Fans of the Indiana Jones movie universe are probably thrilled that the fifth part of the cult series will be released in 2023. The main character, as always, will be played by Harrison Ford, who, at 80 years old, still skillfully wields a revolver and a whip. Although the full title of the film is still being hidden, its creators have revealed several plot details in a new exclusive from Empire. One of the published facts about the film may raise some unpleasant points about the history of NASA.
“The simple fact is that the moon landing program was led by a bunch of former Nazis hired by the United States. How “former” they are is an open question. And Indi will face this fact,” commented co-creator of the film Jez Butterworth in an interview with Empire.
The action of the film will unfold in 1969, at the height of the space race of the XX century. Indi will have to face off against a fictional charismatic NASA leader named Waller, a former Nazi played by actor Mads Mikkelsen. By introducing such an antagonist in Indiana Jones 5, the authors hint at a real NASA engineer — Wernher von Braun, a rocket scientist who played a crucial role in the Apollo missions and the construction of the Saturn V rocket. Yes, he really was a former Nazi who developed the infamous V-2 missiles that were fired at London.
Disturbing past
The legacy of NASA and von Braun, to put it mildly, is really ambiguous and is still controversial. Wernher von Braun joined the Nazi Party in 1937, and by 1943 was a major in the German army and the leader of the team developing the V-2 rocket. The US military, wanting to get their hands on V-2 technology, hired von Braun, who surrendered to them in 1945.
Wernher von Braun was subsequently invited to collaborate with NASA. His knowledge and engineering talent in rocket science subsequently helped the United States defeat the USSR in the space race by landing a man on the Moon. But in 1969, the engineer was interrogated by a German court for crimes against humanity, as it turned out that slave labor was used in the construction of the V-2 missiles.
Von Braun’s defenders claim that the aerospace engineer was also to some extent a victim of the Nazi regime. But two truths about his tarnished legacy remain obvious: he was more than willing to accept human suffering for the sake of his own ambitions, and representatives of the United States and NASA knew — and hid — his affiliation with the Nazi Party.
“Emperor of Mars”
By the way, an interesting fact: in 1953, Wernher von Braun predicted in his book Mars Project: A Technical Tale that in the future a man named Elon would be responsible for landing a man on Mars, moreover — after that he would even crown himself “Emperor of Mars”. Musk found out about this and briefly changed his Twitter caption to emphasize the truthfulness of von Braun’s words.
Speaking about destiny, did you know that Von Braun’s 1953 book “Mars Project,” referenced a person named Elon that would bring humans to Mars? Pretty nuts pic.twitter.com/m28yFU4Ip6
— Toby Li (@tobyliiiiiiiiii) December 30, 2020
Earlier we reported on the five best films about the Moon.
Follow us on Twitter to get the most interesting space news in time
https://twitter.com/ust_magazine
