The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 20 months, 2016–2026
1:46 · 2.7M views · Jul 5, 2007
Tom Lehrer's satirical song about Wernher von Braun, the German rocket scientist who went from the Nazi missile program to the US space program. It includes the famous line about not caring where the rockets come down.
HN quotes it constantly, mostly as a joke or reference, whenever rocketry, engineers' ethics or skill-versus-morality comes up.
20 comments from Hacker News
The US (and Russian, by the way) appropriation of German scientists and Nazi party members post WWII is certainly controversial and there are plenty of people who strongly believe that they should have stood trial in Nuremberg instead of being given a new job with plenty of perks. As Tom Lehrer wrote: "Don't say that he's hypocritical, Say rather that he's apolitical. "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department, " says Wernher von Braun." The sarcasm dripping of those words is hard to replicate without hearing it sung, I recommend the original: this video
For those who aren't aware and/or won't look this reference: this video As the other comenter noted, Tom Lehrer is indeed a national treasure, and his satire is top shelf. From the light-hearted "The Elements": [LINK] (watch for the surprise at the end) To the gallows comedy of "We Will All Go Together When We Go": [LINK] NB: I appreciate the irony linking to YouTube content in a 'WTF Google/YouTube' thread.
Tom Lehrer performing "Wernher von Braun " live (1967): this video His amazing wit is just as biting today as it was when he originally composed most of his songs over half a century ago.
1913 German edition (980 pages), [LINK] may be out of copyright in Germany. If so, it could be machine translated into English and improved by humans. Unabridged German editions are rare and expensive, e.g. [LINK] . 1971 abridged English translation quoted a leader of German and later American rocket and space programs, [LINK] Wernher von Braun: "I shall never forget how I devoured this novel with curiosity and excitement as a young man." From the dust jacket of the English translation: Lasswitz's Martians differ little from man physically, but ethically, intellectually, scientifically, and socially they are the prototype of the ideal human being. They seek to educate man, asking in return only air and energy to supplement the diminished supplies in their own, older world. The story revolves around a group of German scientists who, when seeking the North Pole, come upon a Martian settlement there. The Martians have built an artificial island, adapted to their physical needs, above which-6356 kilometers above-hovers their space station, a giant ring such as twentieth-century astronautical scientists have seriously speculated upon. ... More important than the fantastic technological developments in the story is the author's belief in the humanizing potential of science and technology and his vision of a utopian world based on the ideals and ideas which the Martians seek to transmit to the men of Earth. Kurd Lasswitz wrote his novel when scientific and industrial developments we
Reference is to Tom Lehrer, making fun of Von Braun's founding and running the Nazi's missile program, before emigrating to the U.S. and helping run _their_ missile program. OT: He ends with "[I can launch in] German and English, and am learning Chinese.. " - even 75 years ago it was understood by many that the upcoming superpower is China and not Russia. this video