks to Korolev and other brillant Russians. Would the US be farther behind or would it make little difference?

One thing that will definetly change will be the widespread communication of the actual realistic possibility of spaceflight to the public. Von Braun wouldn't be engaged in grandiose space station design or Mars & Lunar Expedition planning. And that work wouldn't find itself on Disney shows or the pages of Coiler.

 

[Shaby]

What if Werner Von Braun died at the end of WW2? The V-2 rocket would already have been developed and used as a weapon during the war. The V-2 would also fall into the hands of both the Soviets and Americans. However Von Braun's expertise and genius would not be availible to Americans. How would this effect the development of ICBMs and the Space Race?

AFAIK development of ICBMs was a program entirely separate from the space program von Braun worked on in Hun(t)sville Alabama. ICBM was developed as a separate development program. Ultimately, von Brauns rockets were used for space travel, while the US would have developed ICBMs regardless of him. Furthermore, his death could have helped the US avoid (or at least reduce the pace of) the costly and futile space race. The space race itself is a high probability event.

 

[nixonshead]

Presumably the Navy (Viking/Vanguard) and Air Force (Atlas/Titan) projects would still go ahead largely unchanged. The main effects would at first be confined to the Army's efforts. I guess the rest of von Braun's team would still be swept up by Paperclip. Even without von Braun or his brother, Magnus, most of the team are still likely do everything possible to avoid the Soviets, and so get picked up by the US. Surrendering to the Russians was not considered attractive by... well, just about anyone. The team would also still grab as much documentation and hardware as possible to improve their bargaining position with the Americans, though without von Braun's organisational skills they might miss a few things that they didn't IOTL.
There would still be a lot of V-2 knowledge transferred, but without von Braun organising them they'd go in slightly different directions.
The Soviet side of the Space Race would probably be unaffected to start with. They might pick up a couple of extra Germans and hardware/plans that IOTL went with von Braun, but given the Soviets largely quarantined their German experts once they got copies of the V-2 built, there is not likely to be much change there. So Sputnik would still happen, but with a question mark over whether the US Army would have their Project Orbiter Redstone ready to step into the breach when the Navy Vanguard goes kaputnik.
So a delayed US response to Sputnik, but NASA still formed, and later even more pressure from JFK to do something spectacular to beat the Soviets. As IOTL, NASA is likely to conclude that a Moon landing is their best bet (IIRC, the Air Force was studying Moon missions separately from von Braun's Germans in the 50s), but there won't be a Saturn V to do it with. Maybe they'll develop a different heavy-lift rocket in the same class, or maybe go for a different architecture (multi-launch EOR, perhaps). Whether they'd make it by 1969 could be open to question, but they'd probably still beat the Soviets to the Moon - there was just too much going against the Russians, mainly a lack of the sort of government commitment shown by the US.
Anyway, that's my tuppence's worth

EDIT: Oh, and probably no pretty Colliers articles to inspire us all Sci-Fi movies of the 50s and 60s will have to look elsewhere for inspiration for their shuttle rockets and wheel space stations.