Summary: This Historical Group lecture will be presented by Brett Gooden, M.D., Ph.D., F.B.I.S. who will consider the world’s first manned vertical take-off rocket and its significance in relation to human spaceflight to come. Brett will describe the historic but tragic manned flight of a prototype Natter on 1 March 1945 and the critical lessons learned from it for future human vertical rocket flights. In the space of less than one year a team of engineers under the leadership of the talented engineer Erich Bachem evolved the basic principles used in human vertical rocket flight today. Bachem realised from the beginning of the project that the pilot could not perform the complex task of guiding the rocket precisely on course while being subjected to the multiple stresses imposed by the launch and boost phases of the flight. Consequently, the operational Natters were constructed to fly under the control of a three-axis autopilot which would be pre-programmed remotely from the ground control seconds before launch.
