These First Pictures of Space Were Taken From Captured German V-2s

When we think of the first pictures of space, we generally think of the greatest hits like the Blue Marble, maybe a footprint on the moon. We don’t consider that the first photo from space was taken just a year after World War II had finished on a captured Nazi V-2 Rocket.

Launched on October 24, 1946 from the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the captured V-2 dubbed ” Upper Air Rocket Number 13″ fired for 59.8 seconds. In that time it climbed 1,216 meters per second punching through our atmosphere. Its momentum carried it for 180 seconds total, where it reached 104.6 kilometres above earth, just above the Kármán Line.
The picture above was shot at this apex on a 35-millimetre DeVry Corporation cine camera that shot a frame every 1.5 seconds. They didn’t have any plans for safe reentry recovery, so the rocket smashed into the ground 27 kilometres from the launch site. Debris went everywhere but the cassette with this image was still recovered and processed, making this shot the highest altitude shot since Captain Albert W. Stevens took a photo from a balloon, Explorer II, in 1935.