Captured V-2 Took First Earth Photos From 65 Miles Up in 1946
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 23
Captured V-2 Took First Earth Photos From 65 Miles Up in 1946
2 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 23
Summary
October 24, 1946 marked the first photographs of Earth from space, when a captured German V-2 reached about 65 miles above White Sands, New Mexico, carrying a 35mm camera in its nose cone.
Clyde Holliday of Johns Hopkins APL built the rugged DeVry camera system to survive launch and impact; the rocket broke apart on landing, but the steel film canister was recovered and developed.
The grainy black-and-white frames showed Earth's curvature, cloud cover over the American Southwest and the blackness of space, far above the 1935 Explorer II balloon images.
The flight came after the U.S. seized V-2 parts and engineers under Operation Paperclip and repurposed the missile—built by Nazi Germany with forced labor—for upper-atmosphere research at White Sands.
Dozens of modified V-2s flew from 1946 to 1952, helping open the U.S. space age, though Holliday's images were later overshadowed by satellite photography and Apollo-era views.
How did Nazi rocket technology, built by forced labor, capture the first peaceful images of Earth from space just a year later?
Why were the first-ever photos of Earth from space, taken in 1946, largely forgotten for decades?
As nations now debate the boundary of space, what did it mean to cross it before it was even defined?
From Weapon to Window: The 1946 V-2 Rocket and the First Images of Earth from Space
Overview
On October 24, 1946, V-2 No. 13 was launched from White Sands Missile Range by General Electric as part of the Hermes program. Scientists from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, working with the German Rocket Team, modified the rocket for scientific research by replacing its warhead with instruments, including a DeVry 35 mm motion picture camera. This camera, bolted onto the rocket, captured the first images of Earth’s curvature from space. The successful recovery of the film marked a historic milestone, transforming the V-2 from a weapon into a tool for discovery and laying the foundation for modern space exploration and Earth observation.