Challenge of Outer Space
Challenge of Outer Space, a roughly 30 minute film by the Office of Armed Forces Education and Information, 1955.
I recommend a viewing.
It’s currently (2025) available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK4RbeBxqso
Apparently it’s now owned by “Periscope Films”, www.periscopefilm.com. I don’t know how this works, as this film was produced using taxpayer dollars.
The cinematographer chose to put Wernher von Braun himself on screen for most of the time. Von Braun is not charismatic, he has a Werner Herzog style accent, but less forceful delivery. Nevertheless, von Braun is perhaps the most compelling character in this film. The other characters, an assortment of US Depart of Defense officers, come across as a bunch of 1950s weirdos.
Von Braun does give the impression of knowing his stuff. I imagine that if he was your boss, you had better know exactly what you were talking about, and I’m not talking about commissioned SS officer stuff.
The camera work is laughable. Smoke from cigarettes and cigars curls into the frame. Long pans across the audience of perhaps 20 armed forces officers occur at seemingly random intervals.
This dude was on screen twice for intervals of over 10 seconds, squinting at von Braun stoically each time. It was 1955, and he’s old enough to have fought in WW2. Look at the bags under his eyes! He was probably hung over.
Above an image from a 12 second scene in which the only action is a guy in the background toking a Havana.
There is another audience shot of perhaps 15 seconds where the action is a guy in the foreground blinking, and another guy in the background puffing on a pipe.
Audience reactions range from blank to stony faced.
This was filmed in 1954 or 55, 10 years after WW2 concluded. By 1955, the US had flown V-2 missiles at White Sands, and from Cape Canaveral, and flown new missiles during the Hermes project. In 1947, Chuck Yeager flew faster than the speed of sound. The B-47 was in production, and the B-52 was under development. These military, naval and air force officers should have been fascinated, eager to learn more.
Instead, they have bad haircuts, and scratch their noses, like the guy almost out of screen on the left.
That was pretty subtle compared to these two guys, one of whom we first met in the famous Cigar Smoking Scene.
I’m glad he got some screen time, and wasn’t upstaged by an old stogie. The Large Ashtray was front and center for his big moment, so the film’s editor could have completely changed this scene’s meaning with only a little more smoking content.
The technical content is surprising. Von Braun clears up a few mysteries from his books Across the Space Frontier and Conquest of the Moon. The interesting info shows up in the Q&A section, which is about the final 12 minutes of the film.
Space Station
Von Braun’s illustrated his whole presentation with paintings from Across the Space Frontier or maybe the preceding “Colliers” magazine series. He calls it a “space platform” as well as “space station”. Von Braun clearly says this version of a space station is a design concept that could be scaled up or down as necessity or engineering dictates.
Confirms orbital bombardment
Perhaps because he’s pitching the US Department of Defense, the whole bomb-commies-from-orbit thing is a major part.
Von Braun goes through a long explanation of how his space station and “guided missiles” almost track each other during the guided missile’s descent. Very accurate bomb delivery could take place even if you don’t know the exact longitude and latitude of a target. You could even hit moving targets, like ships at sea. Von Braun notes this is impossible for ballistic missiles.
I was correct in noting this.
Astrogation
One of the officers asks about navigation in space. Occultation of stars behind the rim of the earth and moon and optical measurements are mentioned, although von Braun throws in “radar bearings”.
I got this one mostly correct, too.
3 Stage Launch Vehicle
Despite re-using paintings from Across the Space Frontier that have the earlier canard layout re-entry vehicle, von Braun’s example launch vehicle has the delta-winged reentry vehicle from his book Exploration of Mars, and maybe from the 1955 Disney made-for-TV movie “Man in Space”. This vehicle has 3 stages, as opposed to the Disney 4 stage vehicle.
Above, a picture of the reentry vehicle I’ve don’t remember seeing before. Also possibly from Disney’s “Man in Space”.
Von Braun does say things about getting humans back from orbit alive is the biggest challenge of his proposed program.
It is my opinion that return [of people] from an orbit is a task much more formidable than the attainment of orbital flight itself.
There it is. Von Braun had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get people back from orbit with 1950 knowledge and technology.
EDIT 2025-03-08: there are two cuts of this film. The link above is to a cut YouTube titled Challenge of Outer Space (Wernher von Braun), running 31:13.
A second cut running 30:30 has the title “THE CHALLENGE OF OUTER SPACE” 1955 MILITARIZATION OF SPACE WERNHER VON BRAUN LECTURE FILM 99924
Each has pieces the other is missing. I used the 31:13 cut for this post. It has a long Q&A session that the 30:30 cut does not have.
The 30:30, second cut has a section where von Braun describes the 1075-mile high orbit of the space station. Using diagrams from Across the Space Frontier, he illustrates how that orbit allows viewing almost every point on earth once or twice a day. He does not give a rationale for the 66.5° inclination of that orbit.
One reference point I can match up easily is:
- 28:07 in “THE CHALLENGE OF OUTER SPACE” 1955 MILITARIZATION OF SPACE WERNHER VON BRAUN LECTURE FILM 99924
- 12:57 in _Challenge of Outer Space (Wernher von Braun)
Looks like I’ve used screencaps from both cuts in my blog post. “THE CHALLENGE OF OUTER SPACE” 1955 MILITARIZATION OF SPACE WERNHER VON BRAUN LECTURE FILM 99924 has timestamps in the film, something like `PF 99924 28:08:08". Challenge of Outer Space (Wernher von Braun) does not include these timestamps. I assume the “PF99924” is Periscope Films’ addition. _